If you’re a self-published author chances are you’ve heard of Goodreads. It’s a great site that lets you put up your books, talk with readers who like your genre, and learn what is hot and what’s not.
It’s also a great way to market your new eBooks, if you know how to do it. And one aspect that I’d like to discuss today lies in how you use, or manipulate, the Goodreads daily email.
It’s also a great way to market your new eBooks, if you know how to do it. And one aspect that I’d like to discuss today lies in how you use, or manipulate, the Goodreads daily email.
The Goodreads Daily Email
Each day, or near enough, Goodreads sends out an email to everyone on their list who’s signed up. This means you’ll get all the comments to the groups you belong to.
In my case it looks like this:
In my case it looks like this:
You can see that I get all the previous day’s posts for 8 different groups. I’m not quite sure what the deadline is to make that email, but I think you have to post sometime before midnight. And what time zone that is I couldn’t tell you.
Using the Goodreads Daily Email for eBook Marketing
Now that you know near-enough when you need to make a comment you can do so in time to get on that daily email. When you succeed everyone who gets that email will scroll down through it to read the comments. Hopefully they’ll get far enough to see a picture like this:
I got real lucky when I got that in. You can see from the time in the upper right-hand corner that I posted the message at 1:16 AM on October 15. That email was in my box on October 16. And what was even better is that I was the very first comment in the whole email!
With the right book and the right message this strategy can increase your exposure and increase your sales. So how did my comment treat my sales? Well, it didn’t – I got no sales at all that day!
So I guess my theory is flawed, right? Well, if you consider most people have to look at a book about 7 to 8 times before they finally buy it, then no, maybe this got a lot of people to make that first look. And really, what was the cost to me? A little copy and paste and typing in my password to get on Goodreads? We’re talking about 2 minutes of my time, here.
With the right book and the right message this strategy can increase your exposure and increase your sales. So how did my comment treat my sales? Well, it didn’t – I got no sales at all that day!
So I guess my theory is flawed, right? Well, if you consider most people have to look at a book about 7 to 8 times before they finally buy it, then no, maybe this got a lot of people to make that first look. And really, what was the cost to me? A little copy and paste and typing in my password to get on Goodreads? We’re talking about 2 minutes of my time, here.
Tracking Your Goodreads Results
Notice that link in the comment I made? That’s a Bitly link, which means I can track the clicks. I can see what time someone clicked on it, and I can also see what countries those clicks came from. So how did this link fare?
It’s really hard to tell, really. That Goodreads email went out to people around 11 AM to 1 PM MST. That’s when I’ve seen them go out before. The clicks on my link were not impressive for that day. I got 2 between 7 and 8 AM and then it took until 3 PM before I got another. And from then until 10 PM I only got 13 more.
It’s really hard to tell, really. That Goodreads email went out to people around 11 AM to 1 PM MST. That’s when I’ve seen them go out before. The clicks on my link were not impressive for that day. I got 2 between 7 and 8 AM and then it took until 3 PM before I got another. And from then until 10 PM I only got 13 more.
Where You Post Your Goodreads Comment
Pretty unimpressive results, huh? Yeah, I kind of thought that would happen, mainly because of where I left my comment.
I decided to leave one comment in the Fantasy Aficionados group. I did this because my book has about 10 sites you can get fantasy maps at. Turns out not that many people were interested.
And that’s why I left a comment the next day on the Author Promotions group thread for “Post Your Author News.” This is also not the best thread, but lots of authors may check that. And since my book is targeted at authors it makes sense.
I’m still not sure I’ll get a lot of traction out of that, but that’s why I use the Bitly link so I can check. What I’ll do after that is put a comment in a few of the author threads, like promote Facebook likes and the reviewing groups.
And after that I’m done with promoting on Goodreads. I mainly stay away from that site now, just because they’ve gotten such bad press in the past couple months. I posted comments on their regularly for about 6 months and never saw any serious sales results, and I’m happier now that I’ve left it behind.
So you’ll have to judge for yourself whether this tricky little aspect of the Goodreads daily email is right for you. It’s fast and easy to do, and it doesn’t really hurt anyone, mainly because most people seem to ignore it.
If you have a Goodreads daily email story, I’d love to hear it. So how about it, what has Goodreads done, or not done, for you?
I decided to leave one comment in the Fantasy Aficionados group. I did this because my book has about 10 sites you can get fantasy maps at. Turns out not that many people were interested.
And that’s why I left a comment the next day on the Author Promotions group thread for “Post Your Author News.” This is also not the best thread, but lots of authors may check that. And since my book is targeted at authors it makes sense.
I’m still not sure I’ll get a lot of traction out of that, but that’s why I use the Bitly link so I can check. What I’ll do after that is put a comment in a few of the author threads, like promote Facebook likes and the reviewing groups.
And after that I’m done with promoting on Goodreads. I mainly stay away from that site now, just because they’ve gotten such bad press in the past couple months. I posted comments on their regularly for about 6 months and never saw any serious sales results, and I’m happier now that I’ve left it behind.
So you’ll have to judge for yourself whether this tricky little aspect of the Goodreads daily email is right for you. It’s fast and easy to do, and it doesn’t really hurt anyone, mainly because most people seem to ignore it.
If you have a Goodreads daily email story, I’d love to hear it. So how about it, what has Goodreads done, or not done, for you?
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