5 Reasons to Use Goodreads

According to their website, “Goodreads is the world’s largest site for readers and book recommendations. Our mission is to help people find and share books they love. Goodreads launched in January 2007.”  

It’s the biggest site dedicated to book lovers and is the most comprehensive site to find book-related information.  I think of it as Facebook for book lovers, but with the added benefit of a database where you can list all the books you’ve read, and want to read.  And, it’s easy to connect with other like-minded readers. You can find Goodreads at www.goodreads.com.

Goodreads has data for every book published out there.  It’s easy to list all the books you’ve read, and add books you want to read.  If you’re looking for a list of books by a particular author, it will be there on Goodreads.  Also, you can search for books in a specific genre, or subgenre and find new books you’ll love.  Amazon owns the site, and they use their extensive book database for the Goodreads site.

I also use this site to keep a To Be Read (TBR) list. This way, when I find a book I want to read, I add it to my TBR shelf, and next time I’m in a bookstore, or browsing online, I can look at my TBR list and find something to read.

If you’ve moved as often as I have, you know what it’s like to have boxes and boxes full of books, in no particular order, sitting in a room with no idea how to find the book you are looking for. This is what the Goodreads site is like until you organize your books into groups called “shelves” on the Goodreads site. This is where you can shelve books of a specific group.  Some of my shelves are, “Best Emotional Books” and “Best Funny books” and on the other end, “Meh” and “Didn’t Like”, so I can be sure to re-read the books I loved, and stay away from the books I didn’t like.   You can have shelves for a particular genre, author, subgenre, or anything else you can think of.

Also, you can use your shelves to track your reading progress.  I have a shelf for “Read 2021” and use it to track the number and content of the books I’ve read in 2021.  There are so many ways you can organize your booklist, the sky is the limit.  

Goodreads is an excellent place to connect with like-minded readers.  You can discuss books by a specific author, specific genre, or even by a specific publisher.  There are hundreds of groups on Goodreads, and if you can’t find one you like, find some friends and start a new group.  

Discussions are another useful feature of Goodreads.  You can start a discussion on just about any book-related subject, or even non-book-related subjects.  

Many authors have their own Goodreads author page, where their past and upcoming releases are listed, and you can interact with them by asking questions, or find their website and social media outlets.  Authors can use Goodreads to promote their new books and find out what their fans are looking to read next.  

When I find a new author I like, I go directly to their Goodreads page and find their backlist.  Also, I can find out and follow them on their social media pages so I know when they release anything new.  

Goodreads has a recommendations section, and to be honest, there are other sites that do this better, and I’ll blog about this next week.  Although it’s not the best site to find that new recommendation, it does point you in the direction to find new books similar to those you like.  This is where using the shelves can help.  You can find recommendations from your shelf “best books ever” and that way your recommendations are based on your favorite books. 

And you can use the book reviews to make sure the next book you read is a good one. The reviews on Goodreads are the most comprehensive you can find, and I have found they are the most “honest” reviews you’ll find. Of course, like any review site, you have to take the really good reviews and the really bad reviews with a grain of salt, however, since Goodreads has a large number of reviews for every book it’s easier to determine trends and you can get a good idea of which books are really good, and which ones are only so, so.

Here is the link to my Goodreads profile, WendyW profile. Feel free to follow me or add me as a friend.

What do you like about Goodreads? Do you have any tips and tricks for new Goodreads users? Please leave your responses in the comments section below.