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How to Get Reviews via Goodreads

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Generally, the best way to solicit reviews via Goodreads is through the Goodreads Groups, which are established and run by members. Many of the discussion groups have programs that allow authors to offer a free eBook copy of their book in exchange for an honest review. The programs tend to be called R4R (read for review), R2R (read to review) or Authors Seeking Reviews. If you’ve never done R4R, here are the basics.

Where do I find R4R? There is no central repository for R4R programs on Goodreads. These are all done within individual groups, which are created by the user community. Generally, I’d recommend finding R4R in your genre. So, if you write science fiction, join some large Goodreads science fiction readers groups. If you write romance, then join some large Goodreads romance readers groups. Once you’ve joined a large group, search the discussion boards for R4R or Authors Seeking Reviews. Then, follow the instructions for offering your book for review. Read that again: Follow the Instructions. I don’t know what the instructions are, and you won’t either, until you find the group and find its program. But, do follow instructions, because no one likes people who think they’re above the rules. I suggested joining larger groups just because larger groups tend to have more activity and a larger pool of readers. However, if you find a really active small group, that can be a great place to find reviews, too. As a side note, it’s usually helpful to read through some of the group posts, and get a feel for it, before barreling in and requesting reviews.

How do the programs work? Again, it’s all very local, so it depends on the group. Some R4R programs are very organized, where one of the group’s moderators asks the author for the eBook in advance. Then the moderator receives all the member requests, and actually doles out the copies on behalf of the author. In these situations, the moderator usually follows up with recipients and makes sure they actually post a review. If the recipient doesn’t post a review, the moderator will ban the person from signing up for more R4Rs. In other groups, it’s strictly an honor system where the moderators are not involved, and follow up, if there is any, has to be done by the author. In this situation, where authors are dealing directly with reader reviewers, remember to tread carefully. Goodreads does not like authors “harassing” readers. Please review Goodreads’ author guidelines .

How long does it take? Like I said before, it depends on the group. Usually, three to four weeks is the suggested time frame for readers to complete the review. I saw one group that does speculative fiction that asked people to return reviews in two weeks. The guidelines are just that. They’re there to put some parameters on it so everyone can have closure. When actual reviews will show up varies greatly. Some readers will post a review the day after receiving the book, and others will wait until the end of the 4 weeks. It just depends on the reviewer.

Where do they post reviews? Goodreads. You can request they post a review on other sites, too, (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, All Romance), but they don’t have to. Generally, if a person does an R4R, the Goodreads review is the one that counts for the purpose of whether they’ve left you a review. Lots of Goodreads readers also have Amazon accounts and will post there, if asked. But, some readers don’t post on Amazon or other sites.

What do I do if they give me a bad review? Cry like a baby, and then go put on your big girl (or boy) pants. Really, there’s nothing you can do. They didn’t like your book, and you just have to deal with it. Books are given in exchange for an honest review. Do not complain to moderators or reviewers over negative reviews. Some authors have said they do not solicit reviewers on Goodreads because they believe Goodreads members leave overly harsh reviews. Please note that the Goodreads review scale is different from Amazon’s review scale.

It’s not perfect. People will receive the book, promise to leave a review and then not do it. You need to accept this as a possibility. You’re not allowed to harass readers on Goodreads, so be prepared for some disappointment. It’s going to happen. If disappointment concerns you, look for R4Rs that are pretty structured and heavily monitored by moderators. Those moderators want authors and readers to have a good experience and will help serve as a buffer for any issues that may arise. If you’re really just trying to cast a wide net, then go for all types of groups, so long as you know that you can’t make someone leave a review, even if they promised. (And ask yourself, what kind of review is the poor harassed, beleaguered person going to leave?)

Stay Organized. If you’re doling out copies of your books to reviewers, keep track of who’s received them and who has or hasn’t left reviews. This will help you know if the R4R program was a good fit for you, based on the number of copies doled out and reviews left.

An Example. Here’s an example of a Goodreads group that offers R4R for all genres: Making Connections . This gives you a feel for the kinds of rules that groups have. I would still recommend trying a genre-specific group, as you’re likely to get more readers who enjoy your type of story.

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Author: RJ Crayton

RJ Crayton is a former journalist turned novelist. By day, she writes thrillers with a touch of romance. By night, she practices the art of ninja mom. To learn more about her or her books, visit her website or her Author Central page . View all posts by RJ Crayton

13 thoughts on “How to Get Reviews via Goodreads”

Thanks, RJ! This is another one of those articles that goes under the “Stuff I Didn’t Know Before IU” category. Bookmarked and tweeted. 🙂

Glad you found it helpful.

Great stuff, RJ! I need to do this. Thanks for the nudge.

Glad to nudge. 🙂

I had no idea you could do this! I am definitely going to incorporate this as part of my book promotion program. Thank you!

Yes, a lot of people don’t realize there’s good stuff in the Goodreads groups. There is, though.

Very good to know. Thanks RJ

Great post! As a new author, I need to get more involved in Goodreads. I’ve been building connections but have done little else. This gives me a good place to start. Thank you!

Thank you, RJ, for the worthwhile info.

I’m a moderator for a group on Goodreads and it also important to remember that many groups (definitely the one I moderate) consist of a broad mix of members with different expectations on Goodreads.

Our group is a mix of teachers, readers, authors and bloggers, and it’s very important to them that they aren’t spammed by authors seeking reviews … But that said, many are also receptive if the group’s rules are followed in relation to book promotion. Some group’s rules are stricter than others. We aren’t overly strict, but do act when needed to keep things in order, because we don’t want our members to become unhappy.

As a moderator it’s essential that I maintain a balance that caters for all types of member. If that balance tips too far and members feel they are being stalked by keen authors, then they leave the group.

There are some groups that specifically cater for rebiews, but you will find that many genre focussed groups have a R4R thread somewhere. Ultimately, the best way to get reviews via Goodreads is to participate in the group discussions as a reader not an author, and list your books in the correct threads that cater for reviews.

I hope you find these extra tips useful.

FYI – I am also an MG/YA author and a reader and a blogger, so can relate to multiple points of view. If snyone is interested, the group I moderate is called Great Middle Grade Reads.

Thanks for the additional tips. You make a good point about hanging out in the groups as a reader first. That’s an easy way to get a feel for the group and if yours is the kind of book the members will enjoy.

I think it’s essential to remember that Goodreads is a reader group. While readers are happy to occasionally check out new things and perhaps find their new favorite author, that’s not why they came. They came to talk the books they love, and so it’s important to be respectful of that. The key way being to follow the rules and post in appropriate places. Readers seeking out R4R know which folders to go to; those who aren’t will just feel harassed by posts in the wrong places.

Thanks so much for this information, RJ – really helpful and hopefully will help in the marketing of my books.

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6 Easy Ways to Get Started with Goodreads on PC and Mobile

Last Updated: September 27, 2023 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by wikiHow staff writer, Rain Kengly , and Christopher Batchelor, a trusted member of wikiHow's volunteer community. Christopher Batchelor has been writing reviews on Goodreads since 2010. He has reviewed nearly 400 books on the platform. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 138,360 times. Learn more...

Goodreads is a website that allows book lovers to track reading history, review books, and share recommendations with others. After you sign up, you'll be able to make custom shelves for your books for easy sorting, join groups to discuss books with others, and lots more. You can use the website on your Windows or Mac computer, or the Goodreads app on your iPhone, iPad, or Android device. This wikiHow will show you how to get started on Goodreads using your computer or mobile device.

Things You Should Know

  • The Goodreads mobile app has limitations; use the desktop version for more options.
  • Keep track of books by going into "My Books" and clicking "Add shelf" to create a custom shelf.
  • Goodreads is not an eBook. While some books may have a green "Read Book" option, you'll need to read primarily on another platform.

Organizing Your Books

Step 1 Create Bookshelves.

  • There are Exclusive and Regular shelves. Exclusive makes your shelf mutually exclusive, meaning added books will only appear in this shelf. Regular shelves will show added books regardless of its addition to other shelves.
  • Once added, you can change the edition of books in your shelf, or you can easily remove a book from your shelf.

Step 2 Find recommendations.

  • You can also navigate to a member's profile and click Compare books to see how similar your reading tastes are. You could try some books they've enjoyed.

Step 3 Rate and review books.

  • Goodreads' review philosophy is forgiving in terms of creativity and critical statements. Honest opinions about books are encouraged as long as it is not against Goodreads guidelines.

Connecting with Other Users

Step 1 Join a book club or group.

  • You can search for groups by topic or title or use Goodreads' suggestions with Featured groups and Popular groups .
  • A group has plenty of discussion boards about a variety of tropics. Reply and add to the conversation after joining the group. You'll be able to subscribe to conversations to avoid missing anything important.

Step 2 Browse user-created lists in Listopia.

  • Lists are ordered by members' votes. You can contribute to the master list by submitting your own votes.
  • You can also search for a specific book and find Lists With This Book to find other books you may like.

Step 3 Follow Authors.

  • Use a direct link or use the search bar at the top of the website to find an author.
  • Click Follow Author on their page to stay updated on their activity.

Participating in Events

Step 1 Enter Giveaways.

  • Kindle Giveaways are open to U.S residents, while Print Giveaways are open to U.S. and Canadian residents.

Step 2 Take the Goodreads...

  • This can help motivate yourself to read more books. You can also see the progress of other users you're linked to.

Step 3 Cast your votes for the Choice Awards.

Creating an Account

Step 1 Navigate to the...

  • For mobile users, you'll need to download the Goodreads app. Goodreads is available for iOS in the App Store and for Android in the Google Play Store .

Step 2 Click Sign up with email.

  • If you continue with Facebook, Amazon, or Apple, you'll need to login with the respective account.
  • After putting books on your Kindle , you'll be able to seamlessly review them with your connected Goodreads account.

Step 3 Enter your details.

  • Passwords must be at least 6 characters.
  • Check or uncheck the box to toggle password visibility.
  • You'll need to re-enter your password to ensure it matches.

Step 4 Tap Create account.

  • If you haven't received the OTP, tap Resend OTP at the bottom of the page.

Step 6 Tap Create account.

  • Click Skip this step to do this later.
  • Set a Goal by entering a number in the text field for I want to read (number) books in (year) , then click Take the Challenge .
  • Click Skip this step to enter the Goodreads Reading Challenge later.

Step 8 Select your favorite genres.

  • Check the box for all the genres you enjoy as this will help Goodreads generate recommendations that fit your tastes.
  • If you don't see a genre, click Don't see your favorite genres here? at the bottom. Enter other favorite genres, separated by commas.

Step 9 Click Continue.

  • Navigate by clicking genres on the left panel or click the side arrows to sort through books.
  • Rate books out of 5 stars.

Step 11 Click Next.

Managing Bookshelves

Step 1 Open the Goodreads...

  • On mobile, this will be located in the bottom menu.

Step 3 In the left panel, click Edit.

  • You'll be taken to a new page with all your current shelves.
  • Goodreads automatically adds Read , Currently Reading , and To Read shelves to your account. You cannot remove these shelves.

Step 4 Manage your shelves.

  • Only one shelf can be marked as Feature . This will replace your favorites shelf at the top of your profile for quick access.
  • Sortable allows you to sort the books within the shelf in a certain order.
  • Sticky will display selected shelves first in your lists.
  • Exclusive makes your shelf mutually exclusive, meaning added books will only appear in this shelf.
  • To add a new shelf, input the name in the text field above shelf and click Add .

Step 5 Click I'm Done when finished.

Joining a Group

Step 1 Open the Goodreads website.

  • To search groups, input a group name or description in the search bar, then click Search groups .

Step 4 Click the group you want to join.

  • Digest will send all comments on group discussions bundled in a weekly or daily email.
  • Individual Email will send an email instantly when there is a new topic or reply.
  • Notification only won't send any emails, just notifications about group discussions.
  • None won't send any notifications.

Step 7 Click Join Group.

  • To leave a group, navigate to the group's home page and click Edit Membership , then Leave this group .

Expert Q&A

Christopher Batchelor

You Might Also Like

Add a New Book to the Goodreads Database

  • ↑ https://www.goodreads.com/blog/show/100-new-feature-listopia
  • ↑ https://help.goodreads.com/s/article/How-can-I-change-my-notification-settings

About This Article

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Jul 18, 2019

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Home / Book Marketing / The Ultimate Guide to Goodreads for Authors

The Ultimate Guide to Goodreads for Authors

Do you know just how influential the power of social media is today? From presidential politics to reviewing the latest in Star Wars headcanon, it seems there is a place for social media in all aspects of life.

But what about for authors and writing?

That answer exists and lies soundly within a platform called Goodreads.

The Goodreads website and community is a goldmine for authors–if it's used to its full potential.

And in case you're not totally familiar with all that Goodreads has to offer, we'll cover everything authors need to know below.

In this article, you will learn:

  • How to set up your Goodreads account so it doesn’t jeopardize your Amazon reviews
  • How to optimize your Goodreads author page so it stands out
  • What Goodreads has to offer you as a social media and book promotion platform
  • How to take advantage of paid advertisement on Goodreads

Fair Warning !!! While the idea of Goodreads is incredible and it can be a great platform, there are two warnings I want to address immediately – 1). Make sure you read the section on setting up correctly below before you do anything.  Do this wrong and you could hurt your future reviews.  2). GoodReads is not for the faint of heart.  In truth, and I fully don't understand why, but the most belligerent troll level comments can come from Goodreads.  Heck, sometimes they make Amazon reviews look professional and elite.  So, keep these two things in mind.

Table of contents

  • What is Goodreads
  • What if I've Already Setup My Account the Wrong Way?
  • Optimizing Your Role as an Author on Goodreads
  • How Do You Become a Goodreads Author?
  • Tips to Make Your Goodreads Author Page Stand Out
  • Using Goodreads Like a Blog
  • Beware Of “NASCARing” on Goodreads
  • 1. Goodreads Quotes
  • You Can Become a Quoted Author
  • 2. Getting on Goodreads Lists
  • How to Use Listopia to Its Full Potential
  • You Can Add Your Book To Other People's Lists

3. Author Q&A

  • 4. Making Goodreads Quizzes
  • How to Get Your Book Noticed with Tags for Your Quizzes
  • 5. Making Goodreads Polls and Trivia
  • SAMPLE POLL:
  • SAMPLE TRIVIA
  • 6. Doing Goodreads Giveaways
  • The Truth about Goodreads Giveaways and Getting More Exposure
  • 7. Creating Events
  • 8. How to Do eBook Giveaways on Goodreads
  • 9. Paid Advertisement on Goodreads
  • Is Goodreads Right for You?

Goodreads is not just an ordinary social media platform. It doesn’t exist to share funny cat videos or those don’t-mess-with-me-because-I’m-whatever-zodiac-sign posts. But offers a fully encompassing system for authors to showcase, develop, and market their author brand and associated works.

Launched in 2007 by Otis and Elizabeth Chandler (then Elizabeth Khuri), Goodreads has grown from a simple living room idea to connecting over 80 MILLION members worldwide. And for Good readsons! (See what I did there?)

And it’s not just a platform. The Goodreads community are some of the most vocal and active out of any other social media platform on the internet. (Go figure. Give a bunch of authors a free public forum and watch what happens…).  But remember my warning above, they can be pretty critical too – as many authors have found (why do we beat up on our own?).

Goodreads is perfect for:

  • a great source of  reviews
  • free promotion
  • solid book recommendations
  • and so much more!

So let's start at the basics of how to set up your account the right way.

How to Properly Set Up your Goodreads Account

For those of you who have been around the internet a time or two, this may seem like a no-brainer. But before you create your Goodreads account….

STOP AND WATCH THIS VIDEO!

Seriously. It’s that important.

Did you know that Goodreads is owned by Amazon?

Now you may be wondering why this matters. And it does for a huge reason.

If you link your Goodreads account to your Facebook, for example, Goodreads reviews left by your Facebook friends may not be usable on Amazon and the Kindle marketplace.

So before you create your Goodreads account, watch this video to learn how to circumvent unnecessary hassle with your reviews .

Yeah, I'm in the same bag as you.  Whoops.  In truth, they're already connected.  There's no fix that I know of.  So, understand that Amazon now knows who your social friends are and that may hurt the chances of your Amazon reviews sticking.

Better Keywords & Categories Fast

See why over 47,000+ authors and publishing companies use and love Rocket to help them sell more books.

Wouldn’t it just be disappointing if your readers made it all the way to your Goodreads page but it had nothing to offer them?

It would be like waiting your whole life to watch Aaron Rodgers play (GO PACK GO!), getting tickets up front on the 50 yard line, and watching him leave the field with a sprained knee in the first quarter.

That’s exactly what it’s like for Goodreads. Goodreads is a community comprised of hungry authors and even hungrier readers. You, as an author, are just as important as your works. Plus, you want to give your fans a reason to stay and maybe even leave a good review.

But before any of that can happen, you need to create an author page. When you join Goodreads, you will enter as a reader.

So how do you get recognized as an author?

It’s simple. All you need to do is search for your published book. When your book shows up, enter the page. It’s pretty much going to be an empty shell except one little part that says:

Is this you? Let us know. If not, help out and invite <Your Name> to Goodreads.

This should be near the bottom of the page. From here, Goodreads processes your request. This may take up to 48 hours. After approval, you can then begin to network as an author and optimize your author page on Goodreads.

Just like your Amazon author page , there are simple things you can do with your Goodreads account to stand out from the crowd and get more followers.

Simply go to your Profile Preferences to:

  • alter how your name shows up in readers' feeds (ex. “Dave Chesson” instead of just “Dave”)
  • customize your URL by altering your preferred user name (assuming it's available)
  • add a Goodreads widget to your website to show off what you're reading
  • add a flattering headshot that's 400 pixels x 400 pixels

If you need step-by-steps for any of these profile adjustments, check this out .

One of the best tactics to employ is to consider your author page as an extension of your personal blog (or even as your blog if haven’t established one).  This can be great, especially if you have wanted to blog, but didn't want to have to setup a complete website to do it.

To do this, you could:

  • Tell stories of your writing career or your past
  • Set public goals and garner support from those who read them
  • Share reviews of recent books you read — especially those within your genre
  • Establish yourself as an expert

Your goal here is to engage with your audience. This is a social media platform…get social!

Get Your Book Discovered

Look over my shoulder as I show you how to select the best keywords and categories so you’ll make more sales.

Something that should be avoided is what I like to call “NASCARing”.

*For anyone unaware of what NASCAR is, it’s a stock car racing organization. It’s perfect for those who love cars, loud noises, and turning left.

In NASCAR, if you take a look at the vehicles, you will see more advertisements than the Sunday paper. Each car is loaded with stickers for laundry detergent or web domain providers or motor oil. It begs the question: Are we here to watch the race or watch ads fly by at 200+ miles per hour?

Don’t do the same with your author page!

Some advertising is ok, but when you NASCAR your page, authors and readers tend to steer away. Instead, add subtlety to your repertoire of skills. Be creative with your advertisements and fully take advantage of the many features Goodreads offers, as discussed below, to help your page become one of the best out there.

How to Promote Your Book on Goodreads

I imagine that everyone reading this has some form of social media. At first glance, all social platforms are the same. You post a message. Someone likes it. Or they don’t. The message can be shared or not. Simple.

However, social media platforms are more complex than that. And each different platform has its own unique features and abilities that sets them apart from the rest. Goodreads is no exception.

Let’s explore some of its unique features now.

We all remember that timeless quote from Marilyn Monroe:

“Yer a wizard, ‘arry!”

Wait. That wasn’t her? But my Facebook newsfeed… Sigh.

Despite a lot of misquoted memes floating around out there, one thing is certain. They’re still floating around out there. You see, quotes are one of those “in” things nowadays. To the point where everybody wants to quote someone or create their own.

For those of us who aren’t necessarily motivated to come up with inspirational thoughts, we head to quote banks or sites.

Here are few places we commonly find quote ideas:

  • BrainyQuote.com
  • WisdomQuotes.com
  • Goodreads.com

Yep. You read that correctly. Goodreads has its very own quote depository.

This can be particularly useful when a quote is just the thing needed to fill the space between two points.

Perhaps an even cooler part of the quote depot is the ability for you to add quotes. As a published author (self or traditional), you now have the right to be recognized as the developer of a quote. And because of such, you can add your very own personal quote to Goodreads!

There is a stipulation of course. The quote must come directly from your book. Not your blog. Not your journal. Your book. Other than that though… just remember to place appropriate author and work tabs in the requested fields. Then boom! You’re officially a quoted author.

If there’s one thing I have learned in my years of marketing it’s that people love lists. They’re everywhere.

And wouldn’t it be helpful–especially for authors and readers– if lists for books were readily available?

Goodreads has us covered with their Listopia feature!

Listopia is an obvious play on words to “utopia” but… there’s really no better way to put it. Goodreads lists are more than just some fun, quirky ways to pass the time. They can be used as a highly effective marketing tool and way to get your book seen. Plus, I've seen many lists actually show up on google when you type in things like “ Books like Ready Player One ” or other “best” book genres.

There are two key ways you can utilize Goodreads lists.

  • You create your own lists for the Listopia.
  • You add your book to other people’s lists.

Now the first one is a great starter, but you can't list your own book (if you've already marked it as your book).  However, creating engaging lists that readers will enjoy and shows your level of authority on the subject, can help to build a following and more friends on Goodreads…so, a tertiary benefit that can play out later.

Let’s say you wrote a new Steampunk novel called Steam King: A Cog’s Journey . You can attempt to bolster your book through association with others. For instance, you would head over to a list such as “Best Steampunk Novels” and place Steam King on it. Now, the key to understanding how this concept can work for you is understanding that these lists aren’t static.

The lists work in a fashion similar to that of Reddit. You get upvotes and downvotes. If you have a good book, your fans will give you an upvote. Which will increase your score and potentially move you higher on the list. The more popular your book becomes, the higher it rises.

In some genres, this becomes difficult due to the overwhelming number of books on these lists. But in more niche categories , lists can be a wonderful way to promote your book and get those sweet, sweet sales.

Just be legit about this.  Putting your romance into a weird western (yes, that's a thing and actually quite fun) will only get you ridiculed by the author/reader community.  So, be smart.

Have you ever wished you could ask Stephen King about his “barrens” and the inspiration of? Or ask Dean Koontz why Odd Thomas is just so odd? Or maybe you just want to ask Kathy Reichs what it was like to be a forensic anthropologist?

We all have questions we’d love to ask our favorite authors. But what happens when the tables are turned? What happens when you become the favorite author?

Thankfully, Goodreads has a feature for that.

There is a section on your author page where your readers can ask you questions. These questions can then be answered in kind. Answered questions then get posted to your fans and friends’ Goodreads pages.

Another way to do an Author Q&A is to create a Featured Author Group. This allows your answer to be posted to both the Groups and Authors sections of Goodreads. The cool thing here is if your Q&A is relevant to Goodreads newsletter, they could feature you. And that’s some solid exposure.

Who doesn’t like a good quiz or set of  word games ?

They’re fun, interactive, sometimes a bit challenging, and they are available for creation on Goodreads. These quizzes aren’t just a great way to provide entertainment for your fans and readers.

If done properly, quizzes can help you with your book’s exposure through association with your quiz tags.

So, let’s just say you create a quiz on your steampunk novel. After composing your questions and answers, you need to assign tags to your quiz to help it get recognized. These tags are considered metadata, which are like the flies to the little web crawling spiders that return search results.

But how does this help you?

By choosing the best tags for your quiz.

Some obvious examples of tags you might add are:

But what about other steampunk novels or authors–like “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea”? Or “Jules Verne”?

These are specific, yet commonly searched terms that can be relatable to your quiz. The trick is to find specific terms that have a low number of viable search results on platform such as Google or Bing.

*These viable results consist of high traffic sites, major authority sites, etc. We’re not looking for a brief mention in a Facebook post or personal blog.

For example:

  • “20000 Leagues Under the Sea quiz” returns only 12 viable search results.
  • “Jules Verne quiz” returns 35 viable search results.

Which would be the best tag choice for you?

“20000 Leagues Under the Sea quiz” because your quiz would put you closer to the top of the search results. This means more exposure for your quiz and more exposure for you.

This is just like searching for the best Amazon keywords on Rocket.  (SO… if you have Rocket , it can help you find keywords for your Goodreads adventures too!)

We all know that polls give us data. They give us what people are thinking and their opinions on asked matters.

But did you know that you could use polls to influence others to check out your book?

With Goodreads polling possibilities, you can.

There are two types of polls that you can create.

  • A poll relating to general matters and topics (must be book/author related)
  • A book poll where the answers are all books.

Now, the first type of poll is great for you to get a sense of the community and what they are looking for in a book or some specifics about your genre. Armed with this information, you can apply it accordingly when creating your next masterpiece.

The second poll is best used not as an information gathering tool, but more so as a sneakily-get-more-exposure tool.

Let’s see how that works using our steampunk novel again.

Which of these books truly embodies what it means to be a steampunk novel?

  • 20000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
  • The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore
  • Steam King: One Cog’s Journey by Ty Priter
  • The Time Machine by H.G. Wells

So this kind of poll works two ways. If your book is popular and fully embodied your genre… Your book may rank high in the poll and encourage steampunk enthusiasts to read. If your book is not popular, then people are inspired to click on the associated link for your book. Thus bringing more attention to your page and works.

Trivia is also another avenue you can take to market your books. For those of you out of the loop, trivia is a big deal. Many a Tuesday night have been spent within the company of stale pitchers of domestic, 25 cent wings, and a team of know-it-alls for a weekly trivia bonanza.

Trivia on Goodreads works on the same principles as the ones presented above for polls. Simply add your question to Goodreads infinite trivia question game and spread the awareness of your books .

A Goodreads  giveaway is where an author holds a competition pitting fans and readers in a not-so-deadly-competition for the chance of seizing the most coveted prize in all the land…a free copy of your book.

At first glance, giveaways may seem a bit overwhelming and complicated. But in all reality, it’s not. That’s because Goodreads does all the hard work for you…for a price nowadays – price depends on how many books you're doing and other factors, but it starts at $200.

All you need to do is provide Goodreads with

  • how many copies you intend on giving away
  • how long the giveaway will last

That's it! They take care of the rest.

Well technically, there’s more. The real benefit to holding a giveaway is hidden away behind a sneaky Goodreads maneuver…

You see, every time somebody enters into your giveaway, Goodreads automatically adds your book to their must-read collection. This is then posted as a notification on their newsfeed for their friends and the public to see.

Free mass marketing at its finest. If you attract 500 people into your giveaway who each have 50 friends, how many people actually see your book?

500 x 50= 25,000 friends!

25,000 friends PLUS the original 500 in the giveaway = 25,500 people see your book on their screens.

That’s just bonkers. And it only costs you shipping and handling of a giveaway book, or none at all if you're giving away an ebook.

Got a book signing soon? A meet and greet? Seminar?

Creating an event on Goodreads may be exactly what you need to do. Communicate with your fanbase and the community about your upcoming event. This can be pretty simple if done properly.

There are three groups of people that Goodreads will send invites to:

  • Your friends on Goodreads
  • Your friends on Facebook
  • Those who you manually enter

The only tricky part to this is sending to your Facebook friends. If you followed the video at the beginning of the article, your Facebook should not be linked to your Goodreads account. If you want your Facebook friends to get an invite, be sure to individually send them invites. Remember, if you just copy and paste to everyone on your Facebook friends list… You might get considered to be spam. That’s no bueno.

Now, do you recall how I said we would get to eBook giveaways? Well, here we are!

The trick to doing this is to set your event for the same time period that your KDP (or other) free book promotion is going on. Your latest date to RSVP should correspond to the final day of your free promotion. Next, you should give your event a super awesome title like…

“Tune in to Find Out How One Lowly Steam Man Defied All Odds in Order to Become the Grand Machina! The Steam King has arrived!”

Whatever you do, do not put the words “ free book ” in the event title. That’s a rookie mistake, and you may be flagged.

In the event description, add the link to your free book promotion. (This will likely be your Kindle book page.)

And you’re off to the races to a successful free ebook giveaway.

Finally, there's paid advertising opportunities on Goodreads like every other platform out there.

Those familiar with social media are also probably familiar with paid advertisements (if not running them, then experiencing them for sure). Goodreads is no exception and also provides paid advertisements.

These ads are a type known as PPC or Pay Per Click. That means every time somebody clicks on your ad, you are charged. This being said, you must first setup payment options prior to running your ad. And the process is slightly convoluted.

So here’s a basic breakdown on how to set them up.

  •  Goodreads utilizes a targeted ad campaign. They allow you to choose your precise demographic. These options include age group, gender, and country. You can also choose to target specific genres. Obviously, choosing your genre is a no-brainer. But be sure to choose related genres as well. Like with our novel, Science Fiction would be a great choice as would Fantasy. Another potential target could be an author liked. These would be targeted to people to like whatever author you chose. Be sure to choose a relevant author. In our case, H.G. Wells or Stephen Hunt would be ideal.
  • After creating your campaign, you must first fund it before it runs. This can be achieved through the use of a valid credit card. Here you can also set your spending limits, how long to run your campaign, and whether to automatically restart or not. NOTE : Goodreads does not accept PayPal.
  • Now that funding is in place, make sure to head back and change your ad campaign URL redirect. Instead of sending buyers to your Goodreads page, save them the extra time and redirect them straight to your Amazon purchase page.

In today’s day and age, having social media is inevitable. But which is the right platform for you? As an author and a reader, Goodreads may be just the thing that you have been looking for. They provide author specific services that you won’t find anywhere else and provide you real-time exposure with a targeted market of readers.

It may not be the easiest platform to use at first glance, but I’ll be darned if it isn’t one of the best for authors.

So get started with your Goodreads author account and make sure you set it up the right way to give your books the best chance of success.

Dave Chesson

When I’m not sipping tea with princesses or lightsaber dueling with little Jedi, I’m a book marketing nut. Having consulted multiple publishing companies and NYT best-selling authors, I created Kindlepreneur to help authors sell more books. I’ve even been called “The Kindlepreneur” by Amazon publicly, and I’m here to help you with your author journey.

  • 3. Author Q&A

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5 thoughts on “ The Ultimate Guide to Goodreads for Authors ”

Hi Dave, Is there a way to setup an author account WITHOUT any published books? My debut is currently on Amazon for preorder, but neither its title, not ISBN shows up on a Goodreads search…

I don’t think so..but I could be wrong.

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Very helpful, thanks!

Glad to help!

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Blog • Book Marketing

Last updated on Feb 07, 2023

How to Get Book Reviews in 5 Steps (2024 Update)

Imagine the day of your book launch. You’re sitting in front of your computer, blissfully imagining all the five-star book reviews that will soon be yours. Yet the days pass... and the reviews don't come.

Needless to say, you'll want people to buy and read your book ASAP so they can leave you some good reviews. But you may see the Catch-22 here: in order to make your first sales, you’ll need to display positive book reviews. So how do you get the chicken before you’ve got the egg (or vice versa)?

Enter book bloggers , who are your new best friends! For this post, we asked our top Reedsy publicists to share their best tips on how to get book reviews from book bloggers — and we've condensed their advice into these five essential steps, plus a few bonus tips at the end.

You can also check out this Reedsy Live on how to get your first book reviews, with advice from author and book marketer Debbie Drum.

0AMjNhpr_AU Video Thumb

Those who prefer their tips in written form, let's dive right in with the very first step of the review acquisition process!

1. Identify your audience

book reviews

A quick preliminary note: you want to start the review-gathering as early as possible. If you can, plan your book review campaign 4-6 months in advance of your publication date. Because if you want your reviews to be in place by then, you’ll need to give people time to actually write them!

Now, using the "5 W’s of Storytelling," let's talk about the first thing you should be asking yourself: who? Who will be reading your book, and who is best positioned to promote it to that audience? The following tips will help you answer these questions.

Build a questionnaire

Here are a few more specific queries to help you clarify your "who":

  • Who reads in my genre?
  • What magazines, websites, forums, or blogs do they frequent?
  • Where might they find reviews of my book that will entice them to buy it?

Indeed, publicist Jessica Glenn recommends building a full-length questionnaire to identify your audience and where you might find them on the Web (or in real life!).

“Most, if not all, publicists and publishers send authors a very long questionnaire to fill out when they start their marketing plan ,” she says. “That's so we can dig into any useful piece of bio, community, or regional info to figure out who and why people will be interested in your book.”

Your questionnaire will direct you to your target audience and help you create a  proto-persona.  This is the "ideal reader" of your book, so to speak — a perfect blend of the traits you'd expect them to have. (For example, if you've written a YA paranormal romance novel, your proto-persona might be a 14-year-old girl who's obsessed with Twilight .) And whoever they are, you'll keep them in mind every time you make a marketing decision.

Think about comp titles

Another great way to get a handle on your target audience is to figure out your comparative titles — books that are a) similar to yours and b) share the same general readership. When pitching to book reviewers, these are the titles you'll use to sell your own  book . For instance, "My book is  Normal People meets The Incendiaries ."

According to Jessica, you should have at least 15 potential comp titles for your book, ideally a mix of bestsellers and well-reviewed indie titles. “Many first-time authors balk at this," says Jessica, "as they believe there is no true comp for their book — but dig deep and you'll find them!”

Comp titles are critical because they act as a compass, pointing you towards a ready-made audience that enjoys works in the same mold as yours. This is a huge help in determining your target readers, as well as which reviewers will cater to them. Speaking of which...

2. Find relevant book blogs

book reviews

Now that you’ve got a strong sense of your audience, you're ready to find blogs that will provide the best exposure to that audience. We recommend starting with our directory of 200+ book review blogs , but feel free to do your own research as well!

As you dig into book review blogs, check on these two things first:

  • Is the site active? Has the blogger published a post within the last month or so?
  • Are they currently accepting queries? If they're closed at the moment, it could be months before your book gets a review — if at all.

And if you want to confirm your book marketing strategy when it comes to book review blogs, we recommend first taking this quick quiz below!

Which book review site is right for you?

Find out here! Takes one minute.

Once you've confirmed that a book review blog is both active and open to queries, think about whether it's right for your  book. Here are some important factors to consider:

  • Genre . Don't waste your time on blogs that don't review books in your genre. "Be very mindful of a publication’s particular audience and target market when pitching for review. If their readership is science-fiction, do not pitch a commercial crime novel!” says publicist Hannah Cooper .
  • Traffic . High-traffic book blogs might seem like your highest priorities, but this isn’t necessarily true. “Don't shy away from the smaller blogs,” says publicist Beverly Bambury . “They can sometimes foster a real sense of community and starting off small is just fine."
  • Posting frequency.  Another consideration is how often the blogger in question actually publishes reviews. Too often, and your book will get lost in the shuffle; too seldom, and they're likely to lose readers. Try to strike a balance with about 1-2 reviews per week — no decent reviewer can turn them out faster than that, anyway!

Track down your comp titles' reviewers

Remember those comp titles you came up with earlier? You can use them not only to pitch your book, but also to find potential reviewers , as they will correspond perfectly with your genre and target audience.

“Once you have your 15-or-so comps, you can research where each book has been reviewed,” says Jessica. “With luck, you will find at least a couple of book reviews per title, which will give you many more outlets to investigate further.”

Now, as an author, you might be wondering: “How can I begin to find all the places where a given book was reviewed?” Don’t forget the power of Google! Try searching the following terms to find reviews for a given title:

  • [Title] + book review
  • [Title] + review
  • [Title] + Q&A

And here's one last tip to give you a boost — sign up for a "Mention" account and/or set up Google alerts to get a notification every time these titles appear online.

Once you’re armed with a bundle of suitable book review blogs, you've arrived at the third (and perhaps most crucial) step in this process. This is, of course, creating the pitches you'll send to reviewers.

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3. Write pitches for them

how to get book reviews on goodreads

Pitching a reviewer is pretty straightforward. All you have to do is a) keep it short, and and b) personalize it as much as possible. However, before we get to our publicists’ actionable tips on pitching, there’s one more thing that you absolutely HAVE to do. And that thing is...

Read the review policy!

Before you pitch any blog, make sure you read the blogger’s review policy. Some blogs will have a form to fill out; others might ask you to email them directly. Still others might not welcome any queries from self-published authors . Whatever they say, make sure that you follow it to a T.

“There are two main benefits to reading and following the review policies closely,” says Beverly. “First, you show the reviewer that you respect and appreciate them when you follow their instructions. This is important when asking someone to do you a favor.

"Second, you may find that even if the site is closed for review queries, it's open to publicity queries — where you might be able to place an excerpt or do a Q&A or occasional blog post. You'll never know if you don't take the time to read the review policy first.”

More tips for pitching reviewers

Now that you’re clear on what the blogger wants, you can start pitching them with confidence. Here are three more key tips for pitching book reviewers:

1. Never send out bulk pitches. "When you pitch each outlet individually, specifically write that you read their positive book review of your comp and what that comp title was,” says Jessica Glenn. Or if you didn't find them through a comp title, mention other  aspects of their blog and why you think they would be great to review your book!

2. Be concise and direct. “Include your title, publisher, date of release, and genre in the first paragraph,” notes Beverly Bambury. “Then you might want to include the cover copy or a brief description of the book. Finally, be direct and ask for what you want. If you want a review, ask for it! If you want an excerpt placed, ask for that.”

3. Appeal to their commercial side. “All reviewers want the opportunity to discover the next 'big thing’ — particularly with fiction — so make them feel as though they have the opportunity to get the word out first," says Hannah Cooper. Indeed, if you can convince a reviewer that you are doing them  a favor, you're practically guaranteed to get a review.

Basically, try to get reviewers to think, “Oh, if I enjoyed [comp title], I’ll enjoy this person's book too,” or “They've done the research to know that I’m a good fit for their book.” If you can do that, you’re already much closer than everyone else to obtaining high-quality book reviews !

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4. Send out your book

book reviews

This is the step before the moment of truth (the review itself), so it's extremely important to get everything right. To ensure you're complying with each reviewer's guidelines, review their policy again before you send them your book. Some bloggers might prefer digital copies of manuscripts, while others might want a physical ARC — be prepared to accommodate.

Also, as you begin sending your book to various outlets, you should track your progress in a spreadsheet. Record which blogs you’ve submitted to so far, which blogs have responded, and which blogs you plan to submit to, so you don't accidentally double-submit or skip over anyone.

Formatting your book

Other than double-checking the review policy, the most important thing to do here is to format your book in a professional manner . After all, you want the presentation of your content to match the quality! Even though it shouldn't technically matter, reviewers will definitely judge your book by how it looks, inside and out.

The good news for self-formatters that you probably won't need to send physical proofs, and ebooks are much easier to format than hard copies. Digital copies also cost next-to-nothing to produce, so you can easily send multiple copies of your book out to different reviewers. You may want to check out apps like Instafreebie and Bookfunnel , which make it easy to generate individual ARC download links that you can send to the reviewers.

Pro tip : If you’re searching for a good book production tool, the Reedsy Book Editor can format and convert your manuscript into professional EPUB and print-ready files in a matter of seconds!

5. Follow up after a week

how to get book reviews on goodreads

A week or more has passed since you queried a book blog, and so far… crickets. What do you do now? Why, follow up,  of course!

When it comes to this stage, keep calm and follow Hannah Hargrave’s advice: “Don't bother reviewers for an answer daily. I will usually chase again after a week has passed.

"If you receive a decline response, or no one responds to your third chase-up, assume this means they are not interested. Any further follow-ups, or aggressive requests as to why your work's not being reviewed, will not be viewed kindly. Above all, be polite and friendly at all times.”

That said, someone rejecting your book for review is a worst-case scenario. Best-case scenario, the blogger responds favorably and you’ve bagged yourself a review!

What comes next, you ask?

The reviewer will post their review of your book on their blog — and on Amazon, Goodreads, and any other platforms that they’ll name in their review policy. This is yet another reason why it's vital to read that policy carefully, so you know exactly where  the review will be seen.

If all goes well, the reviewer will publish a positive review that you can use to further promote your book. Maybe you'll even get a decent pull-quote for your book description ! Not to mention that if you ever write a sequel, you can almost certainly count on them for a follow-up review.

Pro-tip: Want to write a book description that sells? Download this free book description template to get a headstart. 

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But what if you don't get any bites from book bloggers, or — horror of horrors — one of them gives you a negative review? Fortunately, the next two sections should help you deal with each of these possible dilemmas.

Bonus ways to get book reviews

Though book bloggers are the most reliable and professional source of reviews for independent authors, you may want to try other avenues to maximize your chances! Here are three more ways to get book reviews  for your work, so you can bolster your Amazon profile and start making some serious sales.

1. Tell your followers about your book

Though Amazon prohibits reviews from close friends and family , you're free to tell your random social media followers about your book and hope they leave good reviews. It obviously helps if you have a large following on Twitter or Instagram, even more so if some of those followers are fellow authors who appreciate the significance of reviews.

That said, NEVER offer "review swaps" or any kind of promotional enticement for customers to leave reviews, as this would also be against Amazon's terms. Simply let your followers know you've got a book out and that you'd love for them to read it; the rest is in their hands. However, when it comes to reviews, any amount of awareness is better than none.

2. Submit to Reedsy Discovery

Finally, for a professional review option that's a bit less time-and-effort-consuming on your part, you can submit your book right here on Reedsy Discovery! The platform allows authors to share their books with readers who are right up their alley, plus get the chance to be reviewed by one of our Discovery writers. If they leave a good review, you'll be featured in our newsletter, which goes out to thousands of subscribers every week.

Sounds pretty sweet, right? And it only takes a few minutes to submit .

Is your book ready for Discovery?

Take our quiz to find out! Takes only 1 minute.

How to deal with negative reviews

Once your work is out there in the world, you can’t control other people’s reactions to it. “Remember, by submitting your book for review, you're accepting that some people might not enjoy it,” says Hannah Hargrave. “It can be very tough after you’ve spent months or years crafting your novel, only for some reviewer to tear it apart. But you need to be prepared."

In that vein, here are some final tips on how to deal with bad reviews:

1. Have someone else read them first . This might be your agent, your friend, or your mom — anyone you trust to pre-screen your reviews. They can inform you whether each negative review is a worthwhile (if humbling) read, or just too nasty to stomach.

2. Ignore unreasonably hateful reviews . Easier said than done, yes, but really try to tune out these people! For example, if they're clearly not your target audience, but insist on pretending like they are. Or people who pick apart your sentences word-by-word, just for the "fun" of it. There's no sense in agonizing over readers who are determined to hate you, so block them on every platform and refuse to read anything else they write.

3. Address valid criticisms . You're only human, and your book won't be perfect. If someone points this out in a constructive way , acknowledge it and do what you can to fix it. This may be as simple as editing a misleading blurb, or as complex as restructuring your entire series. But if you're the author we know you are, you'll be up to the task.

Every author's book is different, but the process for getting book reviews is reassuringly universal. To recap: identify your audience, find relevant blogs, pitch them, send out your book, and don't forget to follow up! On top of that, feel free to try alternative strategies, and remember not to take the bad reviews too personally.

Yes, marketing a book may be madness, but the process of getting reviews lends method to that madness. So go forth and get your reviews — you deserve them! 🙌

Special thanks to book publicists Jessica Glenn , Hannah Hargrave , Hannah Cooper , and Beverly Bambury for their input and suggestions throughout this article. If you have any more questions about how to get book reviews, let us know in the comments!

2 responses

Elena Smith says:

25/09/2018 – 22:33

Excellent Write up. I have thoroughly gone through the article and according to my personal observations you have done a great job writing this Article.Being associated with writing profession, I must mention that AcademicWritingPro are quite helpful nowadays.Furthermore, quality is also an important aspect.

Team Golfwell says:

11/12/2018 – 05:38

We do free book reviews if your book interests us. We are a group of retired people in New Zealand who play golf, read books, write books, and do free book reviews if we like your book. We write books too, so we like to see what other authors are currently doing and it is amazing to see what writers are creating. We try to post our reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes &amp; Noble and our social media. See our book review page for more info &gt; &gt; https://www.teamgolfwell.com/free-book-reviews.html #bookreviews #kindlebookreviews #amazonbookreviews #indiebookreviews https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4ad92dde2f70456000bf5c44af3489ee638dae511be91f7b8cb1545acb388cdb.jpg

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The 13 Best Book Review Sites and Book Rating Sites

Knowing where to buy books can be challenging. So, here are the best book review sites to help you avoid buying books that you'll regret reading.

Nobody likes to spend money on a new book only to face that overwhelming feeling of disappointment when it doesn't live up to your expectations. The solution is to check out a few book review sites before you hit the shops. The greater the diversity of opinions you can gather, the more confidence you can have that you'll enjoy the title.

Which book review and book rating sites are worth considering? Here are the best ones.

1. Goodreads

Goodreads is arguably the leading online community for book lovers. If you want some inspiration for which novel or biography to read next, this is the book review site to visit.

There's an endless number of user-generated reading lists to explore, and Goodreads itself publishes dozens of "best of" lists across a number of categories. You can do a book search by plot or subject , or join book discussions and reading groups with thousands of members.

You can participate in the community by adding your own rankings to books you've read and leaving reviews for other people to check out. Occasionally, there are even bonus events like question and answer sessions with authors.

2. LibraryThing

LibraryThing is the self-proclaimed largest book club in the world. It has more than 2.3 million members and is one of the best social networking platforms for book lovers .

With a free account, you can add up to 200 books to your library and share them with other users. But it's in the other areas where LibraryThing can claim to be one of the best book review sites.

Naturally, there are ratings, user reviews, and tags. But be sure to click on the Zeitgeist tab at the top of the page. It contains masses of information, including the top books by rating, by the number of reviews, by authors, and loads more.

3. Book Riot

Book Riot is a blog. It publishes listicles on dozens of different topics, many of which review the best books in a certain genre. To give you an idea, some recent articles include Keeping Hoping Alive: 11 Thrilling YA Survival Stories and The Best Historical Fiction Books You’ve Never Heard Of .

Of course, there's also plenty of non-reading list content. If you have a general affinity for literature, Book Riot is definitely worth adding to the list of websites you browse every day.

Bookish is a site that all members of book clubs should know about. It helps you prep for your next meeting with discussion guides, book quizzes, and book games. There are even food and drink suggestions, as well as playlist recommendations.

But the site is more than just book club meetings. It also offers lots of editorial content. That comes in the form of author interviews, opinion essays, book reviews and recommendations, reading challenges, and giveaways.

Be sure to look at the Must-Reads section of the site regularly to get the latest book reviews. Also, it goes without saying that the people behind Bookish are book lovers, too. To get a glimpse of what they’re reading, check out their Staff Reads articles.

5. Booklist

Booklist is a print magazine that also offers an online portal. Trusted experts from the American Library Association write all the book reviews.

You can see snippets of reviews for different books. However, to read them in full, you will need to subscribe. An annual plan for this book review site costs $184.95 per year.

6. Fantasy Book Review

Fantasy Book Review should be high on the list for anyone who is a fan of fantasy works. The book review site publishes reviews for both children's books and adults' books.

It has a section on the top fantasy books of all time and a continually updated list of must-read books for each year. You can also search through the recommended books by sub-genres such as Sword and Sorcery, Parallel Worlds, and Epic Fantasy.

7. LoveReading

LoveReading is one of the most popular book review sites in the UK, but American audiences will find it to be equally useful.

The site is divided into fiction and non-fiction works. In each area, it publishes weekly staff picks, books of the month, debuts of the month, ebooks of the month, audiobooks of the month, and the nationwide bestsellers. Each book on every list has a full review that you can read for free.

Make sure you also check out their Highlights tab to get book reviews for selected titles of the month. In Collections , you'll also find themed reading lists such as World War One Literature and Green Reads .

Kirkus has been involved in producing book reviews since the 1930s. This book review site looks at the week's bestselling books, and provides lengthy critiques for each one.

As you'd expect, you'll also find dozens of "best of" lists and individual book reviews across many categories and genres.

And while you're on the site, make sure you click on the Kirkus Prize section. You can look at all the past winners and finalists, complete with the accompanying reviews of their books.

Although Reddit is a social media site, you can use it to get book reviews of famous books, or almost any other book for that matter! Reddit has a Subreddit, r/books, that is dedicated to book reviews and reading lists.

The subreddit has weekly scheduled threads about a particular topic or genre. Anyone can then chip in with their opinions about which books are recommendable. Several new threads are published every day, with people discussing their latest discovery with an accompanying book rating or review.

You'll also discover a weekly recommendation thread. Recent threads have included subjects such as Favorite Books About Climate Science , Literature of Indigenous Peoples , and Books Set in the Desert . There’s also a weekly What are you Reading? discussion and frequent AMAs.

For more social media-like platforms, check out these must-have apps for book lovers .

10. YouTube

YouTube is not the type of place that immediately springs to mind when you think of the best book review sites online.

Nonetheless, there are several engaging YouTube channels that frequently offer opinions on books they've read. You’ll easily find book reviews of famous books here.

Some of the most notable book review YouTube channels include Better Than Food: Book Reviews , Little Book Owl , PolandBananasBooks , and Rincey Reads .

Amazon is probably one of your go-to site when you want to buy something. If you don’t mind used copies, it’s also one of the best websites to buy second-hand books .

Now, to get book reviews, just search and click on a title, then scroll down to see the ratings and what others who have bought the book are saying. It’s a quick way to have an overview of the book’s rating. If you spot the words Look Inside above the book cover, it means you get to preview the first few pages of the book, too!

Regardless of the praises or criticisms you have heard from other book review sites, reading a sample is the most direct way to help you gauge the content’s potential and see whether the author’s writing style suits your tastes.

12. StoryGraph

StoryGraph is another good book review site that's worth checking out. The book rating is determined by the site's large community of readers. Key in the title of a book you're interested in and click on it in StoryGraph's search results to have an overall view of its rating.

Each book review provides information on the moods and pacing of the story. It also indicates whether the tale is plot or character-driven, what readers feel about the extent of character development, how lovable the characters generally are, and the diversity of the cast.

13. London Review of Books

The London Review of Books is a magazine that covers a range of subjects such as culture, literature, and philosophy. Part of its content includes amazingly detailed book reviews. If you feel that most modern book reviews are too brief for your liking, the London Review of Books should suit you best.

You'll gain insight into the flow and themes of the story, as well as a more thorough picture of the events taking place in the book.

Read Book Reviews Before You Buy

The book review sites we've discussed will appeal to different types of readers. Some people will be more comfortable with the easy-to-interpret book rating systems; others will prefer extensive reviews written by experienced professionals.

Although it’s easy to be tempted by a gorgeous book cover, it’s always best to have a quick look at the book reviews before actually buying a copy. This way, you can save your money and spend it on the books that you’ll be proud to display on your shelves for a long time. And check out recommendations, as well, to help you find what's worth reading.

how to get book reviews on goodreads

How to Get More Book Reviews on Amazon and Goodreads

Amazon | book promotion | goodreads.

How do you get more book reviews?

Many authors ask that question, and the answer is surprisingly simple: Ask for them! But how can you go about asking people to read and review your book without seeming like a shameless self-promoter?

In this article, we’ll discuss six ways to get more book reviews on Amazon and Goodreads . These methods will help you build credibility and visibility as an author, which leads to more opportunities from publishers, agents, and readers alike!

  • 1 1. Understand the Importance of Book Reviews
  • 2 2. Know the Rules for Amazon and Goodreads Reviews
  • 3 3. Use Your Email Signature to Invite Book Reviews
  • 4 4. Recruit a Launch Team to Support Your Book
  • 5 5. Get Creative on Social Media
  • 6 6. Manage Your Own Expectations
  • 7 What Will YOU Do?

1. Understand the Importance of Book Reviews

One reason authors shy away from asking for reviews is that they don’t understand the value themselves. Do you? Maybe you’ve been to a writer conference and heard peers talking about reviews being important, but you don’t quite understand why.

Aside from helping potential readers make informed purchasing decisions, book reviews are essential to the success of a book. The average consumer assumes that a high number of reviews indicates popularity and quality. It’s the equivalent of testimonials on a consultant’s website — we all want to know the experience of other buyers before we invest in a product for ourselves.

Behind the scenes, book reviews have a huge impact — mainly on Amazon. For promotions, books usually need to meet certain review standards to qualify. Promotions get your book in front of a wider audience, which means more sales and — hopefully — even more reviews. We assume 25 interviews is the minimum to qualify for promotions, but we know for a fact there is no such thing as too many book reviews. More is always better.

2. Know the Rules for Amazon and Goodreads Reviews

If you’re focused on getting online reviews for your book, you need to know each website’s rules.

Over on Amazon, you can’t review any products — including books — unless you’ve spent at least $50 using a valid credit card or debit card on the site in the past 12 months. Promotional discounts don’t qualify toward the $50 minimum. Reviews from verified purchasers (people who bought your book through Amazon) are prioritized by Amazon’s algorithm, which is something to keep in mind when you’re looking at your reviews and average star rating.

On Goodreads , any registered member can review any book, but there are standards of conduct to follow. Read through each site’s policies so you know what you can and can’t ask readers to do, and also so you can educate them on how to satisfy review requirements.

Though you can use giveaways and contests to promote book sales and social sharing, you can’t reward people based on reviewing your book.

Both sites have strict rules against conflicts of interest. Amazon doesn’t allow you to incentivize reviews. You can’t offer anything in exchange for a review, including entries into a prize drawing, gifts, purchase rebates or invitations to special events. You also can’t review books written by relatives or anyone who has shared your home address. Sometimes, Amazon will allow reviews when the potential conflict of interest is explicitly revealed in the review.

For example:

I’ve worked with John Doe for several years and it’s so nice to finally see his business philosophy and practices captured in a book that anyone can read and review.

how to get book reviews on goodreads

3. Use Your Email Signature to Invite Book Reviews

The simplest way to make sure you’re asking for reviews often and consistently without being pushy is to add an invitation as a P.S. in every email you send. You can include it as part of your automated signature or copy/paste it as a P.S. at the bottom of your emails.

Your email signature is a great way to get more reviews because it’s passive. It doesn’t take any extra time or effort. Whenever you send an email, the recipient will see your invitation for a book review and may be inclined enough by curiosity or goodwill to either leave you a review or at least check out the book for themselves.

Here’s one approach to try:

Have you read my latest book, [insert title]? If so, consider leaving a review on Amazon [insert hyperlink] and Goodreads [insert hyperlink]. If not, you can check it out here [hyperlink to purchase page on Amazon].

4. Recruit a Launch Team to Support Your Book

Launch teams are a great way to get your book out in front of several people all at the same time. The more people who know about your book, the more people who will buy it. And more buyers means more people qualified to review your book.

Usually, launch teams are created with the specific purpose of getting online reviews published. You can choose to communicate with your launch team entirely by email, text messages or you can gather everyone together in a pop-up Facebook group that only opens for the launch period and closes afterward.

Most authors or publishers offer launch team members a free copy of the book to read and review. Printed advance reader copies used to be the standard, but not any longer. Now, launch teams usually get a digital copy in the form of a PDF, graphics for sharing on social media and closer access to you as the author.

I enjoy using pop-up Facebook groups for launch teams because it’s creates a centralized location to communicate with launch team members and to share resources and information with them. Readers get excited when they are in a Facebook group with the author, especially when the author takes on an active role in posting, commenting and hosting live video broadcasts exclusive to the group.

Asking launch team members to buy a copy of the book so their reviews get the highly regarded “verified purchaser” is becoming more common, but not everyone likes this practice. I’ve encountered several people who’ve served on launch teams for years and are taken aback by this new era of book promotion. I don’t mind explaining the business end of book launches (and importance of verified reviews) to grumpy launch team members, but you have to do what feels most comfortable to you.

5. Get Creative on Social Media

Socializing the message of your book and getting it seen far beyond your own personal network will require thoughtful promotion on social media.

Rather than a never-ending cycle of “buy my book” posts, take advantage of the natural opportunity for creative marketing.

You can mix up promotional content by sharing graphics that feature your book cover, title, or quotes.

This builds both name and brand recognition for your book, and boosts your credibility. Share these images with hashtags relevant both within social media circles (e.g. #bookstagram and #readers) and within your niche (e.g. #crimefiction , #historicalromance and #biblestudy ). Choosing a branded hashtag for your book can help you stay organized and aware of how others are talking about your book on social media.

Social media is a great way to get more reviews, but it can also be used as an opportunity for creative marketing.

Vary how you share links to buy the book. Mix it up between putting the link in a post, in the comments of a post or through direct message with people who comment on posts about your book.

You can also share screenshots of reviews and your Amazon ranking on social media to boost your credibility.

Whenever someone comments that they love your book or shares positive feelings about it on social media, make sure to leave a comment thanking them for being a reader and asking if they’d be willing to copy and paste those words into a review on Amazon and Goodreads.

Social media graphic with a quote from Ready for Anything by Kathi Lipp: Instead of Scared Get Prepared

This is an example of a social media shareable graphic that features the book cover, quote from the book, author’s name and branded hashtag.

6. Manage Your Own Expectations

Every author wants a 5-star rating but that’s not how the world works, and it’s not even that important. The only thing to focus on as an author is the number of reviews you get. Everything else is subjective.

Goodreads reviews tend to be a bit more critical than Amazon reviews. Don’t be surprised if your rating is 1 to 1.5 stars lower on Goodreads than on Amazon. On both platforms, you can mark reviews as “helpful” or “unhelpful.” Asking readers to mark positive reviews as “helpful” influences how Amazon displays reviews in the “top views” section, so it’s a task worth asking folks to do.

When it comes to asking for reviews, keep in mind that not everyone who says they’ll leave a review actually does it. Even on book launch teams, where the whole goal is to get book reviews, you’ll find only about 25% of the members follow through on leaving a public online review of the book.

Why? People get busy, distracted or lose their momentum. Sometimes, they don’t finish the book or don’t like it and are too embarrassed to say anything.

The reason doesn’t matter. Your job is to keep asking.

What Will YOU Do?

Successful authors understand that getting book reviews is an ongoing process. It’s a big mistake to only focus on reviews during your launch period, because your book has a longer shelf life than that. If you want people to continue buying your book, you have to keep asking for reviews.

Think of it from a book buyer’s perspective: Would you rather buy a book that hasn’t been reviewed in the past three years or one that has more recent reviews?

This is why we say getting reviews is a long game. You will get more reviews when you understand the value of reviews on Goodreads and Amazon (so you can communicate that value to others), know the rules for leaving online reviews, leverage your email signature to ask for reviews, consider recruiting a launch team, get creative with your social media promotion and manage your own expectations.

There is no time in the lifespan of your book when reviews won’t be important. Do what you can to make the experience enjoyable and stay consistent.

Tonya Kubo

Social Media Consultant

Tonya Kubo is founder of Team Kubo Community Management. She supports experts, entrepreneurs, and enterprises in developing highly engaged online communities so they can grow their groups and get results without feeling frazzled. See the team in action at tonya.link/group .

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how to get book reviews on goodreads

A powerful element of your book marketing plan should be getting book reviews. It’s not always easy to do, but here are some ideas for how to go about getting them.

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

Book reviews have been around forever. A 9th Century work of Constantinople Photius is composed of 279 reviews of books he read, which makes it the first set of book reviews on record.

Table of Contents: • Book reviews offer social proof • Amazon’s algorithms • Reviewers are influencers • Amazon’s review rules • Cheap fake reviews: A cautionary tale • Paid and unpaid reviews • Who can review your book? • How long do reviews take? • How to find great reviewers • Query package • Other considerations

While authors have what we might call a love/hate relationship with reviews and reviewers, book reviews are incredibly important to your book marketing plan, which should also include:

  • distribution
  • metadata optimization
  • an author platform
  • author website
  • Twitter and other social media profiles
  • your own blog
  • a promotional budget

Book reviews offer social proof

Success begets success, and that’s basically what reviews do, they give you initial success, like priming a pump, but I like a much more recent term to describe what reviews provide: social proof.

So, yes, this is pretty basic stuff — you get a lot of reviews, you appear to be popular, it’s human nature that other people will be curious: “Oh, this book has a lot of reviews, I’ve got to check it out.”

This can lead to a snowball effect, even if they aren’t all five-star reviews.

Amazon’s algorithms

Amazon recognizes how important reviews are and they have brand-new, sophisticated algorithms that look for the number of reviews a book has and what the ratings are, and a large number of good reviews is going to bring you up in the rankings. So it’s not just about these reviews appearing on your book’s page, Amazon will help by putting your book in front of readers as you get more positive reviews.

And it’s not just individual readers. Book clubs, bookstores, blogging communities, even filmmakers looking to option books might take notice. So reviews can drive awareness, and it’s more than just making sure you have some nice things posted about your book.

Though, don’t forget, word of mouth is the greatest form of marketing.

Reviewers are influencers

85 percent of the books sold these days are selling through Amazon and other online portals, so getting validated by influencers/reviewers becomes increasingly important. So I advise that you spend some time and effort — and maybe even some money — to get reviews to start the ball rolling.

I encourage you to start by making a “review ask list” and spend 30-60 minutes a day trying to solicit reviewers. So, who’s on the list?

  • Your buddy Mike
  • An army of cheap fake reviewers
  • Legit paid reviewers
  • Other Amazon reviewers
  • Complete strangers who I persuade to review the book

Amazon’s review rules

Looks good, except that Amazon has new and constantly changing rules in place, including this really important bit straight from Amazon’s community rules:

We don’t allow individuals who share a household with the author or close friends to write Customer Reviews for that author’s book.

This means Amazon is going to take a hard look at all of your reviews. I believe they know who you’re sending gifts to at Christmas — they look at your address list — so if you sent your buddy Mike a Christmas gift last year, even if he lives on the other side of the country, and you ask Mike for a review, it’s probably not going to be accepted by Amazon because his name and contact information are in your address book.

And this might hang up your other reviews, as you’ll draw more scrutiny. Even reviews that are legit will be looked at sideways.

So pay attention and review Amazon’s community guidelines before you do any serious work looking for reviews.

Cheap fake reviews: A cautionary tale

If you’re thinking you can get a bunch of cheap reviews and flood your Amazon page with them, let me tell you a story about an indie author named John Locke . About 10 years ago, he launched a self-publishing career. He had a very slow start, he self-published a few books, then all of a sudden his sales went crazy. He had four titles in the Top 10 Best-Sellers, he sold over a million eBook copies of his nine Donovan Creed novels, and he was celebrated by the publishing industry as the first self-published author to really achieve a high level of success.

Free guide offer for Promote Then Publish

The New York Times published an article in 2012, “The Best Book Reviews Money Can Buy,” and cited John Locke as example. Turns out, he used a website called “Getting Book Reviews,” and for something like $5 each, he bought 300 book reviews that were just completely fake and loaded them onto his Amazon page.

That got the got the algorithm thinking, “Looks like he’s popular,” which caused it to serve his book to more people, which prompted folks to buy his books — and it was all a facade. Then he was vilified by the publishing community, which is when Amazon really went to work to determine which book reviews were legitimate and which weren’t.

Paid and unpaid reviews

Amazon does accept unpaid and paid reviews.

Customer Reviews are written by a reader — someone who ideally bought the book and who assigns a number of stars (1–5). Most authors are referring to Customer Reviews when they reference “Amazon reviews.”

An Editorial Review is a formal evaluation of a book, usually written by a professional reviewer or expert within a genre. These are also called blurbs, endorsements, and testimonials.

Who can review your book?

Here are four paid services that Amazon recognizes as legitimate:

  • Reader’s Favorite
  • IndieReader

You’re probably going to get a favorable review from all of these sources, but it’s not guaranteed. I know people who’ve gotten bad reviews — these sources really do read the books, and their reviews will end up on the editorial section.

How long do reviews take?

You can expect to wait four to six weeks, though you might be able to expedite them, and the prices range from anywhere from $100–$600.

You can apply for a Publishers Weekly review for free, though there’s fierce competition and no guarantee you’re going to be chosen — though they do hundreds of self-published books every year.

There’s also Book Life, PW ’s side publication, and you can buy a book review from them. It’s completed in about six weeks, it’s about 300 words, written by a qualified reader. That’s all they do, all day long, is read books and write reviews.

How to find great reviewers

Do an internet search for “book reviewer,” or go to Amazon itself and it lists its Top Customer Reviewers. Filter them out for book reviewers, then click on the links to see what they’ve reviewed.

Avid readers actually follow their favorite reviewers. If a reviewer has reviewed five books a reader loves, they’ll start following where the reviewer goes and look to the reviewer to help them discover new books.

Look at the reviewer’s website and read the submission guidelines. All reviewers are different, some want a chapter, a sentence, a few sentences… give them what they want how they want it.

Query package

Compose what I call a query package, which includes a pitch message for the reviewers. Tailor it to make it as personalized as possible.

A sample letter might read:

Hi [Reviewer’s Name]

My name is Steven Spatz, my latest sports thriller, Duck Turns Into A Falcon, was released May 1st through BookBaby. I have attached the cover image.

Here’s a brief synopsis:

[Synopsis of this amazing football redemption story]

I’m currently looking for reviewers and wondered if you’d be interested in receiving an advanced reading copy (ARC) of the book for review. All eBook formats are available.

One nice thing is you can send eBooks out before the actual print books are dropping in your in your pre-sale period.

Other considerations

Know your genre. Don’t waste your time on any reviewer who isn’t experienced in your genre. The more you can narrow down in the niche, the better off you’re going to be.

Get professional editing. I shouldn’t even have to mention this, but if you’ve got an unedited book full of typos, you shouldn’t be talking to reviewers in the first place.

Don’t expect reviewers to pay for their review copy. They’ll give you free publicity, the least you can do is pay for review copies.

This is totally legit for Amazon. Amazon accepts and knows that these reviewers are not buying their books. And remember, these folks are very busy, they get dozens of requests a week, so give them a few weeks before nudging them gently with a reminder.

Send a thank you note. If you get a review, a thank you note is always a good idea.

I would recommend targeting 20 reviewers at a time, wait a week, and then go back in find another 20. If you get two or three of these people interested from each batch of 20, you’d be doing well.

There’s more! Watch the full BookBaby Live presentation.

Not sure if this has helped (I don’t look at my reviews! lol) but in each book I sell or give out I place a small note thanking the reader for reading it and telling how important reviews are to authors, plus my email and my website addresses. I also belong to a large authors’ group and asked if anyone would be willing to read my latest novella and post a review. I got three 5 STAR REVIEWS from that. Or so I’m told. I still haven’t read them.

Great read. Definitely some good advice

I don’t have money but I need the book

Offer to review it for a free copy!

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how to get book reviews on goodreads

how to get book reviews on goodreads

How to Get Goodreads Reviews?

How to get Goodreads Reviews

Dear author, have you finished writing a book? Your publisher might have told you that the book will be listed on Goodreads very soon. And then what? Will you see reviews automatically? Well, if you are a bestselling author already, readers might be waiting for your book and they will review it once they read. However, if you are a debut author or an author without the fortune of fame, you might not see reviews on your book automatically. For that, you will have to reach the readers and encourage them to review your book on Goodreads. Well, do you have the time to do that? Do you have the time to promote your book? Most of the authors do not have the time to do promotions as they are mostly busy in writing. So, what’s the way out? How can you get reviews on your book listed on Goodreads? Can someone help? BookBoys PR is there to help you out. We will find the readers who will not only read your book but also offer their comments – the book reviews.

Do Goodreads book reviews matter? Very much! The reviews on Goodreads are the mirror that the readers hold in front of the authors. Goodreads is not a platform that sells the book; it’s a platform that recommends the book and your book is likely to be recommended if it has unbiased, positive-negative mix, and objective as well as a few in-depth reviews. A book with 100 reviews will attract more readers than a book with 8-10 reviews; this is a common point to understand. So, the conclusion is – review counts on a book listed on Goodreads matters a lot.

Now, how to get Goodreads reviews? As an author, you can directly approach the readers on Goodreads and ask them to review your book. However, why will someone bother to review your book? For that, you can offer the readers a free copy of your book to be reviewed. This encouragement might work at times. Nevertheless, as your reach on Goodreads might be narrow and you cannot spend so much of time reaching to the readers individually, you will be tired after a certain period of time. In this case, you can leave all the responsibilities on us – the BookBoys PR team. We will give your book the necessary exposure; we will find the right audience for your book; we will work our best to request the readers to leave a comment after they finish reading your book.

Are reviews that we get for your book ethical? A very important question, if the same is arising in your mind too. Let us assure you that all our practices on BookBoys PR are purely ethical, legal and very well-executed. You will see the impact and reach of your book spreading more and more as we work on your book’s recognition on the internet. We have been working with the authors for a long time and we are a registered (according to the MCA Company Incorporation Guidelines) book and author promotion company. With us, you can be assured of the best practices for your benefits!

How can we start on this? Not only on Goodreads, but we also provide a number of other services to ensure that the authors and their books get the due recognition and sales for the hard work that they have done in writing their books. You can get in touch with us to understand the various campaigns and promotional activities through which we can ensure the sales and the ranks of your book(s) increase. We are always proud of working with deserving authors and publishers!

Get in touch with BookBoys PR Team: [email protected] +91 7004831594 +91 9709949971 (Alok Mishra, founder & Chief of Strategy)

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10 of the Best Goodreads Reviewers to Follow

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Clare Barnett

Clare Barnett lives in Richmond, Virginia, with her husband and daughter. She delves into all genres but has a soft spot for fantasy, mystery, and memoir. When she’s not working her way through her to-read list, she’s reading and writing about bookish things. Twitter: @clarebar. Inquiries: [email protected].

View All posts by Clare Barnett

Like every other social platform, Goodreads has its power users. What to call the reviewers who have thousands of followers and review hundreds of books a year? Influencers? Power reviewers? Hot critics? Whatever you call them, the best Goodreads reviewers are a goldmine for of-the-moment book reviews. I’ve made a list of 10 of the best Goodreads reviewers to turn to for insightful reviews, but there are hundreds more worth following. Consider this a sampling of the interesting and diverse voices that can help inform your reading choices.

How I Picked the Best Goodreads Reviewers

Goodreads has “ Top 99” lists for “most popular reviewers” (i.e., most liked reviews), “most followed reviewers,” and “top reviewers” (most books reviewed), tracked by week, year, or all-time. A number of my picks on the “most popular” reviewer list, but some are more under the radar. My criteria were: reviewers who read a lot of books, read a diverse list, regularly post reviews, and have insightful takes on what they read. All the reviews have at least around 1,000 followers and some have almost 300,000.

Pro Tip: To see how these top Goodreads reviewers’ tastes compare to your own, you can use the “Compare Books” feature (check this explainer here ) to see how your tastes overlap. Also, don’t look at any of these reviewers’ annual reading challenges unless you want to feel like an under-achieving, book-loving sloth.

Here are 10 of the best Goodreads reviewers. Happy reading!

10 Top Goodreads Reviewers

GR World Popularity Rank: #19. Many authors will not rate other writers’ books on Goodreads as part of some professional code. Thankfully for us, the brilliant Roxane Gay brings her insight and critique to reviews of recent releases. Well known for her own books like Hunger , Roxane’s reviews are concise and balanced. A must follow for those into contemporary fiction.

GR World Popularity Rank: #1. Emily May just might be the unofficial Queen of Goodreads. Ranked #1 in the world for most-liked reviews, Emily May is a UK-based reviewer with eclectic tastes, reviewing new releases as well as classics. While some reviewers are popular for their (sometimes very funny) negativity, Emily May’s reviews are thoughtful and fair, and with some depth at around 300+ words per review. May is also active on bookstagram .

Monte Price

Unranked. Monte’s reviews are insightful and funny, covering queer romance, YA and adult fantasy, and bookclub fiction. In a recent review, he compares Maggie Shipstead’s The Great Circle to Twilight . If that’s your jam, follow Monte, and check out his booktube channel too.

GR World Popularity Rank: #5. A reader based in Seattle, Yun reviews a wide range of recent fiction, with detailed takes about her reading experience and some humor thrown in. Also, she has a very fair star rating system. Find her on Goodreads or her blog, Miss Readaroo .

Unranked. Thomas lists his interests as “Reading, Writing, Psychology, Mental Health, Feminism” and his “read” shelf checks out. He brings interesting takes to a wide range of nonfiction, memoir, essays, as well as recent fiction releases. He writes thoughtfully about mental health and underrepresentation of queer people and people of color both in his reviews and in his blog, The Quiet Voice .

Je nny Lawson

GR United States Rank #100. Jenny Lawson, very funny essayist, is also a prolific GR reviewer, particularly of graphic novels. Her reviews are concise and have fewer jokes than you’d expect from the author of Furiously Happy , but she’s fair and consistent.

GR World Popularity Rank: #14. Another UK-based reader, Paromjit reads a massive number of books, mostly new releases. Her current goal counter says 226 for the year. The reviewer strikes a great balance between revealing a glimpse of plot and offering a fresh perspective on the book.

Unranked. Carol. reviews mainly sci-fi, fantasy, and mystery. She sometimes brings the snark, but her reviews are always interesting and full of choice quotes. Unlike a lot of popular reviewers, she says she’s not interested in advanced reader copies. You can find more of her reviews at her blog, book reviews forevermore .

GR World Popularity Rank: #16. The reaction-gif book review is a high art on Goodreads, and Anne does it well. Her tastes are eclectic, ranging from the Spider Man comics to Julia Quinn’s Regency romance. If you need more gifs in your life, follow Anne.

GR World Popularity Rank #57: Emma is popular, scathing at times, and usually pretty witty. Her favorite genre is “literary fiction about horrible women,” but she reads widely. She also reads a ton of advanced reader copies (ARCs) so she’s a good go to for new and upcoming fiction with a literary fit. Emma also has a blog, Emma Reads Too Much .

For more on Goodreads check out The Most Popular Books on Goodreads Right Now.

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“Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter.”

It sounded like a piece of refrigerator poetry suddenly ringing out in the wood-paneled Hart Senate Office Building: Christine Blasey Ford’s distinctive phrase describing her memory of being assaulted at 15 by Brett Kavanaugh, two years older, while his friend watched. (Kavanaugh, seeking confirmation to the Supreme Court, less poetically but “ categorically and unequivocally ” denied he had done any such thing, brandishing old calendars as an alibi.)

Published more than five years after her 2018 congressional testimony, Blasey Ford’s new memoir, “One Way Back,” is an important entry into the public record — a lucid if belated retort to Senator Chuck Grassley’s 414-page, maddening memo on the investigation — but a prosaic one. A Big Book like this has become the final step in the dizzying if wearily familiar passage through the American media wringer: once called a “ spin cycle ,” now more like a clown car going through the wash tunnel.

Blasey Ford is a research psychologist, professor and devotee of surfing, who leans heavily on the sport as a metaphor for her ordeal. “You made me paddle out,” she tells her lawyers at one point, when they are advising her not to testify after weeks of preparation. “And you never, ever paddle back in once you’re out there. You catch the wave. You wipe out if you have to.”

She explains the difference between a beach break (“a quick, rough ride”) and a point break (“slow, unfurling”), and offers deep thoughts on kelp, the marine organism that can be both nuisance and nurturer to humans in the swells. (“The same thing that can move you back can also move you forward. I’d just have to hope for high tide.”) Coloring the underside of her hair blue to mark summer vacations from her teaching job, Blasey Ford even unwittingly presaged mermaidcore .

“One Way Back” — that is, to some sort of shore — is a story of swimming away from the Eastern power establishment and then being sucked inexorably anew into its undertow. Living in country-clubbish suburban Washington, D.C., but lacking college degrees, Blasey Ford’s parents vowed to give their three children premium educations.

Christine, the youngest, attended the all-girls Holton-Arms in Bethesda, in social circles concentric with Kavanaugh, a student at the all-boys Georgetown Prep. She enjoyed reading “The Great Gatsby” as commentary on her circumstances, but even more “Mutiny on the Bounty,” which vividly rendered escape from a clear social hierarchy.

It was, she writes, “the height of an early ’80s John Hughes era that glamorized a hypersexualized, debauched high school party scene as depicted in movies like ‘The Breakfast Club’ and ‘Sixteen Candles,’” and it was in such a boys-will-be-boys milieu that she tells of being attacked, with no apparent avenue for recourse.

The assailant’s suffocating hand over her mouth, attempting to mute her screams, is one terrible detail that lingers; along with the bathing suit under her clothes that impeded their forcible removal. “Perhaps it’s kind of like my armor,” she writes of continuing to layer like this in her adult summers.

Blasey Ford never wavers from her certainty that it was the young Kavanaugh looming over her in that room, but she doesn’t seem hellbent on bringing him down. As she mulled going public, “If he’d come to me, really leveled with me, and said, ‘I don’t remember this happening, but it might have, and I’m so sorry,’ it might have been a significant, therapeutic moment for survivors in general,” she writes. “I might have wobbled a bit. I might have thought, ‘You know, he was a jackass in high school, but now he’s not.’”

Reading this narrative crowded with “teams” — high-powered lawyers, politicians, public-relations people and, yes, journalists, including a couple from this news organization — one indeed longs for and is denied such a quiet, human, adult scene of confrontation and forgiveness. (One also longs for more about Mark Judge, the buddy of Kavanaugh’s who Blasey Ford said was in the room that fateful night; he remained elusive in the proceedings despite talk of a subpoena, publishing “The Devil’s Triangle: Mark Judge vs. the New American Stasi” in 2022.)

Instead, we got a noisy, sped-up sequel to the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas saga , with a similar conclusion: a man on the Supreme Court changing the law of the land, a woman from his past consigned to historical footnote.

Blasey Ford suffered from her testimony, forced to sequester in hotel rooms with her family, guarded by expensive security. After it’s over, there’s prolonged PTSD: hunkering down under a fuzzy gray blanket, unable for a while to return to her regular professional life. (“Twenty-five years does a lot,” Hill tells her, about getting back to normal.)

“It felt like a sentencing,” Blasey Ford writes of her moment in the floodlights. “I suppose this book is my way of breaking free,” she muses — yet the publicity for it will, of course, invite more abuse.

There are some perks from being in the public eye. Blasey Ford is served bisque by Laurene Powell Jobs, sleeps over at Oprah Winfrey’s house, goes backstage at a Metallica concert. Her sons get the actual shirt off Steph Curry’s back at a Golden State Warriors game.

Vicious and violent hate mail is outweighed by letters from supporters and fellow survivors, and Blasey Ford expects to donate them, piling up on her dining room table, to an archive or museum. She used to dive at the pool; now she has a figurative platform, to use when she chooses. There are grants in her name at prestigious institutions.

Blasey Ford is incredibly forgiving of her old-school Republican father, who seems to value propriety — including, ouch, cordially emailing Kavanaugh’s dad after the confirmation — over defending his daughter’s experience. She slips in, double ouch, that her older brothers haven’t been much in touch since this all happened.

Though her signature phrase was mined for a McSweeney’s anthology of #MeToo writings , Blasey Ford is not a poet, after all, but a scientist, and the mess of fact and fiction about her case rankled on a cellular level. “I could see it, the riptide where the truth and narrative were mixing, creating a building current,” she writes, persisting with the ocean conceit. “Overnight, the small but noticeable divide between truth and news turned into a gulf.”

To her credit, you never really feel you’re drowning, reading “One Way Back.” But boy do you long for a nice hot shower afterward.

ONE WAY BACK : A Memoir | By Christine Blasey Ford | St. Martin’s | 298 pp. | $29

Alexandra Jacobs is a Times book critic and occasional features writer. She joined The Times in 2010. More about Alexandra Jacobs

How can I find a list of all of my reviews?

Oct 19, 2020 • knowledge, information.

You can find a list of your text reviews by visiting your profile page when on the desktop site and clicking the link beneath your photo. The link will read as ' x reviews ' , where x is the number of reviews you've written.

You can also view a list of all your reviews currently in draft form by clicking  Review Drafts  on the left-hand side of your  My Books  page on the desktop site. This list is also accessible from the mobile website by tapping  Review Drafts  under  Your Reading Activity  on the  My Books  page. Review drafts are not yet available from the apps, but we'd love to add them at some point!

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  22. How can I find a list of all of my reviews?

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