While you must spend money with Amazon in order to leave a review of a book, that’s not the case with Goodreads! Not only that but it’s a handy place to keep a list of the books you read.
During a writing workshop, one instructor encouraged the habit of writing reviews. I don’t write long ones but, especially if the book is by a local or indie author, I make sure to encourage them with a response to their work.
It’s also easy to keep a list of books you’ve read.
Goodreads is “an American social cataloging website. . . that allows individuals to search its database of books, annotations, quotes, and reviews. Users can sign up and register books to generate library catalogs and reading lists.”
Here’s how to write a book review on the Goodreads desktop site:
- Navigate to the page of the book you’d like to review (you can find it by using the search bar in the header).
- Underneath the book’s cover image, hover over the stars until the desired number of stars is highlighted, then click on them to rate the book.
- A pop-up menu will appear above the stars. Click on the Write a review text.
- Enter your review on the following page, and click on Save to submit.
You may even follow your favorite authors on Goodreads.
Try it out. You just might enjoy it.
I signed up, but the emails I get from them seemed entirely geared toward fiction. I do read fiction, but it’s nonfiction that I’m more interested in.
I don’t read much fiction either. I guess I ignore their emails! I keep a list of what I’ve read in a diary, but I’ve discovered it’s easier to find my list on Goodreads, and even retrieve what I wrote about it. You can keep track of the date you finished as well. It’s more useful than Amazon or BookBub that way.
Goodreads has gained a somewhat bad reputation because of trolls. However, I’ve never seen any of that when I read reviews posted there.
I’m also on BookBub, which is the easiest one to share a review on Twitter, but not all authors post their books on it. The one I just finished, about a small-town doctor during the 1918 pandemic, wasn’t on BookBub.
I’d encourage any author to post their books on BookBub. If the book is listed, I’ll post my review there, as well as Goodreads and Amazon.
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