Social Networking – Page 2

Last month, I put up a post about various links to people “talking” about social networking. Included in the list was Martha Engber’s post about GoodReads, which included a brief discussion on how authors can use the site to market their books.

Right after I blogged about this, I signed up for GoodReads. (You can see the button to my GoodReads page over there on the right–it took me WAY longer to add that button than to complete my GR profile, BTW!) I admit, signing up was, for me, sort of an exploratory mission. I’ve never been one to catalog my books in any ways, and I was just stepping out of a review job and was looking forward to NOT writing up my opinions for a while.

Well, of course, I found myself having fun. I do like listing the books I’m reading, and I like checking out the updates I get about my Friends. I haven’t started using the site as a source for my own to-read list, but that may be because I’m knee shoulder deep in reading research books for The Critiquer’s Survival Guide right now.

The other thing I haven’t yet dug into is the marketing/promotion aspects of the site that Martha talks about. I’m curious, though, so I spent a little time today browsing the web to see what other people think about GoodReads. The overall consensus seems to be that it’s a wonderful sort-of online book group, but there isn’t that much talk out there about using it as an author, not just a reader.

I did find a few links, in addition to Martha’s, for you to check out.

Scott Gilbertson gives a nice description of the overall site:
http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2007/09/goodreads-flick.html
Emilee Newman Bowles at Ink & Paper Group gives a brief summary of features for authors:
http://inkandpapergroup.com/2008/07/goodreads-for-savvy-authors/
This review by Lisa Ruefenacht probably goes into the most detail about how an author can use the site:
http://www.smartdevicecentral.com/article/Site+of+the+Week+Goodreads/210703_1.aspx

I also took a first step and browsed the GoodReads Help pages for info about the author’s program. The best thing I saw is that, yes, it’s free to set up your own page, if you’re a published author. Always a nice feature. You can list all your books (or just the ONE that’s coming out next fall!), put up an excerpt of your writing, add y our schedule of events, and run book giveaways.

Here are a few links to GoodReads information about how authors can use their site:

The Author Program
http://www.goodreads.com/author/program
First Reads: The Book Giveaway program
http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway
Interviews with GoodReads authors:
http://www.goodreads.com/interviews
Q&A sessions with GoodReads authors:
http://www.goodreads.com/author/featured_groups

Finally, just so you can take a look at a “final” product, here’s the GoodReads Author page of one of my favorite mystery writers, Dana Stabenow.

Are you on GoodReads? How do you use it–for fun as a reader, or promotion as a writer? (Or both?) Or do you belong to one of the other book-based social networking sites–LibraryThing or Shelfari? What do you think of them? I’d love to hear your take on these sites in the comments!

One of the very cool things about writing my critique book for Writer’s Digest is the timing. They’re doing a lot of reorganizing, shifting themselves–as I understand it–from several distinct businesses into one integrated community. I think I, and the book, are going to benefit greatly from this, not to mention having a fun ride along the way.

The whole online community thing is an amazing tool or toy, depending on how you look at it or how much you know about it. I feel as though I’m walking into a giant ocean, putting each foot down ahead of me very carefully, to see how deep I’m getting and to identify what’s actually swimming around out there. I know I can avoid the sharks, and I’m kind of excited that I might get to see some of those bright, colorful fish that hang out in the coral.

In other words, I’m still learning!

So I thought I’d post a few links today to help you dip your own toes in. See what you think. And throw some of your theories, hopes, and worries about social networking into the comments!

This first one’s a bit intense, with a bit of a 1984/Big Brother feel to it, and the participants throwing around a lot of jargon and TLAs (Three-Letter Acronyms). But if you substitute “I” for “We” and pretend their talking about individual writers instead of big corporations…well, there’s some interesting stuff. Thanks to Jane Friedman for the link.

http://www.foliomag.com/video/folio-roundtable

Martha Engber was doing a little research on Good Reads, which I’ve been wondering about lately. She’s got a good summary of how it works for marketing, as well as finding great book recommendations.

http://marthaengber.blogspot.com/2008/11/goodreads-offers-good-reads.html

Mary Hershey and Robin LaFevers always have great info at their Shrinking Violet Promotions blog. In this post, they “reprint” Robyn Schneider’s “Facebook: A Guide for Authors.”

http://shrinkingvioletpromotions.blogspot.com/2008/01/more-marketing-tasks-facebook.html

And Michelle Rafter has a post about how freelance writers can work with LinkedIn.

http://michellerafter.wordpress.com/2007/12/07/how-writers-can-use-linkedin/

Enjoy!