Help > Author Program
The Goodreads Author Program is designed for published authors to have a presence on Goodreads. Goodreads Authors can connect with fans, add excerpts of their writing, post upcoming events, and add photos and videos of themselves.
In order to join our Author Program, you must have your books listed on Goodreads. If you can't find them by an ISBN search, you must manually add your books to Goodreads (advanced search => manually add). This option is only available to those with 20 books or more shelved. If you don't have enough books, please contact us in support and we'd be happy to help.
Deleting published books from our system is against policy. Goodreads is striving to be a complete database of all published works, including works that are out-of-print. We like our members to be able to add their exact edition to their virtual shelves. Just as a library would not remove a record from its catalog, so do we not remove books from our database.
However, if your book was never published and never will be published, we might be able to remove it. Please contact us.
1. If you are already a Goodreads member, make sure you are signed in. If not, sign up for an account.
2. Search for yourself and click on your published author name. The author name is listed below the title of your book in the search results. If you do not find your book in our database of published works, please see our section on who can join.
3. Clicking on your name takes you to your basic author profile page. This page has your name at the top and "author profile" to the right of your name. This page is part of our database of books and authors and is separate from your member profile page (which lists your bookshelves and friends).
4. Scroll down to the bottom of the page. Click "Is this you? Let us know." to send a request to join the Author Program.
Please give us a few business days to process your request. You will receive email confirmation when we successfully upgrade your user account to an author account. Joining the program merges your author page with your member page. The email will also contain further instructions for managing your author profile.
Find more advice and tips for authors on the Authors & Advertisers Blog.
The Author Program is designed for people with published books, or who are in the process of publishing a book. It's best if your work is on a bookseller's website, such as Amazon.com or BN.com, but we will accept any author who has published a book. This includes authors from other countries as well as authors who are self-published (such as through Barnes & Noble pubit! or services like Lulu).
If your book is not yet in the Goodreads database, you may manually add it here. If you need assistance adding your book, please ask in the Goodreads Librarians group, where our army of volunteer librarians will be happy to help.
If you need help joining the Author Program, visit our help topic.
If you have a Goodreads Author profile, you have to set your birthday to blank on both your author profile settings and your personal profile settings.
You can find your author profile settings by clicking "edit data" underneath the bio on your profile.
You can find your personal profile settings by clicking on the arrow next to your profile picture in the header and selecting "edit profile".
For more advice and tips for giveaways, read our Authors & Advertisers Blog.
Unfortunately, we are not currently set up to accommodate multiple pen names - each user profile can only be attached to one author profile at a time.
However, we can add one common name of your choosing to each book published under each of your other pen names. This would automatically bring together all of your titles on your profile page. If author aliases are enabled in the future, we can then change these titles to the more accurate information. If you'd like to do this, please contact Support with the request.
Alternatively, you can create a separate user profile for your pen name (by signing up for a new account using a different email address) and we can simply keep the two profiles separate until we can merge them properly. To sign up for a new account, log out of your current account and click "register" on the top right of the header.
Ask the Author is open to all members of the Goodreads Author program. If you are already a Goodreads Author, visit your author dashboard to turn on the feature. You can turn on the feature for a limited time (a few days that you can promote as an event) or you can leave it on for longer. We recommend that you only keep it on if you are open and available for answering questions. Otherwise, you should turn the feature off when you are going to be focused on other activities. (See here how to do this.)
Ask the Author, part of Goodreads Q&A;, is a fun, easy way to interact with your readers that allows you to answer questions from Goodreads members right from your author dashboard. The questions you choose to answer will appear in the newsfeeds of all of your followers and the reader who asked the question will be notified on Goodreads and by email. Some of your most recent answers will live on your profile page, and readers can also view a page of all the questions you’ve answered in the past. It’s a great way to create an ongoing, living archive of interesting interactions with your fans that everyone can enjoy.
Here are some of the authors taking questions on Goodreads right now!
You can opt out of answering questions by going to your author dashboard and changing the toggle in the Ask the Author section from “On” to “Off.” This will immediately stop the flow of new questions. Any questions already on your author dashboard will remain for you to answer, should you choose to do so. If you choose to accept new questions at a future date, simply go to your author dashboard and enable the feature again.
Go to your Author Dashboard and change the toggle in the Ask the Author section from “Off” to “On.” This will activate the Ask the Author section on your author profile, allowing readers to ask you questions. It’s a good idea to add a personal message letting fans know when or for how long you will be available.
You can add a video to an author profile as long as it's hosted on YouTube.com or Livestream.com.
To upload a video, follow these steps:
1. Navigate to the page of the video you'd like to add.
2. Copy the video URL. Usually, you can do this by right-clicking the video player and selecting "Copy URL."
3. On Goodreads, navigate to the author profile that relates to your video.
4. On the left side, you'll see a "Videos" section. Click "add new" on the right side of that header.
5. Paste the code into the "video URL" box.
6. Enter any extra information (title, description, etc) and save.
As a Goodreads Author, you have the ability to manage much of your own book data. This guide will show you the right information to put in each field of your book page. For more information about each field listed below, click on the links to be taken to the Librarian Manual.
Please remember to be accurate in your edits! If you’re concerned about particular edits made to your book, please contact the Goodreads support staff here.
To edit your book, navigate to the book page and click on the “edit data” link. This is on the lower right side of the box containing your book information.
title
The title field is used for your book title. The title and subtitle should match the title shown on the cover of the book, if that information is available. (Please note that “A Novel” is not considered a subtitle in the Goodreads database.) If a title includes accented characters, apostrophes, quotation marks, or punctuation, include these in the title field. The title should be capitalized according to standard title capitalization for the language of the edition.
Series information may be included in the title field as well, so feel free to add your series title in. You should follow this format:
Title (Series, #1)
The White Queen (The Cousins’ War, #1)
However, to create a new series or edit an existing series (which will then appear on your author profile under “Series by”), you’ll need help from one of our volunteer librarians or a staff member. Post in the Goodreads Librarians Group here or reach out to the Goodreads support staff here.
sort by title
This field excludes articles like “A,” “An,” and “The” so that users can sort their list of books alphabetically on their shelves. To enter your sort by title, just leave out any articles at the beginning of your title. Here's an example:
title: The Lawman
sort by title: lawman, the
author
The first author field is for entering the primary author of the book. Author names should be entered first name last name so they will link to the appropriate author profile on Goodreads. Only one author should be listed per author field.
Correct examples:
Suzanne Brockmann
Catherine Anderson
Incorrect examples:
Brockmann, Suzanne
Anderson Catherine
Suzanne Brockmann and Catherine Anderson
If you use initials in your name, the initials should not contain spacing between them and should be marked with a period.
Correct example:
J.D. Robb
Incorrect examples:
JD Robb
J D Robb
J. D. Robb
J D R o b b
If you use a middle name or middle initial for your published books, this should also be included in the author name. Initials should be followed by a period.
Correct example:
Jayne Ann Krentz
Kathleen E. Woodiwiss
Authors with titles or degrees (such as Dr., Sir, Ph.D., Captain, Reverend, etc) should not be included in the author name (unless part of a recognized pen name, such as Dr. Seuss).
When a book has multiple authors, they should be listed according to the order they show on the cover, if possible. The order needs to be the same for all editions of the book on the site, as this allows the editions to be combined.
Editors should only be added for records like anthologies and reference materials. Novels and other works of fiction by a single author should not have editors listed.
isbn/isbn13/asin
An ISBN or ASIN is a number that identifies your book. When editing book data, it is almost never necessary to alter the ISBN. This should only be done if you are absolutely, positively sure there is an error in the listed ISBN. If you are unsure, you can post to the Goodreads Librarians Group for assistance.
This field will mostly be used when manually adding a new edition to the Goodreads database. When doing this, enter the exact ISBN/ASIN into the appropriate field.
upload photo
Here you can upload the front cover image of your book. The only image that should be uploaded is the specific cover associated with the ISBN of the book you are editing.
To add a photo, browse an image (.jpg or .gif format) on the top right where it says "Add a cover image for this book." Then click on "upload photo." If you are adding other book data while adding the cover image, just scroll to the bottom of the page and click on "save."
delete photo
When it comes to editions that have already been published, we can’t actually delete or replace the existing cover images. This is because we don’t want to delete an image that a member might have on the book they purchased. Instead, you can create an alternate cover edition and set this as the default edition. That way, anyone visiting your author profile or searching for your book will see this edition first.
To add an alternate cover edition of your book, you can navigate to your book page and click on “add a new edition.” This will prepopulate several fields for you, and you’ll only have to add the cover image. Or you can navigate here here to add a new record of your book and take care of entering the details.
Since an ISBN can only be used once in the database, leave the ISBN fields on your new edition blank. Then in the Description field, list the ISBN of the original cover edition and state that it is an alternate cover edition. You can also use the Librarian Note feature found near the top of the book edit page to attach a note to the book (this helps prevent the book from accidentally being deleted by a librarian who thinks it is an invalid entry).
publisher
In this field, list your book’s publisher, such as Bantam, Jove, Berkley, etc. Be sure to properly spell, punctuate, and capitalize the publisher name - it is not necessary to use ALL CAPS for the publisher name even if that is the way it is written on the spine. Capitalizing the first letter is best. When there is a choice between a publisher and an imprint, the general rule is to choose the most specific rather than more general.
published
This field is for noting the date each specific book edition was published. If you publish a new edition of your book, you should add the new publication date into this field when adding your new edition to the database. The “original publication date” field can be listed with the book’s original pub date. So for example, if you’re publishing a 3rd edition of your book in 2015 that was originally published in 2009, the “original publication date” will be 2009 and the “published” date will be 2015.
number of pages
This field is for entering the number of pages of a book. Page numbers should match the page numbers as listed in the book, and should include all content except for advertisements and preview chapters for other books. Included end material may include acknowledgments, afterwords, appendices, glossaries, indexes, notes, and suggested discussion questions. For audio books, the number of hours rounded up should be used in lieu of number of pages.
format
In this field the format/binding type of the book can be added (hardcover, paperback, Nook, Kindle, etc). The format field has a drop-down box with the most common formats. Select the one that matches the book you have. If there is not an appropriate format, click on the "other" link next to the format field. The field will then turn into a text box where you can type in the format of the book. But in most cases we should have your format available to select right in the dropdown menu.
edition
This field is for such things as "2nd edition", "Film Tie-In Edition", "Large Print", "Special Illustrated Edition" and other edition-specific data that belongs neither in the title nor the format fields.
The following should not be added to the edition field:
* information regarding alternate covers
* information regarding audiobook length
* information regarding cover artists
* information regarding printing number
* retailer-specific information, such as “Nook,” “Kobo,” “Amazon,” etc.
description
The description field is for entering a summary of the work. This field should not include any images, links to external sites, or reviews of your books. Generally, the best description to enter is one found on your book’s back cover or dust jacket. You can also enter descriptions of your book directly from your publisher’s website, or summarize it yourself.
primary (default) edition of a work
The primary (or default) edition of a work is automatically set as the one that has been shelved/rated/reviewed by the most Goodreads users. You can manually set an edition as default by clicking on “Set this book as the primary edition for this work” - you might want to change the default edition if you’ve released your book with a new cover image, or if you’re running a promotion with a specific retailer.
refresh book rating stats
Clicking this link will recalculate the statistics for your book (number of reviews and average rating). This is helpful to do if you notice the statistics don’t seem right, which occurs occasionally due to book page caching.
edition language
This field is for selecting the language for each specific edition of your book. If the book record you’re editing is a German translation of a book originally written in English, the language should be listed as German.
Goodreads is a great place to meet people, see what readers think of your work, and grow your readership. To make sure you have a great Goodreads experience, we recommend first reading the Author Guidelines, which have some suggestions of what to do and how to avoid common pitfalls.
Here are some great things you can do to interact with the people who are reading your books:
* Ask the Author. Ask the Author lets you take questions from readers right from your author profile page. All of the questions are private to you until you choose to answer them, so you control which questions appear on your author profile. To give it a try, go to your author dashboard and scroll down until you see the section marked Ask the Author
* Join groups to meet readers. Groups are good places to meet readers with similar taste. Groups are not a great place to promote your book, though. Be sure to read the rules of the group you're joining to see if they have a special section for authors.
* Write great reviews. This is what people are coming to Goodreads for -- to write reviews and see what their friends are reading. By writing interesting, thoughtful reviews, you'll attract new followers, many of whom will no doubt see that you're an author.
Other topics of interest:
* How to promote your books on Goodreads?
* How can I can I get the correct books on my author profile?
* How to edit your books on Goodreads?
* Author Guidelines
* News and tips on the Authors & Advertisers Blog.
These tips will help you get the most out of your Goodreads giveaway.
1. Plan the giveaway in advance.
The best time to offer a giveaway is before your book comes out, which means you should set up the giveaway to end six weeks prior to the publication date. This allows enough time for winners to read and review your book.
2. Give away as many books as you can afford.
There is no magic number, and one copy is enough to set up a giveaway. But, to generate the most buzz for your title, try to provide as many copies as you can afford. The average 20-copy giveaway in the U.S. attracts 940 entries.
3. Run the giveaway for a month.
Again, there is no magic time frame for a giveaway, but our stats tell us that a month gives more readers the time to discover and enter the giveaway.
4. Verify the giveaway.
Goodreads will send you an e-mail verification immediately after you create the giveaway, and you must click the verification link in order for us to review and approve the giveaway. Use this opportunity to correct any information and understand the terms to which you are agreeing. You will receive a confirmation e-mail once the giveaway has been approved.
5. Promote the giveaway when it starts.
The giveaway will go live on your book’s page on the day that it starts. Be ready!
- Use the giveaway widget to alert visitors to your Web site about the giveaway. From your Author Dashboard, scroll down to the giveaways section and click on the name of the book you are giving away. You should be taken to a page where you will see the code to copy and paste onto your blog or Web site.
- Share on Twitter. Suggested tweet: I’m giving away X copies of my book [title] Enter by [this date] for a chance to win! [insert short URL] Suggested hashtags: #giveaway #free #win #book #goodreads
- Tell your fans via your Goodreads blog. Be sure to include a direct link.
- Include giveaway info in your newsletter. 6. Send books to winners.
Goodreads will notify you when your giveaway is completed, and you are expected to send books to the winners as soon as possible. This prevents readers from sharing their disappointing experience should they not receive the book within a reasonable amount of time.
Please note that we do not require readers to post reviews, and we discourage authors from contacting winners other than sending a book to them. Contacting everyone who entered your giveaway will likely result in your being flagged as a spammer.
7. Do it again.
Giveaways are free, and you can set up as many as you like, even after your book is published.
To create your giveaway, click here.
Find more advice and tips for authors on the Authors & Advertisers Blog.
The Goodreads Author Program offers many features specially designed for authors to promote their books. If you haven't joined already, more information about the program--including how to join--can be found on our Author Program page.
Once you're a Goodreads Author, you have access to several promotional tools to help grow your readership. Here are a few great places to start:
* Run a giveaway. Giveaways offer readers a risk-free chance to try your work. They are free to create, and you can give your book away as many times as you want. To create a giveaway, click here. Be sure to check out our giveaway best-practices, as well.
* Try advertising. Goodreads offers relatively inexpensive advertising to authors. To get started, click here. For help with advertising, click here.
* To make your followers aware of an upcoming release or other news, consider writing a blog post or posting a status update about it. Both will show up in the newsfeed for anyone who follows you.
One thing to avoid when promoting your books -- over-promoting. Don't send people private messages about your books and don't join a bunch of groups just to post about your book.
Other topics of interest:
* How can I can I get the correct books on my author profile?
* How should I interact with readers on Goodreads?
* How to edit your books on Goodreads?
* Author Guidelines
Find more advice and tips for authors on the Authors & Advertisers Blog.
Are you missing some of the books you've written on your author profile? Are there books you didn't write currently on your author profile? Here are the easiest ways to get the right books on your profile:
* Missing books on your author profile? Post about it in the Goodreads Librarians Group providing the information outlined here.
* Wrong book showing up on your author profile? Again, that's a great one for the Librarians group. Start a thread in this section of the Librarians group.
* Two or more versions of the same book showing up on your profile? You can combine those editions. Just follow the steps outlined here.
* The wrong edition of your book is showing up on your profile and in search. You can fix this by making the correct edition the "default" edition. Follow the steps outlined here.
* Want to delete a book entirely from Goodreads? Unfortunately, this isn't something that we'll do. We want to have a complete database of every book ever published, even if the book in question is no longer available. If the book was never published at all, we might be able to help you. We suggest emailing us at support at goodreads.com for cases like that.
* Released a new edition of your book with an updated cover? Unfortunately, we don’t allow the removal or replacement of cover images from the site. Instead, you can create an alternate cover edition with the updated image. Follow the steps outlined here.
* No cover image showing up on your book? You can add one by going to your book page, clicking "edit details" (see the image below) and then uploading your cover image (the space to do so is on the right-hand side of the page). If you have any trouble uploading the cover image for your book, you can start a thread in the "Book Cover Help" section of the Librarians group right here.
Other topics of interest:
* How to promote your books on Goodreads?
* How to interact with readers on Goodreads?
* How to edit your books on Goodreads?
* Author Guidelines
As a Goodreads author, you can combine different editions of your work directly. This ensures all the ratings and reviews show up across all editions.
Just make sure you're combining editions of the same work, and not all your books! For example, combine the paperback and eBook edition, but don't combine Book 1, Book 2, and Book 3 in a series into one work.
If you make a mistake, you'll need to contact a Goodreads librarian to help you out.
No, your answer will appear just like any other reader’s answer.
Of course! Authors can often provide tremendous insight into another author’s work. Please be mindful of our Q&A; guidelines.
We recommend you answer questions that readers ask you directly through Ask the Author, though you are able to answer questions in Reader Q&A; as well.
If you’d like to answer a reader’s question privately, we suggest sending the reader a personal message and then marking the question as “ignore.” Remember, answering a question using the Ask the Author tool will always be shared on your followers’ newsfeeds.
We recommend providing timely answers to questions from your readers, but keep in mind that each answer posts to your followers’ updates feeds. If you answer many questions in a short period of time, you’ll flood your followers’ updates feeds with answer after answer. You may want to try answering two to three questions per day.
If you turn off Ask the Author, your readers will not be able to ask you questions. You can still answer any remaining unanswered questions, even if you aren’t accepting new ones.
Yes, you can ask yourself a question and use the question as a writing prompt. It’s a great way to share something interesting that your readers might not have thought of!
If you’d like to block someone, mouse over his or her name on your author dashboard. A “block user” link will appear. Click that link, and the person will no longer be able to ask you a question or interact directly with you on Goodreads.
If you get asked an inappropriate question, do not respond. You can select “skip” and remove it from your Author Dashboard, or you can bring it to our attention by flagging it. You can also block certain readers from asking you a question. Readers who frequently ask inappropriate questions will no longer be able to use Ask the Author.
No. Remember, all Ask the Author questions are private until you choose to answer them. We recommend giving answers that you think your readers will find interesting. Feel free to ignore questions you’d prefer not to answer.
Here are some examples of questions you should probably ignore:
• Why isn’t your new book available as an ebook?
• Why is your book so expensive?
• Where are you going on your next book tour? (Remember, these questions live on for a long time.)
When a reader submits a question, you will receive an email notification. To answer, go to your Author Dashboard, find the question, and click “Answer.” A text box will open in which you can write your answer. When you’re satisfied with your answer, click “Answer.”
Each answer posts to your fans’ and followers’ newsfeeds for them to see, like, and comment on.
1) Navigate to the book's page. Be sure you have selected the edition you wish to become the default (primary) edition.
2) Click "edit details" below the book's description.
3) On the right side of the page, click "Set this book as the primary edition for this work". It's about midway down the page.
Only Goodreads Authors can set the default edition at this time.
My book has already been added to Goodreads, but it's not showing on my author profile. How do I claim it as the author?For a book to show up on your author profile, the name on the book must match your profile exactly. So a book listed with author John C. Smith won't show up on John Smith's profile. If you are one of several authors with the same name, you may have one or more extra space(s) between your first and last name. They are only visible on edit pages, but any books imported to the database will need to be edited to add the additional space(s). Post in the Goodreads Librarians group and a librarian will edit your book to match your profile.
