Help > Author Program
The Goodreads Author Program is designed for published authors to have a presence on Goodreads. Goodreads Authors can connect with fans, list giveaways, 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 a title or ISBN search, you can manually add your books to Goodreads here.
Please note that you’ll be required to have an account which is at least 1 day old and a verified email address. If you've just joined the site, please contact us at support (at) goodreads (dot) com – 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.
Signing up for the Author Program is easy – here's how:
- If you are already a Goodreads member, make sure you are signed into the desktop site. If not, sign up for an account
- Search for your pen name 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.
- Clicking on your name takes you to your basic author page, which will have your name at the top. 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.
- 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 for sale or pre-order on a bookseller's website, such as Amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com. However, we will accept any author who has published a book. This includes international authors, as well as self-published authors.
If your book is not yet in the Goodreads database, you may manually add it here. If you need assistance adding your book, please post your request 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 in both your author profile settings and your member Account Settings.
You can edit your author profile information by clicking on edit author profile next to your author name. Clear your birthday and click on save at the bottom of the page.
To edit your user settings on the desktop site, click on your profile picture and select Account Settings. Navigate through your settings page, and click on edit my user profile above your picture. On your Profile tab, set your birthdate to blank, then click on Save profile settings at the bottom of the page. On mobile, navigate to your settings from the hamburger menu and select Profile. Scroll down to Birthday to clear your dates, then tap Save to update your changes.
For more advice and tips for authors, read our Authors & Advertisers Blog.
Unfortunately, we are not currently set up to accommodate multiple pen names – each member 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 author page. If you'd like to do this, please contact Support with your chosen name and 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 while you maintain full access to both of them. To sign up for a new account, log out of your current account, click Goodreads Home, and choose the sign up option on 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 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. You can learn more about this here.
Ask the Author, which is 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 on all your followers' newsfeeds and the reader who asked the question will be notified on Goodreads and via 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 the steps below.
- Navigate to the page of the video you'd like to add
- Copy the video URL from your browser
- On Goodreads, navigate to the author profile that relates to your video
- On the left side, you'll see a Videos section. Click add new on the right side of that header
- Paste the code into the video URL box.
- Enter any extra information 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's 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's page and click on the edit details link. This is on the lower right side of the box containing your book information.
TitleThe 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. 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 the format below.
Title (Series, #1)
The White Queen (The Cousins’ War, #1)
However, to create a new series or edit an existing series, 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.
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
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, and so on, 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.
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 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.
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 your book's page and click on Add an Alternate Cover Edition. This will transfer all information from the existing edition over to the newly created edition, excluding only the publication date and cover. It also removes the ASIN/ISBN from the old edition and adds it to the new edition. A Librarian Note is added to both editions. You will then need to add the new publication date and cover to the new edition, and save.
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.
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.
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.
In this field the binding type of the book can be added, such as 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. However, in most cases, we should have your format available to select right in the dropdown menu.
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.
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.
The primary or default edition of a work is automatically set as the one that has been shelved, rated or 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 also 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.
Clicking this link will recalculate the statistics for your book. This is helpful to do if you notice the statistics don’t seem right, which occurs occasionally due to book page caching.
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. We want authors on the site to have a great experience, so we recommend first reading the Author Guidelines, which have some suggestions of what to do and how to avoid common pitfalls.
Here are some things you can do to interact with the people who are reading your books:
The Ask the Author feature 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.
Groups are good places to meet readers with similar taste. However, they're not a great place to promote your book, so be sure to read the rules of the group you're joining to see if they have a special self-promotional section for authors.
Write great reviews! This is why people come to Goodreads – 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 a Goodreads 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 can I edit my books on Goodreads?
- Author Guidelines
You can also find interesting 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. We do allow giveaways for previously published books as well, so feel free to list a giveaway if you'd like to keep the momentum going for an older title.
2. Give away as many books as you can
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, up to 100.
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. 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 on your external blog or website to alert visitors to 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 website.
- Share on Twitter. Suggested tweets, such as I’m giving away X copies of my book [title] Enter by [this date] for a chance to win! [insert short URL], might provide you with an increased number of entrants. Also, adding hashtags such as #giveaway #free #win #book #goodreads, has proven to be a successful strategy.
- Tell your fans via your Goodreads blog. Be sure to include a direct link.
- Include giveaway info in your personal newsletter, if you have one. Please note that we do not require readers to post reviews, and we strongly discourage authors from contacting winners. Please see our Author Guidelines for additional information for interacting with members on Goodreads.
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 are valuable because they drive awareness and interest in your book with our community of millions of readers. To create a giveaway, click here. Be sure to check out our giveaway best-practices.
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. Avoid sending people private messages about your books, or joining multiple groups 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?
Are you missing some of the books you've written, or are there books that you didn't write, 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. One of our volunteers will be happy to help
- 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@goodreads.com in these cases.
- 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, as shown in the image below, and then uploading your cover image 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 on your reader's feed, just like any other author's response.
Of course! Authors can often provide tremendous insight into another author's work. However, 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 also welcome to answer questions in Reader Q&A.
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 your readers' questions, 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. However, 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, you don't. 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 omit questions you'd prefer not to answer.
Here are some examples of questions you should probably exclude:
- 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?
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.
Here's how to set the default edition for a work:
- Navigate to the book's page. Be sure you have selected the edition you wish to become the default, or primary edition.
- Click edit details below the book's description.
- 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.
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 spaces 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 spaces.
Post in the Goodreads Librarians Group and a librarian will edit your book to match your profile.
