Goodreads

[Darkblade]

I was wondering if anyone here was a member of goodreads.com.

It is a fantastic little site that lets you catalogue, rate and review books you have read and from those it gives you suggestions on other books you might like. It also features some pretty nifty social network features that let you compare your taste in books to other members.

My account page is: Michael - Toronto, ON, Canada (426 books)

 

[PlotHolio]

This site is how I find almost all my books now. I find it works rather well.

 

[Black Dragon]

I just became active on Goodreads recently.

Feel free to add me as a friend:

Antonio Del Drago (Author of The Mythic Guide to Characters)

 

[PaulineMRoss]

I was wondering if anyone here was a member of goodreads.com. It is a fantastic little site that lets you catalogue, rate and review books you have read and from those it gives you suggestions on other books you might like. It also features some pretty nifty social network features that let you compare your taste in books to other members.

It's also very welcoming to authors, so long as they participate as readers first, and keep self-promotion to the designated areas. There are plenty of fantasy groups where people discuss favourite books, or have group reads and the like. Every self-publishing author should be there (in my opinion), even if all you do is lurk and see what people like and dislike. And the reviews there are usually a bit more thoughtful than the average Amazon review. You need full body armour for the YA groups, but otherwise folks are friendly

 

[Zero Angel]

Yes, I've been on Goodreads since Pauline added my book there (thanks again by the way)! It was something that was long overdue. Unfortunately, all the groups I join on it tend to be inactive and I never find anywhere interesting to participate.

This is me:
Robby "Zero Angel" Richardson (Author of The Throne of Ao)

Anyone from Mythic Scribes can feel free to add me as a friend as well.

 

[Chilari]

I joined only a few days ago. Rated a load of books and reviewed Prince of Thorns this morning (though it's shorter than the review on my blog), but that's it.

My profile

 

[Ophiucha]

Link in the signature.

I'm no good at rating books, so nothing has stars, but I do have a 'favourites' shelf to help indicate where my tastes lie. The one downside to my 'no rating' policy is that, as far as the site can tell, I've given the same rating to everything from Macbeth to Breaking Dawn to The Cat in the Hat.

 

[Zero Angel]

Is there a mythic scribes group?

 

[Black Dragon]

Is there a mythic scribes group?

Not yet, but we can start one.

 

[Black Dragon]

OK. The official Mythic Scribes group is here:

http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/98293-mythic-scribes

 

[Black Dragon]

So now that we have a Mythic Scribes group on Goodreads, what do we wish to do with it?

I'm very new to Goodreads myself, so perhaps one of the experienced Goodreads members can explain to us how a group works?

 

[Ophiucha]

Well, they're handy if you want to set up a book club. You can set up polls and put a book at the top of the group's page to let people know what is being read. The discussion forums aren't overly useful since we're all already on here. You can also add books to the 'bookshelf', which we could use for any books that are by our fellow Mythic Scribes. A neat way to keep track of everything we've all had published.

 

[Black Dragon]

You can also add books to the 'bookshelf', which we could use for any books that are by our fellow Mythic Scribes. A neat way to keep track of everything we've all had published.

That sounds like a neat idea. How do you go about adding books to the bookshelf? I tried, and they're not showing up on the group home page, although if I click on the "books" link they are listed there.

 

[Ophiucha]

Just to test it, I changed the marking for all of Sullivan's books to 'read' and they appeared on the front page. There may be a way to change the front-page shelf to display books marked as 'to-read' (it'd be in an administrative panel if there was one, so I couldn't say), but if you can't find any, I'd just have them all marked as 'read' for the sake of displaying them on the shelf.

 

[Darkblade]

If I might suggest adding another shelf or two for books not by Mythic Scribes but about writing and/or fantasy as well. Namely stuff like the Elements of Style and Hero of a Thousand Faces.

Beyond the shelves which list recommended books to read and possibly organize reading groups generally the groups are just used to discuss their topics. Something we have a whole website to do already.

 

[Zero Angel]

I can see Black Dragon's, Michael's, and Terry's all on the front page.

Wasn't there a thread listing all of Mythic Scribes's members' books a while back? ...or am I misremembering?

Telcontar's got four on Goodreads Tristan Gregory (Author of The Swordsman of Carn Nebeth)
Robert Bevan's got four as well, Robert Bevan (Author of Critical Failures)
I have two fantasy, Robby "Zero Angel" Richardson (Author of The Throne of Ao)

Can non-mods create threads over there? If not, how about a "Members of Scribes Published Works" shelf and the one Darkblade just recommended, say "Writing Resources and Fantasy Writing Resources" or similar.

 

[Zero Angel]

Hmm, so I've been adding different fantasy groups and author groups over on Goodreads. Mostly good experiences, but there definitely seems to be some indie author hate, even in threads started by indie authors in author sections with the intention to get help. I ended up leaving one group because it was very "Internet-y".

Really shows you what a special community we have here in Mythic Scribes. It's easy to take it for granted and assume other people you talk to will try to be polite in their discussions/debate and try to understand what you are saying as well.

I can see where the indie author hate stems from, because there appear to be MANY that only care about marketing themselves and are OK with releasing books that shouldn't be released and etc, but that's like hating any group of people for something a subset of that group does. The marketing thing I find the most annoying (to the point of unfollowing people that post 3-5 things per day that are just quick advertisements for their books and lack substance), whereas the bad quality would seem to be self-correcting if people looked at reviews and read the samples before purchasing and didn't blindly download books even if they're free.

 

[PaulineMRoss]

Hmm, so I've been adding different fantasy groups and author groups over on Goodreads. Mostly good experiences, but there definitely seems to be some indie author hate, even in threads started by indie authors in author sections with the intention to get help. I ended up leaving one group because it was very "Internet-y".

There are quite a few people over on Goodreads who've been badly burned by self-publishing authors over the years, real flame-war stuff. It makes them very wary of self-pubbers. The worst trouble has been around the YA and PNR areas, but it tends to spill over into the broader fantasy groups as well. They're an OK bunch, on the whole, but they have short fuses, and yes, there's some outright indie hate in there. Best to tiptoe around them.

Really shows you what a special community we have here in Mythic Scribes.

This. Just shows what can be achieved, even when people are passionate about what they do, with a respectful attitude, and swift, intelligent moderation when necessary.

 

[Zero Angel]

There are quite a few people over on Goodreads who've been badly burned by self-publishing authors over the years, real flame-war stuff. It makes them very wary of self-pubbers. The worst trouble has been around the YA and PNR areas, but it tends to spill over into the broader fantasy groups as well. They're an OK bunch, on the whole, but they have short fuses, and yes, there's some outright indie hate in there. Best to tiptoe around them.

It seems like that, even if they have author sections in different groups, it's best to just stay out of anything that leaves you exposed as an indie. ...of course, I may just need thicker skin.

I can't recommend enough blogs like yours in terms of getting honest reviews on indie books.

 

[PaulineMRoss]

It seems like that, even if they have author sections in different groups, it's best to just stay out of anything that leaves you exposed as an indie. ...of course, I may just need thicker skin.

I think your instincts are good. Keeping well clear of confrontation is a sensible career move for an author.

I can't recommend enough blogs like yours in terms of getting honest reviews on indie books.

Honest reviews are what I look for, as a reader, but they're hard to find. Not on Amazon, that's for sure. 'Honest' also means 'may be less than 5*' of course ;-)