I've seen some people post about this but couldn't find the replies, so my apologies if there is already a discussion on this.

I love goodreads and love that it is now on FB. However, most of my friends on FB are (I hate to say) using Virtual Bookshelf instead. I love GR too much to make the switch; however, I do wish GR would make some things available that Virtual Bookshelf has in order to make it more appealing to FB users.

For example, I'd love for a photo of the cover of my books to show up in my newsfeed, as well as my reviews/ratings once I finish the book.

It would also be great if the "to-read" option could be disabled on FB so that every time I mark a book to read, it doesn't show up on my FB feed (just what I am currently reading and what I've finished and rated/reviewed). I think there should be an option of choosing what shows up on the feed and what doesn't.

If these things were available, I feel like I'd have better luck trying to lure my friends of Virtual Bookshelf and over to GR! :)

Thanks! Laurel

Laurel, I agree that we need more options - some way to make my facebook feed different from my Goodreads feed.

My Goodreads friends are more likely to want to see every to-read book - I think this would just annoy most of my facebook friends.

Agreed! Every time I update my GR feed, I end up having to go to FB to delete all my "to reads" because I feel like it's just going to annoy my FB friends (many of whom are not big readers).

Yes, My to-read books is the main reason that on facebook I'm a fan of Goodreads but that the accounts (FB & GR) are no longer linked at all.

Laurel wrote: "It would also be great if the "to-read" option could be disabled on FB so that every time I mark a book to read, it doesn't show up on my FB feed (just what I am currently reading and what I've finished and rated/reviewed)."

Try this:

Go into "my account"
Click on the "feeds" tab
Uncheck the "Add a book to your shelves" box

It shouldn't put your to-reads on your FB page if you do this. The problem is that it won't put them on your update feed here either. I chose to disable it because my GR friends can see my to-reads on my update email. I think you'll have to choose which is more important.

For example, I'd love for a photo of the cover of my books to show up in my newsfeed, as well as my reviews/ratings once I finish the book.

This does happen for me and I'm not sure what I've done to make it happen. I know after I write a review, there's a link on the confirmation page to post this review to FB. *Checking it out......*

Okay, I'm very, very awkward with FB, and there's probably an easier way to do this, but I think this is what you need to do.

Get to your GR settings page on FB somehow (I have a GR box on my FB profile, click "refresh box" and then get a weird, mini GR page. Click settings at the upper right hand side of that page)
About halfway down the settings page is the option to enable or disable GR updates to your FB feed. Enable it and you should be good.

Try this:

Go into "my account"
Click on the "feeds" tab
Uncheck the "Add a book to your shelves" box


But won't that stop adds to the "currently reading" and "read" shelf as well?

I second (third?) the wish to stop to-reads from going to my Facebook feed, since I tend to add them in very large batches. I'd rather see Facebook focus more on things that I just marked "read" and maybe "currently reading" as well.

Thanks JG for your helpful comments.

Brooke -- I wondered the same thing about unchecking "add a book to your shelves."

JG -- I enabled updates to my feed on FB which did enable photos, I think. But then when I updated my status with a comment on a book I'm reading on GR, it went into my FB news feed for all my FB friends to see. A bit embarrassing b/c there was no explanation to the comment. :) I do have "comments" disabled on my feed so it's odd that showed up. I deleted it.

Anyway, would be nice if GR could have a setting where nothing shows up in FB feeds except what book you are reading or have just read (along with a photo and maybe an option to see your review).

I'll keep playing with settings to see if I can figure it all out. :)

Thanks again!

Anyway, would be nice if GR could have a setting where nothing shows up in FB feeds except what book you are reading or have just read (along with a photo and maybe an option to see your review).

Thanks for trying Jessica!

Yes, thank you! The pictures are indeed showing up now! Your comments were helpful.. there are still just a few more glitches, I guess, in terms of the "to reads". Either that or I'm just really bad at computer stuff. ;)

I also only want my newly added "read" books and reviews posting to FB. The main reason I stopped my Goodreads feed there was because of the to-reads overwhelming my wall. My friends and family just aren't interested in that much detail. And comments make no sense to them at all. But I'd really like them to see what I'm up to, and to promote Goodreads again. I've read on other threads that the FB tech stuff is complicated, but it would be wonderful if this aspect could be figured out. Maybe if it's too complicated for each person to pick and choose what gets posted, there could be defaults for "All" or just "Rated and Reviewed" as the most basic variables I've seen requested?

Brooke wrote: "But won't that stop adds to the "currently reading" and "read" shelf as well?"

My "to-read"s don't show up on my FB feed, but my "currently-reading"s and "read"s do. Maybe because I'm generally just moving them from "to-read" to "currently reading" and not adding them to my shelves for the first time as "currently reading"? Like I said, FB is very awkward for me, but somehow it is working the way I want it to.

Catherine wrote: "I also only want my newly added "read" books and reviews posting to FB."

It looks pretty easy to get just your reviews on FB. After you write a review and hit save, the screen comes up that says something like "your review of this books has been added." A little lower on that same page is an option to click to add this review to your FB feed. I haven't done this, but it seems pretty straightforward.

Laurel wrote: "But then when I updated my status with a comment on a book I'm reading on GR, it went into my FB news feed for all my FB friends to see. A bit embarrassing b/c there was no explanation to the comment. :)"

Maybe if you don't enable the option to add comments to your feed here on GR? I don't have that option enabled on my account here either and I haven't noticed any comments going to my FB feed.
I just looked again. On the "my account" page here, go to the "apps" tab. There are options to automatically post reviews, comments, and/or trivia to your FB feed. This might help all you ladies get closer to what you want.



This does seem like a lot of work-arounds. I'm pretty happy with the way I've got it working, but it would be great if all this could be simplified.

I'm having the same problem. On the Goodreads application page for Facebook, I've unchecked Reviews, Comments and Trivias for being added to my Facebook Feed. But, I'm still getting the page I am on in a current book showing up on Facebook. It also says that posting goodreads.com updates to my Facebook feed is Enabled and that I can disable it by going to the Facebook Applications page. However, when I get there, I can't see any way to do it. Any ideas?

I like having goodreads accessible as a tab for my reading friends. However, putting everything on my feed, for my nonreading friends, is a bit much.

This might be it.

On the applications settings page, click to edit the settings for GR.

In the box that comes up, click the link for Additional Permissions.

Uncheck the box that says "Publish to streams" and click okay.

I don't know if that's the way, but that's the closest thing I see. I'm afraid to test it out and break what I've got working! :-)

Thank you, JG! I'm trying it. Will get back to you to let you know if it works.

Laurel: You should be seeing book covers in your profile updates. If not, check the settings for the Goodreads app and make sure to enable large size stories.

Adding to-read books to FB is something nobody has requested before! But I agree it would make more sense. So I think we need two more settings:
* Add my to-read books
* Add my status updates

Status updates you can disable on FB's settings, but we should have a setting on our end too just to make things easier.

Thanks, Otis. I was able to get book covers to start showing up in my feed, but then all sorts of things I didn't want to show up on my feed also started showing up (like comments, though I'd disabled them). So then I just disabled the whole thing and tried to reset everything, and now I can't get it to work again. It's all very confusing, and I'm normally pretty good with computer stuff. :)

Glad I'm a first with a suggestion! Though actually I was requesting that the "to-reads" NOT show up on the FB feeds... there doesn't seem to be an option for that and it'd be great if there was! :)

Anyway, as it stands I've removed all goodreads updates from my FB feed because it was all just too hard to get the exact settings I wanted. But I will try again at some point! Thanks again for everyone's help and patience! :-)

Ah, here I was thinking I misunderstood Otis's message, but I see Laurel thought the same thing I did. We're definitely requesting to-reads to NOT show up, because they already do! (which might be why no one has requested that they do before).

The FB app is definitely confusing, and I feel like I keep stumbling across different places to change the settings, both here and on FB, so I'm not sure what controls what.

Brooke -- LOL...that would be a good reason no one has made the request before! ;-) I thought I misread at first too. But yes... definitely want the to-reads to STOP showing up! :)

Yes, one reason I disconnected my Goodreads and facebook accounts is that all my to-reads showed and it was overwhelming my page, and my friends. I'm now (only) a fan of Goodreads at facebook. If only ratings & reviews (and possibly some other "important" activities) showed, I'd consider linking the two again.

Edit: Whoops. I see I already spouted off some of this is message 4.

JG wrote: It looks pretty easy to get just your reviews on FB. After you write a review and hit save, the screen comes up that says something like "your review of this books has been added." A little lower on that same page is an option to click to add this review to your FB feed. I haven't done this, but it seems pretty straightforward.

JG -- I just found this feature and it is GREAT! Works perfectly and just what I was looking for. Now when I want a review to show up in my feed, I know I can just click on that after I finish my review. Not sure how I missed it before. Thanks!

The "Add this review to your Facebook feed" link works great! But I've noticed that the story that is posted on Facebook contains a link to GR, a link to the book, but not a link to the specific review. So, FB posts about 4 lines, and if a FB friend wants to read the rest, he can't go directly to it from FB.

Am I missing something? If so, it would be fabulous to have a link to the GR review be part of the FB story.

Susan, I just checked, and when I clicked on the book, it took me to GR with my review (and other reviews) listed beneath the book. Does this not happen for you?

Laurel, it does if I'm logged in as me. But if I'm not, as my FB friends wouldn't be, then my review is just lost in the sea of reviews.

Oh.. bummer! I hadn't even though of that. I'm sure it's the same for my friends then as well -- that they only see the book listed on GR with a whole list of other people's reviews vs. my own. That definitely should be fixed! Thanks for bringing it up.

I'm glad this helped, Laurel, but I'm sorry it's not working correctly. You might want to post a new thread in the bugs folder.

My to-reads and other updates here on GR only show up on my profile on facebook and not in my newsfeeds, so they don't overwhelm my friends' pages. I have everything checked on FB, so I'm honestly not sure why mine isn't working like everyone else's! But I guess it is good because I don't have to worry :)

My reviews only get published in my news feed if, after finishing a review, I click on the "add this to facebook" option that appears after saving a review.

But as mentioned here - any friends who wanted to read my whole review can't because if you are not logged in as me you can't see my review easily. I would love for a link to the review to be part of the FB story. That is a fantastic suggestion, Susan!

Crystie: I think you're describing how it works for me too. And thanks :).

Hi Crystie,

I too am able adjust settings so only one-line updates show up on my profile on FB, and not in my newsfeeds. This way the "to reads" don't show up in my feed either.

But what I would love is the option for my "currently reading" to indeed show up in my newsfeed -- but nothing else. That way my friends can see what I'm reading in their feeds, but not my huge list of "to reads." Right now there doesn't seem to be that option. Or at least, I can't get it to work.

Susan's suggestion is a great one!! Seems like something that would be easy for them to fix.

Thanks for the comments!

Otis wrote: "So I think we need two more settings:
* Add my to-read books
* Add my status updates."

Pretty sure Otis meant that these would be preferences that you could set to on or off, meaning you could NOT include your to-read shelf, if that's your preference.

Just saw that there is now the option to click "including to-reads" on the "show reviews" option with FB. So it's now possible to not include to-reads on FB feeds. Yay! Thanks, Otis! Or whoever made that change!