Author Dashboard odometer
So...
The control panel for one's profile and blog here at Goodreads is dubbed the "Author Dashboard" and shows various dubious statistics. (Well, I'm sure they are accurately counted; it's their utility that puzzles me.) One of which is "number of followers".
Which, in the magic of round numbers, just turned over 20,000 this morning.
I would say, "Go, me!" except that I'm not entirely sure what this means, in the cosmic scheme. What do you get for being a "follower", in the way these things are counted? What is its use to the author?
(Stats also give "total reviews", listed at 15,960 this morning, which is... probably something I would be better off not knowing. Pretty sure this includes star ratings without accompanying remarks, which would boost the numbers.)
Ta, L.
The control panel for one's profile and blog here at Goodreads is dubbed the "Author Dashboard" and shows various dubious statistics. (Well, I'm sure they are accurately counted; it's their utility that puzzles me.) One of which is "number of followers".
Which, in the magic of round numbers, just turned over 20,000 this morning.
I would say, "Go, me!" except that I'm not entirely sure what this means, in the cosmic scheme. What do you get for being a "follower", in the way these things are counted? What is its use to the author?
(Stats also give "total reviews", listed at 15,960 this morning, which is... probably something I would be better off not knowing. Pretty sure this includes star ratings without accompanying remarks, which would boost the numbers.)
Ta, L.
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Jerri
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Oct 28, 2016 09:05AM
Well, you were the first author I "followed" on Good Reads, and I did this so I would be notified when you posted something new on your blog, so I would be certain not to miss any new publications and have to wait till I happened to stumble on the fact you had a new book out. (Why, that might have had me waiting months to read something instead of reading it "hot off the presses". Even if it is a eBook and not "pressed"!) So I am guessing that your followers on GoodReads is an indication of fans who are members of GoodReads and also want to be sure to be up to date on your publishing. Also, might want to enjoy reading your freely shared words, like these blog posts and the answers to questions. Now, it is possible to do these things by manually checking periodically, so more folks may well be interested by not "joiner" enough to join and "follow".
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Yup, what Jerri said. "following" means that goodreads sends email when you have a new book coming out, and periodically I get emails from goodreads with a summary of things happening with authors I follow, which includes links to new blog posts, goodreads questions that have been answered, etc.
Stats also give "total reviews", listed at 15,960 this morning, which is... probably something I would be better off not knowing. Pretty sure this includes star ratings without accompanying remarks, which would boost the numbers.That's the number of reviews readers left for your books.))) That doesn't include the star ratings, otherwise the number would be much, much more) The number of star ratings for the Vorkosigan Saga alone is 245 000.
When someone follows an author, their activities on Goodreads show up on the fan's home page feed, making it quicker and easier than searching for the author's page every time. I suppose this tells the author how many people are interested in what they are doing on the site.
What you get for having me as a follower, among other things, is that I now know there's a new Penric novella coming in early November, which I will buy. I wouldn't know that if I wasn't following you on Goodreads! :)
Goodreads gathers up the activities of the authors that I'm following and emails me to let me know if y'all make any moves! (It's how I knew to go vote on your last batch of cover art among other things.) You are by far my most interesting author. You are constantly answering questions and having blog posts. Other authors mostly just give shoutouts about books or appearances. They will say something interesting, but not often and usually not at much length. Or it is lengthy and detailed, but I'm not allowed to reply?!What you get out of it is that you get to feel adored by your growing legions of fans!
