GoodReads Tips and Tricks

[Jessie Marie]

Here's a thread for any GoodReads Tips and Tricks. You are more than welcome to input your own tips & tricks, asks questions about any of the GoodReads features, or suggest tips & tricks to be covered.

Below is a running list of current tips and links to such:
How to Link to Books/Authors/Book Covers in GoodReads Comments

[Jessie Marie]

How to Link to Books/Authors/Book Covers in GoodReads Comments

This is a photo-driven tutorial on how to add links to books, authors, and book covers in GoodReads. This is a really great feature because it gives readers of your posts an opportunity to see the book and gain quick access to the book's details, such as synopsis, page count and review history. This is a must if you're making suggestions for the book of the month so make sure you're aware of how to do this!

Step 1: This is a view of your comment box. You can see where I've input text and all of the links surrounding this box.


Step 2: For this tutorial, we're going to rely on the "add book/author" link in the upper right hand corner of this comment box.


Step 3: Click on that link. This box will pop up, darkening the webpage behind it.


Step 4: We're going to start with adding a book link. On this particular page, in the field titled "Book", type in a book. For the sake of research, I used "Harry Potter" (Did you catch that magic of pun?). You'll notice down at the bottom that the radio button for "link" is selected. That's important. Because the books are going to list out showing the covers to help identify the title you actually want. Since there are 8+ books that start with the title Harry Potter, but I may not be sure which one I'm after (i.e. and the...), the covers will help. But by having that "link" radio button on, it will insert the link.


Step 5: Click "add" next to the title you wish to... add. This will insert a properly formatted link. It doesn't look like a link when it's inside your comment box but trust me, when you finalize posting, that bracketed gobbledegook will become a workable link.


Step 6: Now let's try the author. When you click that "add book/author" link again, your most recent search will pop up again. Convenient, eh? It certainly is for this tutorial because all you need to do to add a link to the author's profile on GoodReads is click the "author" tab at the top of the box. Fortunately for this example, there's only one Harry Potter by one author. And, for the most part, we all know the leading genius behind all that.


Step 7: Same as before: click "add". Voila! Magic. Mystery. : )

Step 8: Now, let's add the cover. Because cover drooling is totally allowed. And I don't know about you all, but I love to see all the pretty covers. I'm sort of a coversnob but that's neither here nor there. If you want add the cover, click the "add book/author" link again. This time, on the bottom of the box, select the radio button next to "cover". This doesn't change the appearance of anything in the box. Just the results.


Step 9: Click "add" next to your chosen title again. Again, gobbledegook. Notice one thing: the only thing that changed between the brackets was that "book" was replaced with "bookcover" before the title | (insert number here). This is the shorthand that GoodReads has developed and could speed things up for you. If you wanted to link the book, you can copy/paste that same bracket series and simply type in "cover" following "book". Presto!


Step 10: The Results of Your Hard Work. : )


There is another way to add book links / covers without the use of that link but I'll go over that in another post.

If you have any questions about this, don't hesitate to ask! I'll be happy to clarify if need be.

[Cheryl]

This only works on my laptop (MacBook air) and not on iPhone or iPad. In case others have a problem.

[Vicki]

Has anyone found a way to do this within the apps? I normally do my Goodreads updates from my iPhone not the computer. (I'm usually only on the computer at work and that's not when I remember)

[Jessie Marie]

Vicki wrote: "Has anyone found a way to do this within the apps? I normally do my Goodreads updates from my iPhone not the computer. (I'm usually only on the computer at work and that's not when I remember)"

So, you can type it out.

[ book: INSERT BOOK TITLE HERE ]
[ bookcover: INSERT BOOK HERE ]
[ author: INSERT AUTHOR FIRST AND LAST NAME HERE ]

Once you've done that, remove the spaces and it will insert the book. The only downside is that you may not get the exact correct title.

For instance, for Dan Brown's Inferno, if you type:

[ book: INFERNO ]...

You get Inferno


When you meant to get Inferno


Each book on GoodReads has a number attached to it. You can see the number listed in the URL and it's linked to each specific edition. So if you had access to the number (which I don't see anywhere listed on the GoodReads app, but you never know), you could use that:

For Dan Brown's Inferno, this unique number is 17212231. So to get the title/bookcover:

[ book: Inferno | 17212231 ]
returns
Inferno

[ bookcover: Inferno | 17212231 ]
returns


The more details you provide when you type CAN help as well:

[ bookcover: Inferno Robert Langdon ]
returns


[ bookcover: Inferno Dan Brown ]
returns


Hopefully this helps some of our app-only members! : )

(Inferno really stops looking like a word after typing it that many times!)