"Ask the Author" - Personal Experiences

[Lily]

C. wrote: "Heard about this the other day, looked for the button but couldn't find it. Will go searching again right now."

Go to your dashboard on the right side.

[Justin]

This is also the first I'm hearing of this...O.o and yes Jim I accept the shame lol. Q&A groups don't fair well on here..least for me it hasn't so this feature could prove interesting.

[Chad]

Found it. Let's see what happens...

[K.P.]

Meh

[Justin]

I'm not sure how many of you are subscribed to receive the Goodreads Newsletter but this month's e-mail talked all about the new Ask the Author Feature. For those who haven't seen it I have taken an opening excerpt about it to check out:

What is: Ask the Author
Ask the Author is a new marketing tool on Goodreads. Once you turn on the feature, readers will be able to submit questions right from your author profile, and you will be able to answer those questions from your author dashboard.

Ask the Author is open only to authors who participate in the Goodreads Author Program and is just as useful for debut authors as it is for established authors. Readers can easily find the author they are currently reading and check to see whether the author is taking questions.

Questions are only visible to you until you choose to answer them. You have the flexibility to answer questions when it's most convenient for you (and who's to say 11 p.m. on a Saturday is not a great time to answer some questions?). You can even set a custom message to let readers know when to expect live� answers.

Ask the Author is designed to showcase your answers for your readers. Every time you answer a question, the reader who asked it will be notified on Goodreads and by email. The reader's friends will see your answer in their newsfeeds, and most importantly, all of your followers will see it in their newsfeeds. Talk about amplification!

In this example, all of author Brian Herbert's followers saw the question and answer in addition to all of Otis' friends since he asked the question!

[Lily]

Oh, I tend to ingore the newsletter lol

[Daniel]

This seems pretty cool. I always figured most people would just send a message if curious about something, but I guess that they'd be more likely to do so with a feature encouraging it.

[Eva]

Couldn't sleep. Perfect time to do this. https://www.goodreads.com/author/8267...

[Amanda]

I can't sleep either which is the perfect time to comment on your answers.
I have the same problem with my characters. They often do things that surprise me.
And I've just found out that I always win the staring contest with the blinking cursor as well. It seriously needs to try harder.

[Eva]

@Amanda - now that you mention it, those surprises are usually the best part of my writing day :) And I'm telling ya, the staring contest always works!

[Martyn]

I saw it activated on my books, but I didn't know there was an Ask the Author as well. It's activated now, though... Dare to live, dare to ask, dare to read... https://www.goodreads.com/author/6586...

[James]

I read the GR news letter and immediately went to my dashboard, but I still haven't turned it on or answered the stock questions. Now that I've read the responses in this forum, I'll turn it on and see what happens.