Is this a good place to promote your sci-fi books?

[Mark]

Hi all,

I’ve written 3 sci-fi books and doing some promotion for them. What are your experiences promoting your books on here, and do you have any other recommendations?

Thanks,

Mark

[Leonie]

Goodreads can be a great place for authors, however, it's important to remember that Goodreads is primarily for readers.

If you're an author who genuinely participates as a reader, then perhaps, if you approach things the right way, people might take notice of your books.

No-one enjoys posts from an author who doesn't participate as a reader, but simply hangs around to shout 'Buy my books!'

Make sure you read all the rules in any groups you might join, and only post 'authorly' comments where the rules say you can.

Goodreads can be great fun when you become part of the community.

[Brian]

When you are starting out, one of the first hurdles to jump is the visibility barrier. It's frustrating when you have a novel ready to go and no way to effectively promote it. More so if you don't have a substantial ad budget. But this is not the place.
In hindsight, many aspiring novelists realize that they had not done adequate networking ahead of their release. This means spending a good deal of your free time interacting with readers groups and forums such as this one, so to become a part of that community. That way when your book comes out and you let people know, you won't come across as one of thousands of spammers that are a constant source of annoyance.
Goodreads is a better resource for learning your audience than it is a place to self-promote. The catch-22 is that the forums allowing self-promotion are typically author groups. That's akin to selling ice to an Eskimo.
Basically, to gain visibility it takes a combination of time and money. The more time you have the less money you need to spend, and vice versa. Despite what some people will tell you, that has been true for my entire nine year career.
Good luck

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

There are other groups on GR that are meant for helping indie authors or new authors figure out marketing plans, getting reviews etc. I think most of the trad pub authors who've spoken up here say they make good use of beta reader groups here and on other sites.

As mod I can say our particular group isn't great for marketing. Not only do we have a lot of rules about where to post due to a high volume of spam we receive, it seems that most folks have turned off notifications on the author promotion thread, or at least ignore it. Before we consolidated to 1 thread, most self-promotion threads got fewer than 20 views, even though our average new post gets closer to 100-150 views in the same amount of time.

People are more excited when it's someone they know and like from group, like Leonie was saying. Most marketing advice, be it for Twitter, Instagram, or GR suggests that the best marketing tactic is to build community, and unfortunately that's a lot more of an investment than either a quick post on a forum or tweeting "book for sale" into the void.

So, in short, GR is great...if you've got the time to invest. Otherwise, as Brian said it's useful to authors as a pulse-check.

[M.L.]

If you are posting your books for fun and to be social, that's great. I like to see what authors are doing.

In fact, given what I've seen recently (not here by the way :)), if you are self-pubbing for fun and because you enjoy it, that's great as well. Best of luck!

[CBRetriever]

I don't typically read author forums/sections unless there's a post with a topic like this one, so I fall squarely in Allison's "don't read" type of forum member category.

[Mark]

Thanks all for your comments. I love sci-fi so will be engaging as a reader, and may even pick up some ideas and insights for next book.

[Daniel]

Brian wrote: "When you are starting out, one of the first hurdles to jump is the visibility barrier. It's frustrating when you have a novel ready to go and no way to effectively promote it. More so if you don't ..."

Thanks Brian. Just published my first novel and was about to make a pest of myself on these pages. I have found one prolific reviewer who has agreed to review my book. Hope that sparks some interest.

[Jacqueline]

I’m firmly seated in the same camp as CBR