Apps I Use: Goodreads

Goodreads.com

According to the LA Times, Goodreads now has 10,000,000 members.  Ten million.  Who says reading is dead?

Chances are, if you're reading this, you're one of those ten million people.  After all, Goodreads attracts readers, especially readers with opinions on the books they have read and/or who are interested in the opinions of other readers.  And I'm guessing you have an interest in reading if you're here.

Goodreads does a lot of things right.  The web site is easy to use, it allows you to create a list of books you have read and books on your To-Be-Read list, and it allows you to create reviews -- reviews that are immediately linked to the title that can be read by anyone who visits the site.  Oh, and like Evernote, Goodreads is FREE.

I try to leave reviews for most of the books I read.  In part, this helps me to hone my critiquing skills, and, in part, it helps me to pull together my thoughts on a book.  This process of pulling together my thoughts has kept me from leaving feedback on a book for several days -- my review of Michael  Hyatt's PLATFORM was the most recent example of this.  There were parts of PLATFORM that I liked so much that I actually took notes from the book (a first for a book of this type) but there were also parts that I wasn't so crazy about.

Goodreads also allows you to '"Follow" (think Facebook "Like") authors.  From my list of Followed authors I get a weekly email that gives me updates to their author blogs.  It's a nice feature that keeps me up to date on what they're doing.

I'm fivecats over at GoodReads.  If you're interested, send me a Goodreads friend request.  Mention that you read this entry and I'll be sure to add you.

Do you use Goodreads?  What do you like or not like about it?  Do you use any of the other book-oriented social software sites?  What do you think about them?  I'm genuinely curious.

-- Tom

Honesty Is Still the Best Policy

Honesty helps, too.

I've had an account over at Goodreads for a while now.  I started it as a way to keep track of what I've read and what I want to read.  At first, I wasn't doing much with writing reviews of books.  Slowly I've started including reviews, particularly if the book is good or bad or useful in my Writing Path to Publication.

After reading Violet Haberdasher's "Knightley Academy" I had to think about writing a review.  The book has a blurb on the cover that labels it as a Steampunk book, but the book isn't, really.  Not only that, but I felt it was a poorly executed Harry Potter rip-off.  I finished it, but I felt I'd been misled by the blurb and wanted the time back that I'd spent reading it.

If I'm trying to get published with a Steampunkish book of my own, I wondered, am I potentially playing with dynamite if I write a negative review of a book in my genre?

After about a minute of that sort of questioning I realized I was trying to inject unnecessary politics into the situation.  I would much rather be honest with my reviews than be fearful of offending some anonymous person Out There.  Besides, my reviews are MY reviews.  They are how I felt about the book, they are not Grand Pronouncements Unto the World that This Is the Final Take on This Book.  I am not feeding the book nor the author to the lions, I'm simply saying "This book didn't work for me."

Granted, sometimes I manage to say that in slightly stronger language (*, †, ∆)  but these are still only my opinions.

On Friday, YA Highway had a great guest post by Phoebe North titled "In Praise of Harsh Words."  North's point was, essentially, that as writers it's okay to express negative comments about our colleagues' work.  In fact, it's even healthy in that constructive criticism can help a writer become an even better writer.

It seems like such an obvious point, but North acknowledged her nervousness about putting herself out there as a potential lightning rod of controversy.  Apparently telling the truth isn't always appreciated.

(Really, it's a great article and I highly recommend reading it)

So, here's my guarantee to you: I will give you my honest opinion about the books I read, the web sites I visit, the people I meet and whatever I happen to be writing about.  I won't be all snark all the time (although some of that will, undoubtedly creep out from time to time) but you will never need to wonder if I really feel what I'm writing or if I'm just trying to be nice.

Deal?

Deal.


-- Tom

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And since my first question when reading that kind of line would be, "Yeah, I'll bet.  Why not post some of them if you're being so honest?" here are three of the Most Slightly Stronger Languaged reviews I have posted to Goodreads:

* "there is only so much self-aggrandized navel-gazing self-pitying i can manage to read without throwing up my hands and saying, "next!"" [link]

† "when it came time to actually do something with that world he decided to cop out and fill it with cliché after cliché (borrowing heavily from Rowling's Harry Potter series) and making an absolute mess of the story." [link]

∆ "this is one of those books that deserve Minus Stars. giving it one star seems, to me, to indicate some sort of approval. don't let it fool you"  [link]