Reader To Reader

When you read a great book you always want to tell someone about it - your mom, best friend, the noisy neighbor across the street.  You want to scream so loud that everyone who hears you goes out, buys it and reads it.  Bertrand Russell said, "There are two motives for reading a book; one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it [on Goodreads]."

 

Goodreads.com is the largest online site for readers around the world.  There are currently over 7.7 million member with new ones joining daily.  Goodreads was started in January 2007 by
Otis Chandler.  He created the site because he believed that reviews and recommendations about books were more valuable and more accurate when they came from friends instead of a computer.  Sounds a lot like their mission; “to help people find and share books that they love.  Along the way, we plan to improve the process of reading and learning throughout the world.”

The nice thing about Goodreads is that you can use the site as a virtual shelf so that when you find a book that you like you can “shelf” it to read later.  It also allows you to post to your friends what you are currently reading as well as what you’ve already read.  You can post comments on the book as you read; mark where you are currently within the book either by page number or percentage and when you finish you’re able to rate the book anywhere from 1 to 5 stars and write a review of the book to let people know what you thought of it.  You can also get an export of all the books you’ve ever read and rated that you’ve posted on Goodreads.

A Screenshot of my Goodreads Page

On your home page you have a timeline of your friend’s comments and posts, well as a general bar showing what your reading, quotes from some famous people, voting polls on different subjects and if you’re doing the reading challenge it will show how far you are in to it.  I’m currently at 31 of 75 books in my 2012 reading challenge.  Another great thing about the timeline is that you can see what your friends or favorite authors are reading, what they thought of them and if you think they sound good mark them as “to read” on your shelf.  I’ve found so many good books that way it’s crazy!

But if you can’t decide what to read next, don’t worry Goodreads is totally the place for you.  They take your shelves (to read, currently reading and read), analyze them and then give you tons of recommendations for what you might like to read later.  This is a great way to find that next hit book to scream about! 

There are also forums that people create either on certain books, genres (everything and anything you can think of has a genre and noting and I mean nothing is left unturned), movies, devices, or just a subject.  This is a great way to make new reading “friends.”  Think of them as your Facebook friends, not people you actually know but people who like the same types of books you do.  You can create your own little book club with these friends but instead of sitting around Betty’s coffee table you’re all at your computers reading and typing away!

So are you ready to post what you’re reading and find some new friends to get recommendations.  Take the Goodreads tour and come find me.  Let’s read together!

Video with Otis Chandler discussing Goodreads.com

Do you miss signed books…never fear – KindleGraph is here!

Do you remember when your favorite author would do book tours and you stopped into the little bookstore on the corner of your street and get an autograph in their newest books.  Well what if you have an ereader and their new book as an ebook.  Never fear you can still get that coveted autograph.  Evan Johnson, a Former Amazon developer, created a program called KindleGraph and entered it for the $25,000 prize in the national DocuSign Hack-a-thon.  He didn’t win the big prize, he came in second, but many people said thought that he should have won it.  “A 10-year-veteran of Amazon who left the company earlier this year, Jacobs came up with the idea after he wanted to get digital autographs from authors on his own Kindle. He described it as a “fun side-project” according to John Cook.

Their website says, “KindleGraph lets authors send personalized inscriptions and signatures ("KindleGraphs") directly to the electronic reading devices of their fans.”  They currently have over 15,000 books from over 3500 authors and more are signing up daily.

Authors don’t have to pay to have their books featured and even better is that people (you and me) don’t have to pay anything to get their signatures.  KindleGraph is powered by Twitter for authentication purposes, they have their own twitter account you can follow @kindlegraph.  Once you’ve set up a twitter account all you have to do is type a book or authors name into the search engine to see if their available.  If they do you send a request to the author, once they receive the request they fill out their KindleGraph with a personal message or just their name and then it gets automatically sent to your Kindle.  Easy peasy!

“Anyone who is watching can request a KindleGraph and they get it seconds later delivered straight to their Kindle,” said Jacobs. “It makes those author and fan connections much more available.”  If you sign up to get an author’s autograph, don’t expect it to get it delivered to you seconds later. When I’ve requested one it usually takes a few days to get delivered to my Kindle and a lot of times authors will personalize them for you.

Dan Reid commented on John Cook’s write up, “I’ve seen this in action personally, and this is VERY cool.  I was a hardcore “book buyer in hardback” for years, and though I am a total Kindle-nut now (I read on every device you can imagine) I had always missed the signed copies.  This is exactly what I needed.”  I’m with Dan, I love seeing that authors are up on KindleGraph and I can let them know how much I loved their book and would like their autograph.  I personally have over 100 KindleGraphs and when I buy a new book it’s one of the first things I check out.  If they do have one I sign up to get it.

These are two of my personal KindleGraphs.  The first one is from Brenda Pandos for Everblue and the other from Jessica Park for Flat-Out Love.

It is not the same as having an autographed book on your shelf, but it's the closest the digital world has, and I'm loving everyone single one I receive.