by Chrys Fey, @ChrysFey
Back in June Elizabeth graciously had me as a guest on her wonderful blog for 3 Things You’re Probably Not Doing on Goodreads that You Should. Shortly after that post went live, I thought of 3 more things you could do on Goodreads and wanted to do a follow-up post here. So, are you ready for 3 additional tips that are easy to do and can be beneficial to you and your books?
Well, here they are!Continue reading
by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig
Twitterific writing links are fed into the Writer’s Knowledge Base search engine (developed by writer and software engineer Mike Fleming) which has over 48,000 free articles on writing related topics. It’s the search engine for writers.
Have you visited the WKB lately? Check out the new redesign where you can browse by category, and sign up for free writing articles, on topics you choose, delivered to your email inbox! Sign up for the Hiveword newsletter here.
by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig
For a long time, I avoided Goodreads altogether. It’s the kind of place that makes me uncomfortable as a writer and so I figured I shouldn’t be on the site at all.
But I’ve found that I can completely avoid my own books on Goodreads as long as I don’t deliberately look them up. And Goodreads has a lot to offer for readers.
I decided at first that I didn’t particularly want to share what I wrote as my author profile on the site. That’s mostly because I didn’t want to say if I didn’t enjoy a book…as Elizabeth S. Craig, Writer. And I didn’t necessarily want to share what I liked, either and have it be a public endorsement. Mainly what I wanted was a place to track my books, authors I enjoyed, and my reading life and find recommendations. So I set up an anonymous account there.
As time went on, I began to feel a little more comfortable about sharing what I was reading. And I’m not sure why: I’m a horrid reviewer (better at book blurbs). It started with my inclusion of what I was reading in my reader newsletter that goes out when I have a release. I found that when I wrote a few short sentences about several recently-read books, I had a very positive reader response. Readers were actually emailing me back about what they were reading, too.Continue reading
by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig
I’ve made a point to more than double the amount of reading this year than the year before. As with my consumption of film, music, and TV, I’ve tried to expand into new genres as a reader, hoping to better-inform my writing.
This has been made easier, once again, by keeping up with a TBR list (to be read) and by tracking what I’m reading.
I get a good number of suggestions from friends (both online and in person). But I’ve also found these things useful:
Goodreads. It’s not nearly as scary as a reader as it is for a writer. Here I track what I read, make private notes on the stories, and rate them to remind myself how I enjoyed them. I also follow reviewers whose tastes overlap with my own. Or sometimes I end up in a sort of rabbit hole of recommendations there.
Book challenges. This has been a useful way to branch into other genres. This year I’ve used Book Riot’s Read Harder challenge and I’ve taken some of the suggestions in this post of from Katie McLain.
Newsletters. I have found good recommendations for (mostly) nonfiction from Austin Kleon‘s newsletter and the Farnum Street newsletter.
Website: I’ve discovered lots of good books through Largehearted Boy’s year-end compilation of best books lists.
I’m doing my tracking through Goodreads (not my author profile there). This way I can make private notes on various books, remind myself how I liked it, and find out from Goodreads when authors I enjoy have new or upcoming releases.
How do you find what you read? Do you keep track of it?
Finding Books to Read and Tracking Our Reading: Click To TweetPhoto on VisualHunt.com
by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig
Twitterific writing links are fed into the Writer’s Knowledge Base search engine (developed by writer and software engineer Mike Fleming) which has over 48,000 free articles on writing related topics. It’s the search engine for writers.
Have you visited the WKB lately? Check out the new redesign where you can browse by category, and sign up for free writing articles, on topics you choose, delivered to your email inbox! Sign up for the Hiveword newsletter here.
