What is Goodreads, and why your translated book should be on it

Goodreads is a site where readers mark the books they've read, rate them and write reviews, and use all that to decide what to read next. The site belongs to Amazon, and it's active among readers in many languages. If your book comes out in a new language, readers there will look it up on Goodreads before they buy. So what is Goodreads for you as an author? A place where you can set up a profile for free and make sure your translated edition doesn't get lost.

What is Goodreads, in plain words

Picture a virtual bookshelf anyone can see. Readers mark books as "want to read", "currently reading" and "read". They give stars, write a few words, and see what their friends are reading.

For an author, this matters for two reasons. First, it's where word-of-mouth recommendations get built, even in languages you don't speak. Second, many readers check the rating and reviews there before they buy, even when the purchase itself happens in another store. The site's about page presents it as a site for readers and book recommendations.

How to set up an author profile

Goodreads has an author program that lets published authors claim their author page and manage it. According to the site, any author anywhere in the world can join it for free.

The process is short:

1. Sign up for Goodreads and log in.
2. Search for your book by its title, or by its identifying number.
3. Click your name on the book's page.
4. At the bottom of the author page, click the link asking to confirm it's you, and fill in the request.

Once you're approved, you can add a photo and a bio, write posts and reply to readers.

What happens with the translated edition

This is where Goodreads works differently from a store. Every edition of a book, in every format and every language, is a separate record. But above the editions sits a "work" that groups them together.

Volunteer librarians do that grouping. According to the Goodreads librarian manual, combining editions means linking two or more of them to one work, without deleting any of them. Back in 2007, in a discussion in the site's librarians group, the Goodreads team wrote that it recommends combining all translations, so readers who read more than one edition can write about all of them.

Two rules from the same manual that affect you directly:

• Only editions with the same primary author can be combined. If the Hebrew edition is listed under one name and the English one under a different spelling, it won't combine. We wrote about choosing the name in a pen name in another language.
• Authors can't separate editions themselves. If something was combined by mistake, you ask the librarians group.

What to do when your book comes out in a new language

Four steps, in order:

1. Make sure you have an approved author profile. Ideally before the new edition comes out.
2. Check that the new edition shows up. Search for it a few days after it goes live in the stores.
3. Check that it's combined with the original. All the editions should appear together on the work's page.
4. Keep your name consistent. The same name, spelled the same way, in every language, just as it appears on the cover.

Is it worth the time

If you have one hour to give your translated book after it comes out, it's probably worth spending it here. A tidy profile with a photo and a bio in your new readers' language gives them a reason to trust a book by an author they don't know.

But don't expect the profile to sell on its own. What moves readers on Goodreads is reviews from other readers. We wrote about how to get them in how to get reviews for a book in a language you can't read. More questions are collected in our frequently asked questions.