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At a loose end and unable to settle to writing after too much screen-gazing at work today, I've just been 'googling' my name and book titles. It almost seems vain to do any such thing, but I have an occasional check to see whether anything interesting is being said, or whether anyone has reviewed a volume or two. It was doing this that turned up the very positive review on Occupy London's blog that I mentioned in my post And the winner isn't... last month.
The surprise this time was discovering that my books are listed on Goodreads. I (being a complete amateur, obviously) assumed that you opted on to this app by setting up an author page, or your publisher put you on if you were successful enough to have one, or too dead to do it yourself.
Setting up on Goodreads has been on my 'to do' list for a while...
But the books are there already, without a move from me. There are a mere three ratings so far, allocating 4 and 5 stars to Severe Discomfort (oddly, from the same person - but thanks for both Louise, if you're reading this!) but a mere 2 to Continual Supervision (from a different reader).
Friends and Facebookers who use Goodreads, you may wish to help The Cause by adding your own rating or review here...
...though, as it links to you Facebook identity, you will have nowhere to hide if you say anything evil!
Ratings, as opposed to reviews, can be a tiny bit frustrating because you don't know what the reader liked or didn't like, and I would quite like to know. Constructive criticism is helpful, but as it stands I don't know what impressed Louise, or didn't appeal to my two-star rater. Was the conclusion to the plot too contrived? The writing style not literary enough? Disappointly political, when it gets off to quite a saucy start, or vice versa? I may never know...
After pondering the ratings, I noticed a link to 'similar authors'. Overcome with curiousity and mild trepidation to see what that would suggest, I clicked the link.
Nothing happened.
Does this mean there are no similar authors? Or is it just that there is too little information on me and the books for the Goodreads algorithms to start making suggestions? If they're as good as the ones Facebook use to target ads and pages at me, I'm almost afraid to add any further data! FB has been prompting me to like David Cameron's page for most of the last fortnight. It might suggest Iain Duncan Smith as a 'similar author'. Perish the thought!
Towards the foot of the author page there's a space for 'Sarah's fans'.
And then the words 'none yet'. (Sigh!)
But who needs fans, when you have comrades?
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