# Booklikes: Suggest setting up an author (official profile) if you haven't



## Anne Victory (Jul 29, 2010)

Hi, ladies and gents,
There's recently been some kerfuffle on Goodreads (http://www.goodreads.com/story/show/347806?chapter=1) and as a result a lot of the people who are active on GoodReads are migrating to www.booklikes.com. In order to stay ahead of the ball on this, I'd recommending setting up an author page on Booklikes.

Here's some info about that (http://booklikes.com/page/18/faq):



> *Official Profiles and Author Features on BookLikes*
> 
> *Are there features for authors on BookLikes?*
> If you're an author you can request official profile on BookLikes (needs to be verified) and Author's Tab. If you haven't requested Official profile during registration process, please mail us at: [email protected]
> ...


This may or may not blow over--time will tell. Currently, however, it's a getting a lot of play in the Goodreads community and Dear Author also did a write up about it: http://dearauthor.com/features/industry-news/finding-a-replacement-for-goodreads

Hope this helps


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## hyh (Jul 21, 2013)

Thanks, Anne, for the tip!


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

It has been a week since I asked for my author page there... and got nothing. No response of any kind. So either they hate me or are really busy.


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## Austin_Briggs (Aug 21, 2011)

Wow, and I’ve totally missed all this din. 

Sometimes it’s good to just write.


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## MrBourbons (May 1, 2013)

I signed up the other day and didn't have a clue how to get an author page. I obviously wasn't looking hard enough, so thanks for the heads up!


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

I moved my books over from Goodreads - pretty simple process.
The site itself is a little less confusing than Goodreads but has fewer features which may not have been all that important anyway (i.e. adding metadata)

I like the ease of setting up a blog there, complete with easy-peasy URL (i.e http://chrisreher.booklikes.com/ ) I might actually be tempted to start a blog 

The article on Dear Author is perplexing. Makes it sound almost like readers are looking for a place where they can huddle and say nasty thing about authors without being called out. Is this really such a battle?


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## momilp (Jan 11, 2010)

Signed  Thanks, Anne, for the heads-up.


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## Wansit (Sep 27, 2012)

Quiss said:


> The article on Dear Author is perplexing. Makes it sound almost like readers are looking for a place where they can huddle and say nasty thing about authors without being called out. Is this really such a battle?


Not exactly but some people think so. Many of the bloggers I know who have ditched goodreads and set up shop on BL have done so because they feel they were censored on GR and want to be able to go to BL to say anything they want (positive or negative) about the book and by extension the author (if they feel the authors behavior has negatively impacted their willingness to read the books).

As for BL - I hate it. Impossible to find anything and it's as if everyone has their own personal webpage but there is no congruity between pages. Also check the books - it's only a summary and a link to Amazon. Anyway, I don't think it'll get nearly as popular as GR.


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## BellaRoccaforte (May 26, 2013)

I'm absolutely going to set up an account there and I know some of you are just plain ditching GR for Booklikes. A question/concern that I have is now this will be yet another platform to manage in the very very limited time I have for such activities. Some of the bigger guys on here can "afford" to not have all the exposure but for us newcomers do you think it would be wise to abandon GR Booklikes? Because somewhere along the way working a full time job, marketing my series and trying to keep writing it something is going to suffer and picking and choosing is difficult. 

So my question to you Oh Wise Ones of the Kindleboards what would you do? Ditch GR for Booklikes or sacrifice more sleep to do both?


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Quiss said:


> The article on Dear Author is perplexing. Makes it sound almost like readers are looking for a place where they can huddle and say nasty thing about authors without being called out. Is this really such a battle?


It is so strange that that is what you get out of reading the article on Dear Author. There seems to be such a disdain for readers sometimes I am just totally baffled. Nowhere in this article does it say that readers want to huddle and be nasty. We want to be able to talk about books without the fear of having some thin skinned author go loco on us for daring not to like a book. 
The way some react when they get a 3 star is a good indication of what would happen when they get a 2 star. 
Readers have been harassed like crazy on GR by some authors and the recent actions at GR just didn't make some readers feel save anymore. So they are putting their feelers out for other sites. Simple as that.


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

It would be so cool if you could manage everything in one place, and have that info distribute out to every site like this. I'm thinking of the way XML and Stylesheets work. You just code everything into a single database, set up your blog and Twitter feeds, and even have all the PMs come through one messaging system.

Standardization would be awesome. Because I can't keep up with all the accounts I have now in various places.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Atunah said:


> It is so strange that that is what you get out of reading the article on Dear Author. There seems to be such a disdain for readers sometimes I am just totally baffled. Nowhere in this article does it say that readers want to huddle and be nasty. We want to be able to talk about books without the fear of having some thin skinned author go loco on us for daring not to like a book.


Well, hence my question "is this really such a battle?"

The article includes


> What readers really need is a private area where they can connect to other readers, share their thoughts about books, and not be afraid some site full of terrible people constantly looking over your shoulder ready to report you for any imagined infraction.


I'm guessing by "terrible people" they mean authors and their more militant fans. "Imagined infraction" might then be things like wishing the author some painful demise?
It seems to me that, if people were civil with their comments (and, yes, if authors were less thin-skinned about reviews), they would not have to "look over their shoulder". But then, I'm an idealist 

Just this morning, someone was called out on GR for being a "n***loving libtard". Lovely. So when then reading the Dear Reader article, it makes me wonder if they're including people who are looking for places where things like that are acceptable. In which case I wouldn't bother setting up an account.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

BellaRoccaforte said:


> So my question to you Oh Wise Ones of the Kindleboards what would you do? Ditch GR for Booklikes or sacrifice more sleep to do both?


I found a page on BookLikes where you can synchronize your postings on Goodreads, and also send to Facebook etc. That might be the solution there. 
I haven't tried it, yet, though, so I don't know how well that works.


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## BellaRoccaforte (May 26, 2013)

Hugh Howey said:


> It would be so cool if you could manage everything in one place, and have that info distribute out to every site like this. I'm thinking of the way XML and Stylesheets work. You just code everything into a single database, set up your blog and Twitter feeds, and even have all the PMs come through one messaging system.
> 
> Standardization would be awesome. Because I can't keep up with all the accounts I have now in various places.


Even with tools like Hootsuite it still doesn't cover it! I think we need longer days AND an aggregation tool! And LORD I can not imagine what it would be like trying to get through your emails - it's a pleasant problem I'm sure, but man I think my head would explode!



Quiss said:


> I found a page on BookLikes where you can synchronize your postings on Goodreads, and also send to Facebook etc. That might be the solution there.
> I haven't tried it, yet, though, so I don't know how well that works.


That's awesome - thank you Quiss! (I love you btw)


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

BellaRoccaforte said:


> That's awesome - thank you Quiss! (I love you btw)


 

Let us know how the synchronization works. I just know that, if I try, MY head will explode.


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## Joseph Turkot (Nov 9, 2012)

Woah Mama! Super easy to set up eBook only giveaways! Thanks for the heads up on this one.


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## Anne Victory (Jul 29, 2010)

I can certainly understand people not wanting to join a new site, and also concerns about time management, etc. It makes me sad whenever I see reader vs. author tension--it shouldn't be that way. Anyway, my only purpose was to let folk know that there is a possibility that Goodreads may be losing a lot of users. Maybe not--sometimes things blow over. 

As for slowness of the site--I think they got hit with massive amounts of people migrating from Goodreads, so they're probably really overwhelmed right now. To me, it seems not nearly as intuitive as GR, so we'll see if it sticks or not.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Anne Victory said:


> As for slowness of the site--I think they got hit with massive amounts of people migrating from Goodreads, so they're probably really overwhelmed right now. To me, it seems not nearly as intuitive as GR, so we'll see if it sticks or not.


Yeah, I still have a few books left that need importing. Its been importing for 7 days. But then I do have 3800 books 
Its not an easy site for someone that never had a blog or a website like me. For me goodreads is way more intuitive. It also has a much stronger database as all reviews are under all the edition while on BL every edition has its own reviews. 
But I do like the blog thingy. Never had one of those and that is where the reviews go.


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## Alex Anders (Apr 11, 2012)

Hugh Howey said:


> It would be so cool if you could manage everything in one place, and have that info distribute out to every site like this. I'm thinking of the way XML and Stylesheets work. You just code everything into a single database, set up your blog and Twitter feeds, and even have all the PMs come through one messaging system.
> 
> Standardization would be awesome. Because I can't keep up with all the accounts I have now in various places.


Hey Hugh, 
Someone told me about your post and suggested that I respond because I'm doing something like this. I have about 200 titles and a couple of month ago I become overwhelmed by managing all of my direct links and managing my formatting process. I decided to see if technology could help and it has. So since June I've been developing something that I've called Book Metadata Management software. Essentially you upload all of your books' parts to a database and then with a click of a button, you output an epub, mobi, pdf, doc or html file. After 3 and a half months of development, I'm about 10 days from releasing it.

But the second part of the project is about shaving time off of everything else that self-publisher have to do. Since everything you need is already in the database, it then becomes easy to upload all of it to a website, and to upload your latest releases to your newsletter and to your Facebook timeline and blog.

I'm on Goodreads but I never use it. I know that many have found it to be effective marketing tool, but we can't do everything, right?  So I have to ask, what exactly were you thinking of when you posted? What would you want to upload to places like Goodreads and BL and where ever else?

I don't have my marketing material done yet, but I do have a complete walkthrough of the software created to train the people who will be uploading my books to my database, if you want to check it out.

http://bit.ly/18tTDaM

I think it's safe to say that it will be a paradigm shift in self-publishing.


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## Maggie Dana (Oct 26, 2011)

From reading Booklikes's information I get the feeling that English is not its native language. So, where are they based? Does anyone know anything about them?


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Maggie Dana said:


> From reading Booklikes's information I get the feeling that English is not its native language. So, where are they based? Does anyone know anything about them?


Poland


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

I was a bit leery about setting up shop on Goodreads because of the culture there. I'm not sure I'm keen on setting up on a site that's concentrated the number of people more likely to spit poison and use my book as a platform to attack me personally.

And yeah, I have read through a lot of threads like that. There are a lot of people who have been super angry that they can't trash a book just because they hate the author. The very idea that such a thing might be verboten even spawned a meme 'Might as well call it 'Goodwrites'.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Yes!  I am really excited about this change.  BookLikes looks really awesome, and it's great to see so much of the active review community moving together.  (I'm really disappointed in the way GR chose to roll out its changes, but that's a thread for another day.)  

I'm waiting until the mass migration has simmered down a little to move my profile and all my reviews over...I hear the process is very slow right now due to so much traffic.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Vaalingrade said:


> I was a bit leery about setting up shop on Goodreads because of the culture there. I'm not sure I'm keen on setting up on a site that's concentrated the number of people more likely to spit poison and use my book as a platform to attack me personally.


They're not. The people like that were few and far between on Goodreads. The migration happened because GR came down on all readers with draconian new rules while doing nothing to curb the AUTHORS who were doing things like posting readers' addresses and phone numbers, calling them to threaten the readers and their families, and encouraging others to do the same.

Yes, there were a few bad apples among the readers on GR. There are bad apples in every community. The real ugliness was all coming from authors who felt slighted by perfectly benign but unfavorable reviews. And GR did nothing about those people, which understandably only made the readers who had already been exposed to personal treats feel all the more threatened.

I always found GR to be extremely friendly, fair, and welcoming to any author who was rational, relatively kind, and reasonably pleasant. The reputation it had for being an anti-author hate group is so far off the mark it's ridiculous.


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## Guest (Sep 30, 2013)

It appears easy to enter a giveaway, and those listed on the first page have about 5 to 15 people vying for just a couple books.  That could push up demand, unless all those people are just friends.


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## Guest (Sep 30, 2013)

Goodreads is at long last cleaning house. It's way overdue. It had become a playground for malicious individuals who bullied and attacked writers. It's common for these "trolls" to carpet-bomb authors with 1-star reviews to the tune of hundreds, or even a thousand, in a single day. Authors have been fleeing in droves because the site had turned so hostile toward them. This is why GR has been booting off their site many of these troublemakers.

Many of these trolls are now migrating to Booklikes to continue their vicious attacks. Authors would be wise to hold off on registering on BL until it becomes clear whether the site will be a healthy forum for writers and readers or a free-for-all, target-rich environment for malicious bullies.


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## Guest (Sep 30, 2013)

Apsara said:


> Many of these trolls are now migrating to Booklikes to continue their vicious attacks. Authors would be wise to hold off on registering on BL until it becomes clear whether the site will be a healthy forum for writers and readers or a free-for-all, target-rich environment for malicious bullies.


I guess that means we're doomed to wander the wastelands, forever without a home, wary of all.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Apsara said:


> Goodreads is at long last cleaning house. It's way overdue. It had become a playground for malicious individuals who bullied and attacked writers. It's common for these "trolls" to carpet-bomb authors with 1-star reviews to the tune of hundreds, or even a thousand, in a single day. Authors have been fleeing in droves because the site had turned so hostile toward them. This is why GR has been booting off their site many of these troublemakers.
> 
> Many of these trolls are now migrating to Booklikes to continue their vicious attacks. Authors would be wise to hold off on registering on BL until it becomes clear whether the site will be a healthy forum for writers and readers or a free-for-all, target-rich environment for malicious bullies.


None of this is factual, sorry to say. The only authors who were getting "carpet bombed" were those who were privately contacting readers and hurling profanity and physical threats at them, and those who were spamming forums with nonstop pushes to buy their book, even after they'd been asked to stop their disruptive behavior.

Additionally, GR is what it is -- the biggest and most detailed book database in the world -- because of the tireless work the "trolls" put in to maintain that database. They did it as volunteers, because they love books, and they have been excellent at including indie authors in that database and maintaining their books as tirelessly as they do traditionally published authors' books. If they had a hate-on for indie authors, why would they take such care to curate their works? (The biggest shame of all in the way readers' concerns were first ignored and then, with the new rules, totally trampled, is that it disregards the fact that those very readers made GR what it is: a resource so thorough and valuable that Amazon would purchase it! The original owners of GR profited from the hard work of all these readers, and then they basically took a huge dump on their faces. Nice move, GR.)

In a few months, I will be quitting my day job and writing full-time. That is 100% due to the early positive reception I had on Goodreads. I found the overall community there to be incredibly welcoming, and far more open to trying out an unknown, self-published author than any other community on the internet, including Amazon. In large part, GR readers were so open to giving an indie a fair shot at success because of the nature of the community there, which had little moderation and allowed readers to freely share their true opinions. Now that community has been destroyed by the negative actions of a few thin-skinned authors. If GR were a nest of bullies and trolls, as you claim, then I wouldn't be selling so many books now.

I am absolutely migrating over to BL with the "haters" and the "trolls." They are wonderful people, honest and open, quick to give an unknown author an equal chance. If you can't take a negative review now and then, and can't be bothered to learn the culture of a social network like GR, and to learn why isolated incidents like "carpet-bombing" happen (in response to ZERO support given to readers when they are harassed by crazy authors), then maybe you should exclude social networks from your promotion plan altogether.


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## Taking my troll a$$ outta here (Apr 8, 2013)

ElHawk said:


> I always found GR to be extremely friendly, fair, and welcoming to any author who was rational, relatively kind, and reasonably pleasant. The reputation it had for being an anti-author hate group is so far off the mark it's ridiculous.


^^ Me too. Sure, there are some bad apples on GR, but they're everywhere.

The new site looks interesting but I am reluctant to add any more social accounts. It's a bear trying to keep up as it is.


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

I created an account and loaded a few books, but that's as far as I'm taking it until I have a better sense for how this is all going wash out. I don't need/want another social media site, but it doesn't hurt to have the profile in place.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

Apsara said:


> Here are two such book shelves (and sample targeted authors/books) not yet taken down, but likely will be:
> 
> "Offensive Authors"
> http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/40789.Offensive_Authors?page=1
> ...


The first shelf you linked to includes _Mein Kampf_ by Adolf Hitler (which shockingly has a three star rating), the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the Klansman, books by Mussolini and other acknowledged hate literature as well as religious works (Book of Mormon, The Bible, The Quran) as well as works by authors who hold bigotted views and widely broadcast them (Orson Scott Card, Vox Dax) as well as books by (overwhelmingly indie) authors who have been at the center of some of the recent controversies such as Lauren Howard/Pippa or Rick Carufel as well as _Twilight_ by Stephenie Meyer, who -whatever you think of her writing - has always come across as extremely gracious in interviews.

Whatever one thinks of the behaviour of Lauren Howard/Pippa, the sin of not knowing how Goodreads works and potentially harrassing a reviewer does not put her on the same level as Hitler. And even if one really hates _Twilight_, that does not put it on the same level as _Mein Kampf_. Even if one is a committed atheist, religious works sacred to millions don't deserve to be on the same shelf as _Mein Kampf_. Finally, I don't get the idea of wasting time creating shelves of authors one can't stand and doesn't intend to ever read and spending a lot of time reviewing books one clearly hates. To quote the late great Marcel Reich-Ranicki, "Life is too short for bad books."

Excesses like these are why I am wary of Goodreads, Booklikes and similar services, even though I like the idea behind them. And yes, I'm aware that the people who make hate shelves are a tiny minority of all Goodreads users. But the harrassing authors are a minority of all authors as well. Never mind that in one recent case (trad pubbed author shows up in comments for a review of his book at a popular book blog to clarify some points in a perfectly polite way) the "crime" was definitely not serious enough to merit being labeled as "badly behaving author".

This sort of behaviour, rhetoric, etc... is not unique to Goodreads or certain corners of Goodreads BTW. It is common in certain corners of livejournal, Dreamwidth and other places on the internet as well. And in general I stay away from people who have been involved in uproars of that sort, even if I agree with some of their points and don't have any quarrel with them.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Weee, I got my check mark as being verified.
Don't know what it means, but what the heck.

Busy following Kboarders. Post your link!
I'm at http://chrisreher.booklikes.com/blog


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

I just want to thank *ElHawk* for speaking up and saying what you did. It is very very appreciated. Its also very needed as really did not feel welcome anymore here in the WC lately with the attitudes floating around towards readers.

So thank you.


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

Followed you, Chris.

http://saultanpepper.booklikes.com/


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

I'm having fun procrastinating customizing my page and finding interesting people to follow.
Now if I could only figure out how to move books from one shelf to another...


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

Quiss said:


> Weee, I got my check mark as being verified.
> Don't know what it means, but what the heck.
> 
> Busy following Kboarders. Post your link!
> I'm at http://chrisreher.booklikes.com/blog


They just today admitted I am an author... now i have to work on that verified check mark. You can find me at: 
http://vincenttrigili.booklikes.com

_EDIT: fixing url. OPs. _


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

I messed my page up. I clicked on the photo icon in the bar with the avatar, uploaded my photo and...it's taking up half a page. I thought it would go in the avatar circle thing. GRRRR... I've tried to delete both author photos, and it won't do it. I'm beyond frustrated with that part right now, but hey, once I figure out what I'm doing wrong...it looks nice.

http://lisagrace.booklikes.com/http://lisagrace.booklikes.com/


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## Guest (Oct 1, 2013)

I'm a little bit confused by BookLikes. I looked up authors like Stephen King and Stephenie Meyer, and there doesn't seem to be an "author" page which lists all their books like on Goodreads. Unless I'm missing something? Sure, you can look up their individual books but is there a place where all there books are on a page together? I just couldn't find this. And the fact that each edition of a book, e.g. Kindle or paperback, aren't linked up is odd. Each edition could have reviews but you'd have to go to each edition to see them all.

I guess the site is new but if it's out of beta shouldn't this stuff have been sorted out? I looked up a couple of authors who have been verified with the green tick and again I can't see all their books on the same page, even though I read about an "author tab." Does someone have a link to an author tab, or hasn't it been rolled out yet?

I set up just a regular account and imported my Goodreads shelves and reviews, even though I don't have many, but I just don't find the site that user friendly. It has potential. Maybe it will grow into it. Unless I'm an idiot and am just not clicking on the right things!


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