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Goodreads has been around for quite some time, and a lot, a lot of writers and readers are there. It feels like it would be a great platform for a writer to promote their books, receive feedback and reviews, and all that. And yet, my experience has been such that I’ll have to say, no, I don’t think Goodreads is worth my time.

Don’t get me wrong, I can’t say I haven’t benefitted from it. I’ve made some good friends and I’ve read some great books thanks to Goodreads. But the overall time I’ve had to invest, plus the way certain things function make me think that Goodreads is worth less than the overall effort and time you put in it.

This is tricky to quantify and explain, which makes the whole process rather insidious. To put it this way, it did take me some time to realize it. It’s also the reason why I bother talking about it; in an effort to help others.

So, let’s take a deeper look at all this. I’ll talk about my experiences with the platform, and why I think Goodreads isn’t worth my time. Your mileage may vary, of course.

Come to think of it, your mileage will very likely vary. But the reasons are still important.

The Goodreads Worth Factor

As with everything in life, judging the Goodreads worth factor is a matter of understanding the ratio of dirt you’ve got to dig through versus the traces of gold. Then, you need to gauge whether that’s worth it.

In its most basic form, Goodreads is a personal cataloguing system. As a reader, Goodreads allows you to have a handy list – including reviews, ratings, etc. – of the books you’ve read. It’s the most functional aspect of Goodreads, and it works reasonably well. However, it’s also one outside the scope of this post.

My goal is to explain why Goodreads is not worth it for writers. As a result, we need to focus on the relevant factors affecting this, and the cataloguing system is not one of them.

Connecting and Promoting

From a writer’s perspective, Goodreads should serve two purposes:

• Finding writers. That is, network with other writers (ideally, of the same genre as your work, and with motivations similar to yours) to exchange ideas and support one another.
• Finding readers. That is, discover an audience; find prospective readers (ideally, buyers) of your work.

Perhaps you’ve already zeroed in on the crucial factor, affecting both purposes: your work.

One of the biggest reasons Goodreads wasn’t worth my time and effort was that I write literary fiction. There are proportionally very few literary fiction authors out there. Conversely, if you write fantasy or romance fiction, you’ll find yourself swimming in them.

Still, this can be a problem too; for social (media) reasons.

Goodreads Is Basically a Glorified Facebook

Take everything you hate about Facebook or Twitter, and apply it here as well. Trolls; like prostitutes; herd mentality; revenge posting. It’s all there, clad in a (cheap) tunic of faux highbrow literary superiority. In simple words: Like all social media, Goodreads is a place where people take themselves too seriously.

To me, that was exhausting. I don’t even take life seriously (it’s too important to take seriously), so I can’t stand it when people build their existence on social media.

Goodreads Worth: Your Mileage Likely Varies

I assume three things about you – and obviously, for some of you, I’m wrong:

• You write genre fiction. I make this assumption simply because the overwhelming majority of writers do; it’s a purely statistical assumption.
• You care about sales. Again, this is an assumption I make because most authors want to sell books.
• You are more tolerant of social media than I am. This is the most speculative of the three. I consider myself highly intolerant of social media, since – with the exception of LinkedIn, where I have a profile – I don’t bother with any of them.

These assumptions (I must emphasize this), lead me to think Goodreads might be worth it for you more than it has for me. Still, it’s important to reflect on the factors we saw, how they work and how much effort they require, and decide whether it’s worth it for you. After all, you’re the only one who can know what’s best for your priorities.