Alex St. Clair's Blog: What Writers Need to Know About GoodreadsBy Jason Boog on December 11, 2012

Have you joined Goodreads? This bustling community of readers seems perfect for writers, but it is very easy to make a bad impression on its members.

After a long Ask Me Anything interview on Reddit, novelist Michael J. Sullivan recently collected some advice for writers using Goodreads. His advice can spare many writers some bad experiences on the network.

Here is his most important piece of advice: “The most important thing to remember about goodreads is that members of this site REALLY hate self-promotion. Primarily because too many authors come to the site and do drive-by posts and leave. This makes their radar on such matters very sensitive. The key to goodreads is to become a member of the community first…and mention your writing only in context and when appropriate.”

Comment from Alex: I started working on the Spanish translation, the sequel and first book promotions all at once after Epublishing The Mexican Rose leaving no time for the community. I will join you after the New Year! Happy Holidaze!

From the Author: The Process

From photo-journalist to journalist to novelist. One goes through on ideological evolutionary journey to land at your desk, night and day, day and night, to get it right.

I soul-searched for years before venturing onto this controversial theme laced with passion and romanticism. This story is about Rosa Rios, the main protaganist, and the process of changes in Mexican citizens' psyche as a whole as they experience one of the most upheaving decades in memory. The events which are coincidentally concurrent with the chaotic cartel news in Mexico are but a backdrop for the underlying message of addressing the monumental issue of ending the viscious feuding cycle and the beginning a healing of the nation.

Having lived and travelled throughout the country has educated me more than any book guide or video could accomplish. It gave me a true feel for the landscapes I painted across the dystopian canvas with broad brush strokes and wove into the book a fine fabric mosaic of motherhood, sisterhood, brotherhood and brutal cartels and politicians. Class warfare meets a surreal urban fantasyland that is the reality of Mexico.

The next installment, American Beauty Destroyed, will be an even more in-depth soul-searching voyage for Rosa Rios and her American romantic counterpart.

SPA...no not the relaxation kind but Self-Published Author. After writing non-stop for 14 months, it's time to Self-Publish. OMG, yes, CAPS, what hath God wrought. Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, Amazon, goodreads...SOUND VAGUELY FAMILIAR?

We once had a life...as a writer, novelist, journalist and a family and a few friends that used to know who thouest be. Lol. No joke, I live in sunny Mexico and when the internet is flowing well (as many things here) life is good. But when one has FIVE sites to maintain and the net is slooow, oy Jesus Christo, give me patience.

All kidding aside, how many of you find that solace once known as writing has slipped into some time'warp continuum?

Thank the Gods I wrote 90% of my sequel, American Beauty for House Of Cartels, before jumping into the SPA Arena like a Gladiator in heat. All I can say to those whom I´ve friended here, thank you for showing me the light and MADD PROPS for your tenacity, endurance and overall writing stamina.

Soon I will be back on the palapa covered patio with the breeze to my back and the words flowing off these fine fingers like a shaman´s good spell. Now what days do we want to do our Amazon Select Giveaway???

When I started out to write my first novel I, like most ‘aspiring’ writers, became overwhelmed at the sheer enormity of the task of E-Book publishing. One reads and sees some many cliches along the way. Jaded, aspiring, amazing, awesome are just some of the well of adjectives one comes across on a daily if not on an hourly basis.

Feeling that abyssmal feeling that that it would never end, I found solace listening to writer’s interview on the BBC’s World Book Club. I searched the archives and found one of my favorite and ‘inspiring’ authors, Carlos Fuentes. He related a story from his younger years in writing. How he became reclusive and simply became sick from the process. I concluded that, to use a cliche, ‘no pain, no gain’. Your friends all look at you as if it’s been a lifetime since they’ve seen or spoken to you. Caffeine is your best friend and the corner bakery is the culprit in your weight gain. But at the end of the interview, he said he jumped into the ocean on the Dutch coast where he and his parents lived to celebrate his finishing his novel.

The name escapes me now but I find that same ritual has been the therapeutic relief I needed so into the Caribbean sea I go. After the salt-water baptism, I go back and realize I now have to finish editing and proofreading with my intern team. Next we load up and publish on Amazon and go through the process again to clean the glitches and overlooked typos, some I swear are digital gremlins that somehow manage to irritate everyone.

The next challenge is listening to the pros and cons of the KDP Select Program so you idle while deciding and then understand that the process gets bigger when you are building contacts on Twitter, Facebook and Goodreads. But for 29.95 you can get Kindle Nations to rescue the Free Giveaway promo. Better than paying 99.95 for online seminars that all seem to replicate the same advice you can find if you search it out. The difference is that you join and pay to in a community of writers or do the piecemeal method. So the higher price is appealing.

In all, I think the writing community is getting as organized as Labor Unions or Teacher Unions and the tsunami of the Kindle explosion is just the tip of digital iceberg.

Join me in that Union.