Quote:
Originally Posted by Melpomene
I've signed up for a GoodReads account, but I'm extremely confused about exactly what I'm supposed to do - do I log all the books I've ever read? (I could never remember!), or do I log all the books I read from my registration date onwards? How do some people thousands of books logged without remembering everything they've ever read?! Nobody can do that. What do I do if a book I'm reading isn't listed in their catalogue? Will I be kicked off if I don't read "fast enough"? Is it a reading website or a popularity contest?
It's definitely the strangest website I've ever signed up for. Are there any alternatives? What exactly IS its purpose?
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You use it however YOU want.
Here are the things you can do, if you want:
Log the books you read--whichever you want to log. Rate them, review them if you want. You can join a group of people who enjoy the same authors/genres/whatever you like and do group reads if you like. Friend people. Those people will read, rate, and review books and you can decide whether you want to read the books they've enjoyed. Get automated or personal recommendations. Recommend books to friends if you think they'll enjoy them. Find out about new releases from authors you enjoy. Enter contests to win free copies of books that sound interesting. Use the cataloging data to find out what books are in what series in what order, including short stories/novellas. Develop a "to-read" list and refer to that when you are considering buying a new book, browsing OverDrive, or going to the library.
One of the things I enjoy is that if you have an upcoming release on your "to-read" shelf, Goodreads will email me when it comes out so I don't forget about it!
For a while I had my Goodreads reviews automatically ported to my romance review blog, but that project has been dormant for a while. But you can totally do things like that if you want.
There are so many ways to use Goodreads--you can really use it exactly the way you like and ignore the others.
Incidentally I have "thousands" of books logged because I read a lot, I read fast, and have been logging for a few years. I went back and logged some of my old comfort reads when I had some spare time. Also I tend to log short stories and novellas as well as novels. I think these "thousands" of books includes the ones I want to read but haven't yet.