#Bloggiesta: Goodreads Challenge

Posted on March 29, 2012 by janicu

For Bloggiesta, I’m hosting a mini-challenge which is about Goodreads. In my mind the reason why this site is pretty popular is because it has a lot of functionality and it has a social media aspect – you can follow what your friends are reading and comment as they read along. As a book blogger, you want to be able to network with readers. That’s my argument for being on Goodreads. 🙂

(My Goodreads profile)

To make things simple, my challenge has two levels – one for first timers and one for old timers. (If you have any questions – email me or leave a comment below)

* * * * *

FIRST TIMERS – If you don’t have a Goodreads account – create one! This is very straightforward: just go to goodreads.com and create an account with a name, email, and password. I found this youtube video that gives a great overview of signing up and using Goodreads to help you go through the steps, and, if you want to do a little more, it explains how to enter a review (you more likely than not don’t need to watch a video to figure it out, but it’s still nice to have the tutorial if you need it).

When you create your account, comment with a link to your Goodreads page!

* * * * *

OLD TIMERS – Below is a list of some tips and tricks I’ve learned over years from using the site. These aren’t that secret, but I’ve found them useful.

Your challenge:

Leave a comment with a tip or trick of your own OR
Tell me what you’ve done for Bloggiesta that involves Goodreads (did you put some of your reviews up there, linked your Goodreads account to your blog, or added a Goodreads widget to your sidebar?)

I encourage you to leave a link your Goodreads account too! This way bloggiesta participants can find and add one another if they want. 🙂

GOODREADS TIPS AND TRICKS:
1. Hiding spoilers
This is done by using the <spoiler> OMG, IT WAS THE BUTLER! </spoiler> tags. You can use this in your review, and you can put them in comments to other people’s status updates. Very nice when I’m having a readalong and don’t want to spoil someone that hasn’t read the book. But they don’t work in status updates, so I hide my spoilers in comments now that I discovered that.

Goodreads also allows other formatting (images, strikethroughs, links, etc).

2. General status updates
So above when I talked about status update, I meant when you’ve got a book on your currently reading queue and you click the link to update what page you’re on and what you have to say. Like so:

But did you know you could post a general status update, like say, link to your latest blog post on Goodreads? You just use the “add general status” link which is in the same area! It took me forever to figure this out!

3. Switching from page to percent and back
So along the same lines, it wasn’t obvious that you can switch if you want to record your reading progress in % or number of pages. The word “page” and the “%” character are links.

4. Other thoughts and suggestions

Have a link to your blog in your Goodreads profile.
Have a link to to your Goodreads in your blog.
If you like someone’s review, click “like” next to it in Goodreads. It helps raise it up to the top of the page for that book. That’s the kind of thing that gives someone a skip in their step.
Consider going into your account profile and into your email tab and make sure to select or deselect what you want to get emails for. Personally, I removed myself from getting newsletter emails and group updates because I was getting too many emails there, but I asked Goodreads to email me about pretty much everything else.
Consider getting the iPhone or Android Goodreads app. I have the Android app on my nook tablet, and I really like it for reading the status updates of my top friends. I don’t love it for adding books though – a little more complicated.
As with all social media, it’s about making genuine connections. So keep that in mind when you use the site. And have fun!

I also asked people on twitter about their tips or tricks and I got a couple of responses:

105 thoughts on “#Bloggiesta: Goodreads Challenge”

Rikki on March 29, 2012 at 6:05 pm said:

My GR shelves are on my to do list for Bloggiesta, so this challenge comes in handy!

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- janicu on March 29, 2012 at 8:16 pm said:
  
  Yay. 🙂 I hope to get some stuff done there myself. *sigh*. Was pretty bad in 2010 with updating goodreads with my reviews. Yes, I’m talking about not updating goodreads for pretty much a year, 2 years ago!
  
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  - Rikki on April 1, 2012 at 6:04 pm said:
    
    I re-did all my shelves and, with the help of a tip from MJ, moved my DNFs from read to an exclusive DNF shelf. Totally happy about this.
    
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Mary-Sweet Bookshelf on March 29, 2012 at 6:51 pm said:

LOVE this post! I’ve got a few GoodReads items on my Boggiesta to-do list! I’m in dire need of updating my reviews on GR. I’m bad! So, I’m making sure I’m all up to date there.

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- janicu on March 29, 2012 at 8:17 pm said:
  
  Cool, I hope I put up some helpful tips. Oh, you’re not alone at being bad about that! Nope, not at all! 🙂
  
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Jessica on March 29, 2012 at 8:25 pm said:

I love Goodreads. So glad to see a mini-challenge on it. Thanks for the informative post.

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- janicu on March 29, 2012 at 10:00 pm said:
  
  No problem! I hope you get a chance to do something for the challenge! 🙂
  
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Jen R (@JenRyland) on March 29, 2012 at 10:41 pm said:

Thanks so much for stopping by!
I agree that comments have to be reciprocal — not every single one, but if someone is always asking for comments and then never leaving any, I do notice.

Great goodreads post — I think GR is great for bloggers. I knew some of this but never realized there was a hide spoiler function. That’s awesome 🙂

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- janicu on March 30, 2012 at 12:14 am said:
  
  Agreed. 🙂
  
  Yup, the spoiler tag is a very useful one.
  
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thebookvixen on March 30, 2012 at 12:35 am said:

Great challenge! I have some organizing on GR to do myself.

One of my favorite features on GR (that I think few ultilize) is the notes field. These are private notes that only YOU will see. So I’ll type in where I got the book (bought, library, from the author, etc.) and I’ll also write in important details for books in a series. That way, when I read the next book, I know where the previous book left off. Pretty handy when series books are released a year apart.

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- janicu on March 30, 2012 at 12:43 am said:
  
  Oo, that’s a great tip! I hadn’t thought of using it for reminders. I don’t think I’ve ever used the notes field. Maybe that’s where I’ll put my “OK, I think this really should get 4.5 stars but I only put 4 because goodreads only lets me put 4” messages to myself. I like to use my ratings at the end of the year for my faves of the year post and sometimes it takes me a bit to remember the degree of my love for the book so I can organize my faves properly.
  
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  - Dee on April 1, 2012 at 11:29 am said:
    
    so true 😀
    
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trkravtin on March 30, 2012 at 12:56 am said:

Here’s my Goodreads profile. I’d love for fellow Bloggiesta followers! http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/1737994-teresa-rolfe

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- janicu on March 30, 2012 at 12:59 pm said:
  
  I have added you. 🙂
  
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Heidi on March 30, 2012 at 3:52 am said:

Thanks for the tips, Janice! I CANNOT BELIEVE I couldn’t find the ‘Add a General Update’ button. I’ve seen people do it, and just wondered how, but somehow never saw that button RIGHT THERE under my books.

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- Samantha Nicola (@CyV) on March 30, 2012 at 10:52 am said:
  
  Neither did I! Hidden in plain sight I guess!
  
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- janicu on March 30, 2012 at 12:56 pm said:
  
  You’re so not alone, I had to ask people how to do this on twitter! And it’s RIGHT THERE.
  
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Samantha Nicola (@CyV) on March 30, 2012 at 10:51 am said:

If you have twitter and/or facebook you can let GR post your process. If you make ‘mini-reviews’ as you read, this way people can get previews!

I also challenge myself to read a certain amount of books per year via GR, planning to put a countdown on my blog!

And try the ‘recommend me a book!’ option! It’s really fun!

http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/5830857

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- janicu on March 30, 2012 at 12:58 pm said:
  
  Thanks, that’s a good couple of tips! I also signed myself up for a Goodreads challenge this year (I always go for 100 books). Yes, that’s always a great motivator to read. 🙂
  
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Chachic on March 30, 2012 at 12:03 pm said:

I didn’t know you’re hosting a mini-challenge for Bloggiesta! Love that you chose to focus on Goodreads because I’m a big fan of the site (obviously since that’s where we update each other on our readalongs). You have some pretty useful tips here and I can’t think of anything else that I could add. Also, my blog is already linked to Goodreads and vice versa (here’s my profile: http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/3294750-chachic) so can this be my challenge participation: http://www.goodreads.com/user_status/show/12521204 😛

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- janicu on March 30, 2012 at 1:02 pm said:
  
  It was an impulse. “I need to join more things”, I said to myself.. 🙂
  
  Ha, I see and accept your challenge participation!
  
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  - Chachic on March 30, 2012 at 1:12 pm said:
    
    YAY! I can count this as one task that I’ve accomplished. 😛 I’ve thought of something Goodreads-related. It’s nice when people include their thoughts or some quotes when they update their reading status – no need ask “what do you think of it so far?”
    
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    - janicu on March 30, 2012 at 1:17 pm said:
      
      Oh this is true. Plus you get more comments and discussion when you do this. ALSO if you have linked Goodreads with twitter/FB, your statuses are more interesting for people following you on those sites.
      
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      - Chachic on March 30, 2012 at 1:21 pm said:
        
        Exactly! Sometimes I get replies on Twitter about my Goodreads status updates because they’re linked. Wish there was a way to connect Goodreads with the blog’s Facebook page instead of my personal profile though. I like to keep things separate over there (just found out I could link WordPress to a Facebook page).
        
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        janicu on March 30, 2012 at 1:23 pm said:
        
        You can? Maybe we can talk? I was thinking maybe I need to do the facebook page thing for this ol’ blog, and if it’s automated, maybe I will do it.
        
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        Chachic on March 30, 2012 at 1:29 pm said:
        
        I’m also online on Twitter if you want to talk over there? I found out about the Facebook page through another mini-challenge: http://blog.socketsandlightbulbs.com/2012/03/28/promoting-your-blog-on-facebook/
        
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janicu on March 30, 2012 at 1:09 pm said:

OK, So I’m participating in my own challenge. 🙂 I forgot about this tip, which I thought was kind of cool. You can customize your Goodreads URL very easily:

1. Go to your Goodreads account and edit profile
2. Fill out the User Name (customize your URL) field. For example, I put in “janicu”
3. Now your URL is goodreads.com/UserName (now mine is goodreads.com/janicu)

SO NOW, when you are telling people, hey check out my goodreads profile, I’m at goodreads.com/janicu — that’s so much easier than remembering the link on your profile page, which usually has some number and nickname attached to it.

And I think for Bloggiesta I hope to put some more reviews up there! I have to catch up on 2010 reviews.

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- Chachic on March 30, 2012 at 1:16 pm said:
  
  So I checked my profile after seeing this comment and found out that it’s set to goodreads.com/chachic and I just keep forgetting. Thanks for reminding me!
  
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  - janicu on March 30, 2012 at 1:19 pm said:
    
    Oh I forgot too. When I linked to my profile in my post, you can tell I forgot because it’s the longer link. Haha.
    
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Uniflame on March 30, 2012 at 2:52 pm said:

I added a link to my goodreads in the sidebar from my blog and I posted partial reviews with links to the actual reviews on goodreads for all books read in 2012. Not going to do the 2011 ones, that is just too much work 😉 But I will do it with every book I review from now on 🙂

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- janicu on March 30, 2012 at 2:58 pm said:
  
  Good job! Already through your 2012 reviews is impressive.
  
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christina on March 30, 2012 at 3:24 pm said:

I love this post and I’m glad that someone highlighted the benefits of GoodReads with their blog. It’s such a fantastic tool. I’m still figuring out some of the insiders details. My biggest project is going through my friends on their and categorizing them so my updates don’t get bogged down. 🙂

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- janicu on March 30, 2012 at 3:27 pm said:
  
  Thank you. Ah, the top friends and such? Is there a way to categorize friends and just see the updates of “YA bloggers” versus “Romance bloggers” etc on there? If so, I would love to know how to do that.
  
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Tanya Patrice on March 30, 2012 at 4:46 pm said:

I LOVE Goodreads. Thanks for the tip on the customized URL – I had forgotten that I had done that. And for my challenge – I linked Goodreads to Twitter & it’s linked on my sidebar – although I wish I could find a matching social media icon for it … might have to try my hand at making one.

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- janicu on March 30, 2012 at 8:04 pm said:
  
  Great to hear! Yup, it can be hard to find those icon sets that have ALL of the ones you want, and I hardly see enough goodreads ones!
  
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Teacher.Mother.Reader on March 30, 2012 at 7:33 pm said:

I have a lot of work to do on my GoodReads. I really appreciate you hosting the mini challenge. Thanks for all the tips, navigating a site like GoodReads, there are so many ‘hidden’ functions that can really help as you connect GoodReaders to your Blog. I will do my work and follow-up letting you know all the changes I made. 🙂

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- janicu on March 30, 2012 at 8:07 pm said:
  
  You’re welcome. Yes, goodreads has a lot of functionality and it’s hard to easily find out everything you can do there. Thanks for joining this challenge!
  
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jenn aka the picky girl on March 30, 2012 at 11:36 pm said:

This is a GREAT challenge. One of the top things on my list is adding review to GR, so this is definitely helpful. I have only been using it seriously for a couple of months, so these are great tips. Thanks!

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- janicu on March 31, 2012 at 2:02 am said:
  
  I’m glad my post was useful! Thanks for dropping by and taking up the challenge. 🙂
  
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Sara Kovach on March 31, 2012 at 1:46 am said:

I am a Goodreads addict. I use it regularly – daily. I update my books, I have sidebar widgets, I post my reviews there, am always adding to my TBR list, etc. There is one thing that I have not figured out yet though, how do people put the Goodreads buttons in their book review posts?

Thanks for this mini-challenge. I am following those who posted their profiles.

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- janicu on March 31, 2012 at 2:34 am said:
  
  Hmm! I am going to have to bust out the google fu. Do you have a link to an example of a post with a goodreads button? I know that wordpress allows me to choose social media buttons at the bottom of my posts but goodreads isn’t one of them…
  
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heidenkind on March 31, 2012 at 7:23 am said:

I linked my GR reviews to my blog from August of last year. I might do more backlinking, but that seems good for now.

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- janicu on March 31, 2012 at 12:47 pm said:
  
  OK, yes, that covers a lot – a good 8 months of reviews! Yeah, that is so time consuming you have to do it a bit at a time or it’s just overwhelming.
  
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Faye on March 31, 2012 at 1:19 pm said:

GR is such an amazing place. I use it daily. I have the app and I constantly update my book-reading progress and witness other peoples! But more than anything, GR, for me, has been a GREAT connection tool. What do I mean by that? I mean, I have met SO many amazing authors through GR. (As well as fellow Bloggers, as well).

And, did you know that as well as the “likes” just upping the review of the book, they also change your status in the “top reviewers” board for the week for your country?
I guess there are probably more US bloggers, but when I first saw I was #79 top reviewer in the UK, I squeed just a little bit! More likes = higher status = more people looking at your profile and going to your blog.

I also found the groups to be AMAZING ways of not only advertising your blog, of finding others, to discussing books and just meeting new people. Especially people with the SAME interest as you!

I like every review on my blog to the book’s page on Goodreads, I feel this helps the author and it gives all the readers a chance to see OTHER people’s thoughts on the book. After all, why JUST take my word for it?

I will also be using the mini-review idea! I never thought of doing that before!
And, I also knew all the other tips, but yay for other people realising them 😀

/long post is long.

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- janicu on March 31, 2012 at 5:27 pm said:
  
  More like /long post is awesome! Thank you for these ideas! I think I may have known about the likes being linked to the top reviewers but my brain didn’t retain the info – but it makes complete sense. Good point about linking to goodreads when you review too.
  
  I need to pay more attention to the groups, and you’ve inspired me to download the app so that not only will I have it on my nook tablet, but I’ll have it on my phone.
  
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Faye on March 31, 2012 at 1:33 pm said:

Oh, and because my comment WASN’T long enough! A tip I just remembered!

Have you ever started a book but not finished it? Either because it wasn’t for you, you had to take it back to the library or you just got busy? But it was on your ‘Currently Reading’ shelf?
Do you mark this book as ‘Read’? Even though you haven’t read it? And it can’t be ‘To read’ as you started it, right?

Ah, there is a THIRD category! Or even a fourth, or fifth!
What do you mean?
Well, you can make “Mutually Exclusive” shelves yourself! I have one that’s ‘started but will come back to’ at the moment because it was a library book I had to return!

How?
Simple.
Go to your shelves, create a shelf, whatever you wish to call it. And then click, ‘Edit’ next to the bookshelves (at the top, to the left). Then it takes you to a page with all your sheves! Then you just need to click on the ‘Mutually Exclusive’ tickbox for the shelf you want to be exclusive and VOILA. you have a FOURTH category for your books to go in aside from the main three; read, to read, currently reading.

Hope this makes sense! Just tap me if it doesn’t and I’ll screencap 😀

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- janicu on March 31, 2012 at 5:32 pm said:
  
  OMG. I DID NOT KNOW THIS! And I had wondered what to do about some books that are in a “paused” state. If I was handing awards for blowing my mind…
  
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  - Faye on March 31, 2012 at 5:50 pm said:
    
    haha. I’m just glad I was able to help out! 😀
    
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    - Kimberly on April 1, 2012 at 8:14 pm said:
      
      Thanks so much for this tip! I always felt guilty marking DNF books as read because there was no other option. I’m not off to make some changes!
      
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- Discardia (@Discardia) on May 25, 2012 at 4:50 am said:
  
  So useful! Thanks a bunch. I just gave up on a book (it was fine, but little things were annoying me and I have piles of books to get to so no reason to slog on) and was frustrated having to mark it “read”. Ahhhh, my sense of proper categorization is restored.
  
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bookdaze on March 31, 2012 at 4:13 pm said:

Love this challenge – I did not know the % v page thing at all, and it was annoying me 🙂

And I love Faye’s idea about setting up a new Mutually Exclusive shelf. I’ve some ideas about how to use that one…

I will be doing some GR stuff over this weekend. Umm… my trick probably isn’t really one, and I think I’ve mentioned it before – but I also have my GR RSS feed in my Google Reader (or whatever feed reader you use). It lets me quickly scan through updates if I haven’t been to GR for a while.

Li

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- janicu on March 31, 2012 at 5:48 pm said:
  
  That’s a good idea, especially if you are a feed reader person.. which I am. I do look at my google reader a lot every day, perhaps more than I go to goodreads. So now I was curious how to do that.. what’s the RSS feed for your friends? Is there one for all their updates? I can see that I can add RSS’s individually when I go to someone’s profile page, but I can’t find a catch-all RSS feed. I must be missing it.
  
  I think I’m going to use Faye’s idea too. 🙂
  
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  - bookdaze on March 31, 2012 at 8:21 pm said:
    
    I have the Google Reader bookmarklet (I think that’s what you call it – the toolbar button that lets you add RSS feeds to your reader??) – I just clicked on it while on my Goodreads home page (logged in) and it detected the feed for me.
    
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zaraalexis on March 31, 2012 at 4:51 pm said:

These are great tips. I’ll be sure to incorporate them the next time I update my status on Goodreads! Cool, thanks!

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- janicu on March 31, 2012 at 5:48 pm said:
  
  You’re welcome. Glad it was helpful. 🙂
  
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Roberta on March 31, 2012 at 8:27 pm said:

I have been wanting to do a better job with Goodreads for awhile, but only had signed up for an account and never really used it. Today I tried to sign in. Goodreads created a brand new account for me using my Facebook account and was contacting all my Facebook friends before I realized things were going wrong. It is funny now, but sometimes social media is a bit too social.

Anyway, I’m trying out your suggestions.

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- janicu on April 1, 2012 at 1:17 am said:
  
  Hmm. I hadn’t tried signing up with Facebook so I didn’t know it did this. Not a fan of that happening without warning. 😦 I would suggest going to the apps tab on your profile and see what Facebook is set to. It may start updating your Facebook with your status updates from GR. If you want that, great, but if you don’t, I think it tells you how to turn it off there.
  
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readerbuzz on March 31, 2012 at 9:07 pm said:

I love Goodreads! I’m debnance there, too.

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- janicu on April 1, 2012 at 1:17 am said:
  
  Cool. 🙂
  
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novalibrarymom on April 1, 2012 at 1:39 am said:

I lost my Goodreads in my sidebar when I moved to self-hosted, so I put it back up in there. I love seeing what others are reading, I’ve gotten alot of good suggestions since starting to use it.

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- janicu on April 1, 2012 at 3:32 am said:
  
  It looks great! (I also really like the yellow background of your blog – I think it looks so lovely and cheerful).
  
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  - novalibrarymom on April 1, 2012 at 10:24 am said:
    
    Oh, thanks for saying that! I recently changed the background and couldn’t decide if I liked it or not. Thanks for the feedback!
    
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    - janicu on April 1, 2012 at 9:28 pm said:
      
      I really like it! 🙂
      
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Liza on April 1, 2012 at 1:47 am said:

Thank you for hosting this mini-challenge! I am on Goodreads to keep track of my-want-to-read list and have started using some of the other features. Thank you SO much for the tip on switching between page and % progress. I’ve recently started reading on Kobo, which only tells me the number of pages in a chapter… not the whole book. I’m updating that, and the progress of the book I’m reading, on Goodreads now!

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- janicu on April 1, 2012 at 3:39 am said:
  
  You’re welcome, thanks for taking up the challenge! Yes, that little tip on switching back and forth is a lifesaver with ebooks.
  
  By the way, thank you for hosting the Facebook challenge. I was contemplating having a Facebook page for my blog but I was a bit intimidated because I am NOT a Facebook person. Your post makes it look easy, so I think I’m going to do it for sure.
  
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  - Liza on April 1, 2012 at 3:45 am said:
    
    My Goodreads status is now up-to-date thanks to your tip.
    
    You’re very welcome for the Facebook mini-challenge. I had fun writing that post. Hope you try it out during Bloggiesta!
    
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myragarcesbacsal on April 1, 2012 at 5:16 am said:

Hi there Janicu, this is one of the mini-challenges that we decided to join since our Goodreads has been sadly languishing for the longest time and it’s not receiving as much love as it should. Here is our Goodreads site: http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/7494472-gatheringbooks
Will be posting an update on my blog about some of the things I managed to work on for this challenge in a few minutes’ time. Thanks for hosting this challenge.

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- janicu on April 1, 2012 at 1:55 pm said:
  
  Great job! I saw you added a bunch of new books. Yeah, I am guilty of sometimes not keeping my books up to date over there, but with more ratings and reviews, other readers can know what you like and find you. 🙂 (I’m going over to check out your post right now).
  
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myragarcesbacsal on April 1, 2012 at 5:49 am said:

Hi Janicu, here is our update: http://wp.me/pDlzr-3oc – do let us know if you have any more recommendations for Goodreads! Again, thanks for hosting this.

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- janicu on April 1, 2012 at 2:00 pm said:
  
  🙂 No problem. I had one suggestion which I put in the comments.
  
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Alison on April 1, 2012 at 1:24 pm said:

Here’s another tip I learned: You can make more exclusive shelves [like read, to read, currently reading]. It’s very helpful for a did not finish shelf or a need to review shelf.
My how to: http://thecheapreader.wordpress.com/2012/01/26/how-to-make-exclusive-shelves-on-goodreads/

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- janicu on April 1, 2012 at 2:02 pm said:
  
  Wow, you have a tutorial! Thank you for that, I didn’t know about the exclusive shelves before putting up this Goodreads challenge, so I’ve definitely learned a couple of things doing this.
  
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Daisy Chain on April 1, 2012 at 2:25 pm said:

wow! Im on GR for a while now but have learned a lot in this Challenge and all the helpful tips. One of my biggest problems where my unfinished library books. So happy that I found a solution for that here!
My Profile:
http://www.goodreads.com/daisy_chain
Also I saw the “general update” button but never realised that I could inform people about new posts in it. D’oh!
Thanks a lot for this Challenge!

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- janicu on April 1, 2012 at 3:43 pm said:
  
  You’re welcome. Yeah, I had similar “you can do that?” moments with GR! 🙂
  
  I checked out your GR page and we have overlapping tastes, so I added you. Thanks for joining the challenge!
  
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Anna on April 1, 2012 at 5:58 pm said:

I had no idea you could switch between page numbers and percentage. I will be using that from now on.

I don’t have any new tips for people, since I’m still kind of exploring goodreads myself. I do like spying on what my friends are loading on their bookshelves, though!

http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/2038521

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- janicu on April 1, 2012 at 9:31 pm said:
  
  Hey, I know you! 🙂 I didn’t know that you had genrereviews.com — ooo. I’m updating my links today so I think I’ll point at that now.
  
  (Me too re: spying) 🙂
  
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alexia561 on April 1, 2012 at 7:35 pm said:

Great challenge! I’ve been on Goodreads for awhile, but never knew about the general update button or the spoiler option. Thanks so much for the info! I’ve updated my reviews for 2012, have the Goodreads Reading Challenge widget on my sidebar, and usually link the book to GRs in my reviews.

goodreads.com/Alexia561

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- janicu on April 1, 2012 at 9:40 pm said:
  
  Glad I had helpful tips. 🙂
  
  Added you back on goodreads – I like your taste in urban fantasy!
  
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joyweesemoll on April 1, 2012 at 7:35 pm said:

Thanks for this. I totally forget that I can record the progress I’m making in a book. So I did that for one of the books I’m reading and will do it with the other later today! My goodreads profile is: http://www.goodreads.com/joyweesemoll

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- janicu on April 1, 2012 at 9:51 pm said:
  
  You’re welcome. Thank you joining in and for the Pinterest challenge. 🙂
  
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kai charles (@YogiKai) on April 1, 2012 at 9:45 pm said:

Thanks for the tips! I have a goodreads widget with my reading challeng goals and i updated reviews 🙂
http://www.fictionstateofmind.blogspot.com

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- janicu on April 1, 2012 at 10:02 pm said:
  
  Thanks for joining in! Your blog is very pretty (especially the header).
  
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Angelya on April 1, 2012 at 11:11 pm said:

Oh wow, thank you so much for letting me know that you can switch between page and % on the website! I had been updating my kindle book progress on my phone only because I thought I could only do that on the app! *slaps self*

I use Goodreads to keep a handle on my to-read list – you can change the order of the books there to keep track of what order things need to be read in.

Thanks for the great post and happy Bloggiesta!

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- janicu on April 2, 2012 at 12:59 am said:
  
  It’s very hard to tell that ‘page’ and ‘%’ are links right? *shakes head*. I wish they’d made that more obvious.
  
  You can? This is a new-to-me tip! That is great. Wow, they really give you a lot of flexibility in organizing your shelves over there.
  
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Sheila (Book Journey) on April 1, 2012 at 11:13 pm said:

Out of all the sights out there Goodreads is the only one I attempt to keep up with. I put all my reviews on there. I am not there as much as I would like but I dont get to read as w=much as I like either, or blog, or….LOL

Thanks for the tips, I appreciate knowing a little more about Goodreads.

http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/3286370-sheila-dechantal

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- janicu on April 2, 2012 at 1:00 am said:
  
  🙂 Hehe, yeah, it’s funny how fast time goes by and it’s not enough to do as much as you want.
  
  You’re welcome. And I’m going to head over and check out your goodreads right now.
  
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Charlotte on April 2, 2012 at 12:42 am said:

I am using Goodreads seriously for the first time this year, to keep track of the books I’ve read (finally I will find out how many books I read in a year!). I hate giving stars, so don’t review much.

I’ve joined the time travel group there, which is fun–the groups are a good way to meet people with similar interests and get ideas about what to read!

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- janicu on April 2, 2012 at 1:03 am said:
  
  Hmm, I know what you mean about stars. I give things stars there and then change my mind. 5 stars is too restrictive – it doesn’t tell you enough. I still recommend reviewing there without actually putting in a star value though.
  
  I need to explore those groups some more. 🙂
  
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ladyofnarnia on April 2, 2012 at 2:30 am said:

I’ve had a Goodreads account for a little while, but I hadn’t done much with it. During Bloggiesta I poked around and added some books and entered the reading challenge for 2012. Your post is great! i plan on referencing it once I get further into using Goodreads. Thank you! http://www.goodreads.com/ladyofnarnia

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- janicu on April 2, 2012 at 12:23 pm said:
  
  You’re welcome. I hope you get further into using goodreads. It takes a little time getting used to.
  
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Kristilyn (Reading In Winter) on April 2, 2012 at 3:41 am said:

Great post! I had no idea that I could add a general status update … I’ll have to try that sometime. I also thought about putting just a sample of my review on Goodreads, then a link to my blog — I was usually so behind with posting my reviews, that it seemed like a pain in the butt, but if I stay on top of it, it should be easier! Oh, and the spoilers html … I never thought about that!

I love having the app on my Android and my iPod … it’s so helpful when I’m reading on the go. I also just heard recently that liking someone’s review bumps it up on the list, so I’ll have to be sure to do that!

Thanks!

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- janicu on April 2, 2012 at 12:26 pm said:
  
  You’re welcome. 🙂 Yup, keeping on top of the cross-posting your reviews to goodreads is the key to not being overwhelmed. Sometimes I can get behind for MONTHS and then I pay for it when I have to spend days catching up (yet I do this still… )
  
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