Becoming a Goodreads author

Yesterday after I posted about publication of my story “Pushaway” to my Facebook wall, my friend Cyd told me that I have an author profile on Goodreads.

And what is Goodreads?  It’s “the largest site for readers and book recommendations in the world” — a “social cataloging” site that allows readers to share what they’re reading, make recommendations to each other, review books, join book clubs, and even talk with authors. Right now it has over 6.5 million members with more than 220 million books in its catalog — which members are adding to every day.

And Goodreads recognizes me as an author. Cool.

Cyd went on to tell me that she could add to my author profile because

I’m a librarian, a lofty status I was awarded by asking, “Can I be a librarian?”, which means I can add your blog, a bio, a photo…

Very cool.  So she added my blog to my author profile, & I went on over there myself to check things out.  Next think you know, I had become myself a Goodreads user, so now I have two profiles, one for me as a reader, and one for me as an author. It turns out that it takes just a bit longer to be recognized as the author associated with an author profile than it does to be approved as a librarian (which I got myself appointed as too, in order to address some issues with a couple of books that stuff of mine appears in), but that should happen soon enough, at which point my author and reader profiles will become as one.  And then I’ll be able to do some additional cool stuff, as author, that I can’t do now.  But you can already, if you want to, become my fan.  (How strange! Me? Fans?)

This will be good for me, as I prepare to finish out my last non-“my stuff” writing obligation other than my editorship of Bent Alaska, and change gears to really focus on my writing.  The possibility of engaging as a writer with friends and potential friends who might like to read my stuff is a big motivator to do more writing, and actually getting it into shape that I can share with other people.