our blog
This is a place for Goodreads employees to blog about anything they like: site updates, new features, relevant happenings, or really anything!
Check back here whenever you like to find out what is going on at Goodreads and to learn a little more about us.
Check back here whenever you like to find out what is going on at Goodreads and to learn a little more about us.
blog posts (showing 1- 10 of 65)
Welcome, Michael!
posted by Otis on February, 03
Goodreads has hired our first full-time engineer - Michael Economy! So far all engineering has been done by myself or by contractors, so we're very excited to have Michael helping crank stuff out!
Before joining, Michael also worked at Tickle, as the lead engineer of various products. He graduated from Appalachian State University with a BS in computer science. His favorite kind of books are hard sci-fi and his hobbies include surfing and mountain biking.
Welcome, Michael!
posted by Otis on February, 03
Goodreads has hired our first full-time engineer - Michael Economy! So far all engineering has been done by myself or by contractors, so we're very excited to have Michael helping crank stuff out!
Before joining, Michael also worked at Tickle, as the lead engineer of various products. He graduated from Appalachian State University with a BS in computer science. His favorite kind of books are hard sci-fi and his hobbies include surfing and mountain biking.
Welcome, Michael!
customize your "find at:" links
posted by MICHAEL on February, 01
You can now reorder and customize your "find at:" links:
Example:
Hope you guys like it, its my first real site feature!
posted by MICHAEL on February, 01
You can now reorder and customize your "find at:" links:
Example:
To do this click on find at: ... more ... edit and there you can rearrange the links, delete the ones you don't want, and add new ones you create!
Hope you guys like it, its my first real site feature!
design & libraries
posted by Otis on January, 30
Someone sent me a post with some really cool photos of a library somewhere in the midwest.
Thought I should share it - enjoy!
(images sourced from Flickr)
posted by Otis on January, 30
Someone sent me a post with some really cool photos of a library somewhere in the midwest.
Thought I should share it - enjoy!
(images sourced from Flickr)
The way to get more readers - help pirate your own books!
posted by Otis on January, 28
Found a great article today called Alchemist Author Pirates His Own Books. Evidently Paulo Coelho has found a way to give away his books for free: link to pirated copies of them!
There is no debate that giving away free copies of a can greatly increase sales and readership of a book. Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail, even wrote a blog post about it recently called Why give away your book?
Some great quotes from the amazing video (embedded below):
"Believe it or not, the sales of the book increased a lot thanks to the Pirate Coelho site..."
"We need the internet and the internet is not a threat. And we need to think twice about this copyright idea."
"Copyright is a standard to protect content. And I think it's a lost battle"
"The dream of any writer is to be read"
Coelho said he spends 3 hours a day interacting with his readers on Facebook, MySpace, and Flickr. Amazing. I hope we can get him to sign up to be a Goodreads Author!
update: Ask and ye shall receive - Paulo is now on Goodreads!
Link: sevenload.com
posted by Otis on January, 28
Found a great article today called Alchemist Author Pirates His Own Books. Evidently Paulo Coelho has found a way to give away his books for free: link to pirated copies of them!
There is no debate that giving away free copies of a can greatly increase sales and readership of a book. Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail, even wrote a blog post about it recently called Why give away your book?
Some great quotes from the amazing video (embedded below):
"Believe it or not, the sales of the book increased a lot thanks to the Pirate Coelho site..."
"We need the internet and the internet is not a threat. And we need to think twice about this copyright idea."
"Copyright is a standard to protect content. And I think it's a lost battle"
"The dream of any writer is to be read"
Coelho said he spends 3 hours a day interacting with his readers on Facebook, MySpace, and Flickr. Amazing. I hope we can get him to sign up to be a Goodreads Author!
update: Ask and ye shall receive - Paulo is now on Goodreads!
Link: sevenload.com
Recent changes
posted by Otis on January, 14
We've launched quite a few changes since the New Year. Here is a brief summary of them!
Which groups have this book
This one's really cool - now when viewing a book you can see which groups have added it to their shelf. This has turned out to be a great way to find cool groups, as now you just have to browse your favorite books!
Spoilers
Now when writing a review you can mark it as container plot spoilers or not. This was a top-requested feature, and will ease the conscience of those who like to write spoilers in their reviews!
Private notes
Another new field when adding a review is private notes. These are what they sound like - a text field thats for your eyes only. Use it to mark who you lent your copy of the book to, or for whatever else you want to remember that you don't want to put in the public review!
Who recommended me this book?
One last field when adding a book review is the ability to mark who recommended the book to you. This is a neat one, as once we get enough data we'll be able to show really cool stats on how far your recommendations go, or who the best recommender's are!
New fields for each book
We added a slew of new fields to each book, which should help our Goodreads Librarians as they continually add information to improve our catalog. The fields are: which characters are in the book, literary awards, setting (country & postal code), and primary language.
posted by Otis on January, 14
We've launched quite a few changes since the New Year. Here is a brief summary of them!
Which groups have this book
This one's really cool - now when viewing a book you can see which groups have added it to their shelf. This has turned out to be a great way to find cool groups, as now you just have to browse your favorite books!
Spoilers
Now when writing a review you can mark it as container plot spoilers or not. This was a top-requested feature, and will ease the conscience of those who like to write spoilers in their reviews!
Private notes
Another new field when adding a review is private notes. These are what they sound like - a text field thats for your eyes only. Use it to mark who you lent your copy of the book to, or for whatever else you want to remember that you don't want to put in the public review!
Who recommended me this book?
One last field when adding a book review is the ability to mark who recommended the book to you. This is a neat one, as once we get enough data we'll be able to show really cool stats on how far your recommendations go, or who the best recommender's are!
New fields for each book
We added a slew of new fields to each book, which should help our Goodreads Librarians as they continually add information to improve our catalog. The fields are: which characters are in the book, literary awards, setting (country & postal code), and primary language.
Goodreads is growing!
posted by Otis on January, 14
If you've emailed us lately or played around in the Goodreads Feedback group, you may have seen our new Community Manager, Jessica Donaghy.
As Community Manager Jessica will be helping out in all sorts of areas, including being a head librarian, helping to grow our Author Program, and much more! She is particularly excited to help connect writers and readers on Goodreads. Jessica double majored in Human Biology and Drama at Stanford University (yes, there is a trend here). Since then she has pursued her interests by working in breast cancer research, theater, opera, and film, and as an editor and teacher. She loves authors with a bite (Margaret Atwood can do no wrong and Thomas Pynchon keeps her up at night), and also has a weakness for modern playwrights, science non-fiction and anything classically romantic.
Welcome Jessica!
posted by Otis on January, 14
If you've emailed us lately or played around in the Goodreads Feedback group, you may have seen our new Community Manager, Jessica Donaghy.
As Community Manager Jessica will be helping out in all sorts of areas, including being a head librarian, helping to grow our Author Program, and much more! She is particularly excited to help connect writers and readers on Goodreads. Jessica double majored in Human Biology and Drama at Stanford University (yes, there is a trend here). Since then she has pursued her interests by working in breast cancer research, theater, opera, and film, and as an editor and teacher. She loves authors with a bite (Margaret Atwood can do no wrong and Thomas Pynchon keeps her up at night), and also has a weakness for modern playwrights, science non-fiction and anything classically romantic.
Welcome Jessica!
Most read books of 2007
posted by Otis on January, 11
Ahhh its that time of year - 2007 has ended and everyone is feeling nostalgic and making lists of stuff. For example, Time Magazine recently came out with 50 Top 10 Lists of 2007 (shameless self-plug: and named Goodreads as the #5 best website of 2007)!
So we decided to make our own list. But what to list? The New York Times has their best seller lists, but we don't have sales data. However we do know when someone read a book, thanks to a 'read date' field attached to every book review. Goodreads has over 10 million books added, and 15% of those have the read date filled in.
So we added a new section under 'explore' called most read that shows what people have read recently. Here is what Americans were reading in 2007:
posted by Otis on January, 11
Ahhh its that time of year - 2007 has ended and everyone is feeling nostalgic and making lists of stuff. For example, Time Magazine recently came out with 50 Top 10 Lists of 2007 (shameless self-plug: and named Goodreads as the #5 best website of 2007)!
So we decided to make our own list. But what to list? The New York Times has their best seller lists, but we don't have sales data. However we do know when someone read a book, thanks to a 'read date' field attached to every book review. Goodreads has over 10 million books added, and 15% of those have the read date filled in.
So we added a new section under 'explore' called most read that shows what people have read recently. Here is what Americans were reading in 2007:
most read fiction books
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
- The Kite Runner
- A Thousand Splendid Suns
- To Kill a Mockingbird
- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
- The Catcher in the Rye
- Middlesex
- The Da Vinci Code
- Water for Elephants
- The Great Gatsby
most read non-fiction books
- Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia
- The Glass Castle: A Memoir
- Me Talk Pretty One Day
- A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
- Running with Scissors: A Memoir
- Freakonomics Rev Ed: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
- Into the Wild
- The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
- The Omnivore's Dilemma
- The Year of Magical Thinking
most read classics
- To Kill a Mockingbird
- The Catcher in the Rye
- The Great Gatsby
- 1984
- Slaughterhouse-Five
- Brave New World
- Love in the Time of Cholera
- Lord of the Flies
- The Fountainhead
- The Hobbit
most read childrens books
- The Harry Potter Series
- The Giver
- His Dark Materials Trilogy
- Where the Sidewalk Ends
- A Wrinkle in Time
- Little Women
- Eragon
- Watership Down
- The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
- Eldest
most read history books
- Night
- The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic & Madness and the Fair that Changed America
- Guns, Germs, and Steel
- Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl
- People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present
- Assassination Vacation
- The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century
- The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley
- All Quiet on the Western Front
- 1776
most read romance books
- Twilight
- New Moon
- Jane Eyre
- Wuthering Heights
- Emma
- Sense and Sensibility
- The Notebook
- Bridget Jones's Diary
- Outlander
- A Walk to Remember
most read sci-fi books
- The Time Traveler's Wife
- 1984
- Brave New World
- The Handmaid's Tale: A Novel
- Ender's Game
- His Dark Materials Trilogy
- A Wrinkle in Time
- Fahrenheit 451
- World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
most read philosophy books
- The Alchemist
- The Fountainhead
- Atlas Shrugged
- The Stranger
- Siddhartha
- Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit
- The God Delusion
- Anthem
- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
- Mere Christianity
most read mystery books
- The Da Vinci Code
- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
- Angels & Demons
- The Thirteenth Tale: A Novel
- The Shadow of the Wind
- The Eyre Affair
- The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
- Deception Point
- One for the Money
- Lean Mean Thirteen
most read poetry books
- Where the Sidewalk Ends
- The Giving Tree
- The Odyssey
- Beowulf: A New Verse Translation
- The Canterbury Tales
- A Light in the Attic
- The Prophet
- The Iliad
- Paradise Lost
- Letters to a Young Poet
Show off your favorite quotes on your blog
posted by Otis on January, 08
The newly launched Quotes feature is going surprisingly well, with nearly 12,000 quotes being added to 35,000 member profiles.
Someone recently suggested that we launch a widget to allow you to show off your favorite quotes on your blog or website.
We busted it out over the weekend, and I think it looks pretty good! A more robust flash one is in the works for you MySpace users. To find it, go to my books then widgets.
Here's the widget in action, showing my favorite quotes:
posted by Otis on January, 08
The newly launched Quotes feature is going surprisingly well, with nearly 12,000 quotes being added to 35,000 member profiles.
Someone recently suggested that we launch a widget to allow you to show off your favorite quotes on your blog or website.
We busted it out over the weekend, and I think it looks pretty good! A more robust flash one is in the works for you MySpace users. To find it, go to my books then widgets.
Here's the widget in action, showing my favorite quotes:
Author Q&A; groups
posted by Otis on January, 07
Here's a quick update on the Author Q&A; groups feature we launched last year. We launched the feature for author Barbara Delinsky, but we made it available to any author who wanted to form a Q&A; group to directly interact with interested readers.
We're happy to say, as announced in our December newsletter, that author David Liss's Q&A; group kicked off today. David has written many interesting sounding novels, but after reading the descriptions and reviews I'm most eager to try The Coffee Trader.
We have 8 Author Discussion Groups created so far. Everyone says authors are solitary creatures so we weren't exactly expecting a flood, but some of them seem to be experimenting with it - which is all we could hope for :)
Some stats on how the Barbara Delinsky's Q&A; Group went: 100 people joined the group, 20 of whom participated in some lively discussion. The number of books by Barbara Delinsky added to member profiles in November (the month Barbara was participating) increased 550% (from 36 in Oct to 200 in Nov). Many of those books were added to the 'to-read' shelf, indicating an increased interest in Barbara's books. These numbers aren't rock-your-socks-off, but they did represent significantly increased interest, and Barbara seemed happy with the experiment.
Here is a graph showing books by Barbara added during the time she did her discussion group:
Make sure you check out David Liss's Q&A; group! And if you have suggestions for which other Goodreads Authors you'd like to see do a Q&A; group, please let us know!
posted by Otis on January, 07
Here's a quick update on the Author Q&A; groups feature we launched last year. We launched the feature for author Barbara Delinsky, but we made it available to any author who wanted to form a Q&A; group to directly interact with interested readers.
We're happy to say, as announced in our December newsletter, that author David Liss's Q&A; group kicked off today. David has written many interesting sounding novels, but after reading the descriptions and reviews I'm most eager to try The Coffee Trader.
We have 8 Author Discussion Groups created so far. Everyone says authors are solitary creatures so we weren't exactly expecting a flood, but some of them seem to be experimenting with it - which is all we could hope for :)
Some stats on how the Barbara Delinsky's Q&A; Group went: 100 people joined the group, 20 of whom participated in some lively discussion. The number of books by Barbara Delinsky added to member profiles in November (the month Barbara was participating) increased 550% (from 36 in Oct to 200 in Nov). Many of those books were added to the 'to-read' shelf, indicating an increased interest in Barbara's books. These numbers aren't rock-your-socks-off, but they did represent significantly increased interest, and Barbara seemed happy with the experiment.
Here is a graph showing books by Barbara added during the time she did her discussion group:
Make sure you check out David Liss's Q&A; group! And if you have suggestions for which other Goodreads Authors you'd like to see do a Q&A; group, please let us know!
10 million books read on Goodreads!
posted by Jessica on January, 03
If you’ve been devouring books lately, you are not alone. With now more than 700,000 members (and growing every day), Goodreads recently passed the 10 million mark -- combined total for books marked as read, to-read (1,018,298), and currently-reading (260,551). The 10 millionth review was written by Taryn, who gave 4 stars to Ines of My Soul: A Novel, by Isabel Allende.
Not surprisingly, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7) reigns supreme as the most commonly rated book (42,162 people), but Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia has leapt up the charts, now with 10,005 people.
Classic favorites continue to rule our most popular lists, such as Shel Silverstein’s Where the Sidewalk Ends (23,614 people) and Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita (16,848 people). Also, J.K. Rowling better watch her back, because Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials Trilogy is gaining steadily on our fantasy shelves with a total of 21,304 books rated.
Will 2008 trump 2007? Keep reading!
posted by Jessica on January, 03
If you’ve been devouring books lately, you are not alone. With now more than 700,000 members (and growing every day), Goodreads recently passed the 10 million mark -- combined total for books marked as read, to-read (1,018,298), and currently-reading (260,551). The 10 millionth review was written by Taryn, who gave 4 stars to Ines of My Soul: A Novel, by Isabel Allende.
Not surprisingly, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7) reigns supreme as the most commonly rated book (42,162 people), but Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia has leapt up the charts, now with 10,005 people.
Classic favorites continue to rule our most popular lists, such as Shel Silverstein’s Where the Sidewalk Ends (23,614 people) and Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita (16,848 people). Also, J.K. Rowling better watch her back, because Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials Trilogy is gaining steadily on our fantasy shelves with a total of 21,304 books rated.
Will 2008 trump 2007? Keep reading!
