A step-by-step guide

Hi folks – let’s get practical!

This blog has dealt in generalities and broad advice so far, but today I wanted to write about the exact steps needed to get your book(s) onto the various “reading apps”. In short, Goodreads is difficult and the others are easy!

First and foremost, you’ll need an ISBN. As The Checklist points out, you can get one of these for free from your publishing platform, or you can buy them from Bowker in the USA. I went the Bowker route because I didn’t want to have to keep track of several different ISBNs across the various platforms.

Now, on to the reading apps! I’ve included the big ones and a few small ones.

If you put your book into Amazon’s exclusive ecosystem, everything gets imported automatically. But if you (like me) don’t, there are several hoops to jump through but it is possible. I really wanted to get that author account going so that I could do giveaways for ARCs, but your book has to be on the platform first!

The steps are all collected here, but I’ve added them numerically below with my own notes:

1. Join the Goodreads Librarian Group
2. Plug your book data into this template (don’t sweat the description, you can edit this once you have your author account)
3. Post your customized template here. 
4. Expect to wait a few weeks. Per this post, they do allow “bumping” as a reminder, but don’t spam them. I waited two weeks before my first bump, but then after a month had passed, I made a Support ticket. They had everything fixed in two days!

You can request to join the Author Program right away, and you (and your book) will be searchable within three to five days.

Now that those hoops are jumped through, the rest are much easier…

The StoryGraph! Just search for your book (view all results) and then click the “Add a book” button at the top of the results. Fill out the form (adding yourself as a new author along the way!) and you’re done! It’s viewable/interactable immediately.

This app doesn’t have an author program except through their giveaways. Janine Eaby has an excellent blog post about how that worked for her.

Strangely, Fable has no web app, so to add books you either have to install a Chrome extension or fill out a form that’s hidden on the FAQ. I just went with the form, and it was even shorter than StoryGraph’s.

Fable doesn’t appear to have an author program, but you can advertise through them.

Adding a book to Hardcover works just like StoryGraph, though they only want your ISBN. Search for your book, click the add button when it doesn’t show up, and voila!

Hardcover is very new, and still adding features, but doesn’t appear to have giveaways or author accounts.

Pagebound is just as easy as Hardcover! Search your book, click the add button, and paste your Goodreads link. This app is similarly new on the scene, so they don’t have author accounts but they do support giveaways.

That’s all for this week! I’m going to be deep in revisions for a while so you might not hear from me until March.