Opening a “GoodReads” Ad for “Rough Enough”

Posted on March 16, 2013 by Richard H. McBee Jr.

Today was another first for the old man! I actually created and opened up an ad on “GoodReads” for my Civil and Indian War Book, “Rough Enough.” One of the things that really amazed me was how specific some of the targeting can get for the audience of readers. Not only can you pick up the genres that are most closely related to your book, History, nonfiction, Biography, War, etc…, but you can also pick authors who have written books in the similar area to your so that you get to the people who already have their heads where your book is! Wow! I just went down through my bibliography and typed in names of those Civil War, Frontier and Mining authors whose works had helped me write my own book. Lo and behold… their titles popped up and a quick click added them to the list. Now I’m going to do what my PR man, Jeff said to do with my Amazon site. That is: check the rank of my book this evening and then every day for the duration of the ad and see if there is any jump in the sales on Amazon. This of course is only one indicator, but along with the data from “GoodReads”, I should at least have some idea of whether the book is even being noticed. The computer world never ceases to amaze me!