KC and the Sunshine Chats (1): Goodreads Usage

Around the book blog world, there are a lot of awesome discussion post groups, like Book Girls Don’t Cry, They Vent or Reviewer’s Roundtable. The ironically named KC and the Sunshine Chats was born out of a wish to be part of the fun. However, we wanted to mix things up and instead of posting individual discussion posts, we’ll chat back and forth in one post, alternating which blog the post will appear on. We don’t have a set schedule for these, but will probably post one or two a month.

We do know the name is silly, but this is Kara and Christina and we are silly. :)

For our first chat, we're discussing our Goodreads usage.

CF: In reading other blogs, I’ve noticed that I use Goodreads rather differently than a lot of my blogger friends. A lot of people seem to like to keep their to-read shelf very small, the books they want to read ASAP, and not let it get too cluttered. I, on the other hand, use it to keep track of any and all books I come across that look interesting to me, because otherwise I will forget about them. What do you do, Kara?

KM: Same as you, mostly. I have about 2000 books on my TBR (I know so I shelve everything that looks interesting), but what I think I do that’s different than a lot of other people is that I shelve by state and country. I do this for me mostly but it has helped others. I like to know where I am reading because settings are so important to me. I also shelve by genre, and yes, I do have a shelf for authors who I feel do not deserve my money based on things they have said over the internet. That’s my right as a Goodreads user.

CF: If it makes you feel better, I have 3576 books on my to-read shelf as of this writing, and it goes up all the time! The fact that I literally can’t read them all before I die haunts me! X_X

KM. I know. I was actually going to mention that in my paragraph up there. I hate that I won’t read them all before I kick the bucket. Heh. But I just checked and I actually have 2212. You impress me, Christina! THough mine is climbing every day too.

CF: I totally don’t use the shelving power of GR all that much at all. For a while, I really tried, adding shelves for publisher and imprint, how I got the book, and some funny shelves. I ended up deleting almost all of that, just because I can’t remember to add stuff to them. Thus, it’s mostly just simple shelves for me, though I did build myself a fancy DNF shelf.

KM: Totally understand that. I’m sure I miss adding things to shelves ALL the time. I have a DNF shelf too. I wish I could do the funny shelves, but I’m just not that funny!! XD

CF: The shelves of Wendy and Steph never cease to impress me. They’re queens of book shelving. You are hilarious! I just couldn’t make it work retroactively, because I didn’t originally use GR that way. It’s just not a habit for me. I’ve never been huge into tagging in any social media, actually. I love looking at other people’s shelves though.

KM: Agreed. I love reading different Goodreads shelves of people who are great at it. I wish I could do that. There are so many Goodreads reviewers that I look up to for their creativity. I can be funny, but it’s spontaneous, so coming up with a funny shelf name is just not going to happen for me. I do the publisher tagging thing but I do that on the blog tags.

CF: Speaking of GR creativity, I love making new friends on there and especially reading people’s statuses. I prefer to comment on reviews on blogs mostly, because the comments are often overwhelming on GR, but I LOVE getting to see the status updates! So full of snark and unvarnished emotion!

KM: Haha, yeah. I haven’t been on Goodreads lately as much as I usually am because of DRAMA, but I still love to see what books people are reading and like their status updates. I love reading and liking reviews and I love the different reading topics that come up on my newsfeed. I’ve gotten into so many great discussions about books and publishing there.

CF: Ugh, the drama. It makes me sad. Like this:

 I do love looking through my newsfeed most of the time, though! There are even users I’m not friends with whose statuses I love to see pop up regularly!

KM: So I have over 600 friends at the moment. One thing I wanted to mention is how much I utilize the top friends feature. If I didn’t use that, holy crap. I would never be able to see or follow anything. So if someone friends me, chances are unless their challenge question answer blew my mind, they are not going on my top friends right away. I have my newsfeed set to top friends and following otherwise I would just get lost. Heck, I’m lost most days anyway.

CF: That’s so funny. I used to use the Top Friends feature, but I don’t any more. I’ve gone to, for now anyway, the philosophy that if I’m not willing to look at their updates, I probably shouldn’t be friends with them. Plus, one of my favorite things to do with my GR friends is to decide whether I should actually read things, and Top Friends still show up in Friend reviews, and those people were skewing the average rating.

KM: You’re right. So right. But I feel guilty. I get like 5-10 friend requests a day and as long as they answer that damn question, I feel bad if I don’t accept them. As far as the ratings on the book pages go, I’ll look at the average and then see who rated it. That does make more work for me because of my guilt, but I’ll do it. Yeah, so I’m pretty much a pushover. LOL.

CF: Ha! I used to have a friend request question like that, but I changed it so that I have a bitchy statement in my profile about who I’ll accept. I get more follows than friend requests now. Actually, when I made my standards for friendship higher, I immediately got way more requests for friendship and new followers. Apparently, if you have high standards, people assume you’re smart and important!

KM: I have that same bitchy statement that no one ever listens to. I get follows too but mostly requests still. What are you doing that keeps them from requesting you? I need your secret recipe. Okay, that makes me sound like a bitch. I love new friends, but my Goodreads profile is getting out of control. So it’s a Catch-22, I guess. And that’s exactly what it is. The meaner you are, the more they want you. Hahaha!

CF: It must be my intimidating face. Not everyone has my scaring people off skills! Seriously, I give great bus face. If I’m on a bus with an empty seat next to me, no one sits there unless there are NO other empty seats. :-p

KM: I have NEVER heard the term ‘bus face.’ Probably because I haven’t ridden a bus since the 10th grade? Hahaha! And I’m pretty old guys. That was a looonnnggg time ago.


Okay, readers, now that we’re all off topic, tell us how you use Goodreads! Do you use shelves? Do you have to catch all the books or is it for books you’re reading in the next few months? Do you have a bitchy friend request statement on your profile and bus face?