As a writer, I love platforms where readers and authors can congregate together.

Beyond reviewing/rating books, these are cool places where all of us can share our favorite books. If something gets sold, it happens elsewhere. What occurs at these free sites is the sharing of ideas. I wanted to tell you about a couple that I use (maybe you already do, too).

There might be others I don’t know about. If you know of some, feel free to let me know.

BookBub

BookBub is site that can help you follow your favorite authors, discover new ones, and find some great deals. If you join the BookBub mailing list, the service will send you recommendations that cater to your likes.

You can also see real-time updates from authors when they have a new book coming out or if they’re running a special on one of their titles. It’s sort of like Facebook without the annoying relatives.

So, if you like the books of Lee Child you can click Follow and be updated any time there is a new Jack Reacher novel. It’s also a pretty big status symbol, too. Lee Child has over 400,000 thousand followers. James Patterson has over 1.7 million! Some newer authors such as me are still looking to crack their first 1,000 (shameless pandering alert).

Readers can also leave recommendations about the books they’ve recently read. One of my favorite reviews for Charlie-316 came from a Bookbub review.

I can easily see this book as a movie and would definitely read more books by these authors. – Cathy Geha

Read the full review here

I also dig the “recommend” feature which allows readers and authors to recommend books of their choosing. The cool thing is I’ve gotten to recommend books that I enjoyed as well as I’ve loved. I’ve been able to recommend my favorite books, some of which aren’t in the crime genre.

Follow me on BookBub here:

Goodreads

Goodreads works in much the same way as BookBub, but it does have some different features.

First, I love the annual “Reading Challenge” tracker. With this tool, you can put in how many books you want to read in the current year and then begin tracking how you’re doing. Goodreads will then tell if you are behind, ahead, or on schedule. Last year, I did fantastic. This year, I’ve really fallen behind schedule.

There’s also a “Want to Read” tool that allows you to track what books you’re hoping to get to soon.

You can connect with friends through Facebook, Twitter, or your Gmail account. This makes Goodreads a bit more of a social network than BookBub.

Following your favorite author allows you to see if they have a new book coming out, if they’ve rated a book or if they’ve made an update on their blog.

You can follow me on Goodreads here: