There’s a wonderful thing that happens on website who sell books. When you search for a particular title, they often list other books which are similar, or were purchased by the readers who bought the title that was searched. Amazon is notorious for this. Goodreads may not sell books, but they do have several lists that are worth looking at. For example, when you search for Of Mice and Men, after clicking on the result you will also see some of the lists where this title can be found. On the right side of the graphic below, readers can also see similar books.

In this case, it’s “Best Books Ever” and “Books Everyone Should Read At Least Once”.

By clicking on “Lists With This Book”, you will see more lists that are available.

This can be a great marketing tool if you’ve published a book. If you have published a book, I highly recommend joining Goodreads as an author if you haven’t already done so. You can learn all about creating an account here. After you create an account (free, by the way), add the title, description and cover image for your book. It will take a few minutes for your book to become available on the site. When it’s ready, readers can add it to their “To Read” list, and post reviews. They can also add it to their “bookshelf”, which are individual lists readers create according to their reading preferences. There’s also “Listopia”, which is a set of random lists, such as “Historical Fiction”, and “75 Debut Novels to Discover in 2021”.

Below is a sample from my profile on Goodreads. These are some of the titles I’ve added to my “Music Non-fiction Bookshelf”.

You can use these lists to give readers a comparison. If they liked Of Mice and Men, they may also enjoy To Kill A Mockingbird or The Great Gatsby. This can also be done with Amazon or the Barnes and Noble site. I searched for The Night Circus, and at the bottom of the page, I had the option to look at similar books by clicking on “Related Searches”.

Comparisons help readers find more books they may be interested in, and it could lead them straight to one of your books!