I reached out to Goodreads to specifically ask them that, even going to their website to do a lot of digging and asking some tech experts to weigh in on the subject. The bookish social media site doesn’t have an official media kit at the moment, according to a representative. But a media kit dated 2017 reveals that its business model revolves around offering “book discovery packages” that consist of “owned, earned, and paid media.” For a social media platform that garners millions of views per month and holds a ton of user data, Goodreads struck gold with advertising. According to Chris Muller, Director of Audience Growth for DoughRoller, Goodreads’s business model is based on the concept of social commerce. “People share book recommendations, reviews, and discuss any books they are reading or want to read in the future, which contributes to the website’s success. This website’s Holy Grail appears to be recommendations from like-minded readers,” he said. Among the top revenue streams mentioned are sponsored newsletters and new releases mailers, which Goodreads sends to millions of users every month; advertorial placements, which is also called the author spotlight; personal selection emails, which can target an author’s fans showing a new release; and sponsored homepage polls. In this business model, Goodreads offers Standard and Premium packages. The standard package costs $119, while the premium one costs $599. Each option has its own perks, but I find the Standard package decent enough. According to Goodreads’s 2017 media kit, 50-60% of giveaway winners write a book review. But what do these interest-based ads really look like for a casual user of the platform? According to Goodreads, personal recommendations and other similar features are considered ads. This brings into question the endgame of its recommendations tool — is it really out there to genuinely help a reader find books they might love, or is it just another way to profit off of the user’s activity? On the other hand, in its media kit, these are the ad units it offered: homepage roadblock; book/quotes page roadblock; and home ROS (run of site) genre and author targeted ads, which is a fancier name for banner ads. Though these kinds of ads seem too pervasive for some, the good news is that users can select the option not to receive targeted ads, though will still see ads not based on your interests.
