Do you know what “Most Popular Reviewers on Goodreads” like to read?

Who are these people who read our books? Do we know?

Where do they hang out? What do they like to do?

1. They hang out on Goodreads.
2. They like to read. Lots.

I’m a little new to Goodreads, but my wife said that she reads what reviewers like and that helps her choose which books to buy.

Duh.

Makes sense. Go to where the readers hang out. Who do readers trust? Other readers.

My wife pointed out an interview with not an author on Goodreads, but a reader. A voracious reader. She doesn’t just read books, she reviews books. Lots of books.

Emily May has amassed more than 80,000 Goodreads followers and has written 1,300 book reviews and counting—making her the most-popular reviewer on the site.

As an author, when you read about what she likes to read, your heart tingles with delight. Wow, a person who loves reading as much as you like writing. Someone who wants to travel through the imagination with your character. It’s a match made in heaven.

The earliest books I remember reading were everything by Roald Dahl, [R.L.] Stine’sGoosebumps series, and C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I still get a sense of that early excitement and wonder I felt every time I think of Lucy stepping through a plain old wardrobe in a house and discovering a whole magical world—that has always seemed like a metaphor for reading itself. Later I found that metaphor again in the Harry Potter series as well as others. Both Harry Potter and Lucy Pevensie cast off the mundane life they’ve always known and step into a world of magic where anything is possible—isn’t that what happens every time we get lost in a good book?

As I write this, my brother-in-law is hiding behind his headphones and his thick thriller as we wait for our flight in Amsterdam airport.

Dear Authors, the readers are out there and they want to read your book. We just need to match up our stories with theirs. It’s a bit of a game.

I’m ready to play.

Are you?