Why did you start your business?
I had a physically disabled son that wrote. A lot. He wrote fiction, nonfiction, plays and screenplays. And then he died. I wanted to get his books and plays published and in doing so I wanted to help others promote their books too.
He was 21 when he died in a car accident and his one big belief was that anyone can write and be successful. Young people are told they can’t write because they lack experience. Disabled can’t write because they are disabled so how could they.
BookGoodies was created to promote all books from all people regardless of age or other hindrances. This is my son’s legacy.
Why do they love your business?
Readers love BookGoodies because we give them new authors to choose from. Readers are smart enough to know good writing from bad, we let them decide.
Authors love that we give them a platform to share their books, their thoughts, their advice on writing & their vision.
Our purpose resonates with creative people everywhere. The ability to express your art & be discovered without artificial barriers in the way.
Let the marketplace decide what is worthy & what is not. A book you love someone may hate, that shouldn’t keep it from being discovered & read. Opinion is subjective, not absolute.
What makes your business special?
There are a lot of sites popping up that are claim to help readers and authors connect. Many of those sites require a login for readers to see the books & interviews (content blocking) or the sites require that books have a certain number of reviews or star ratings (gatekeepers).
We don’t have those restrictions. Authors can post their books whether they are brand new or established. Readers can decide for themselves what books are worth reading, not decided for them by gatekeepers.
With book posts, author interviews & guest posts authors can find their new audience on their own merit.
What’s your best advice?
I know you hear this a lot and it seems trite, but to be successful you really need to discover your own passion. It can be making cupcakes or being a rocket scientist – but it needs to be YOUR passion.
Doing what is expected and chasing a dream that is set for you by someone else isn’t going to make you successful or happy. You need to discover your own skills and what you want to do with them.
You need to find your own rainbow if you want the pot of gold. And gold doesn’t always mean money. Money is only one component of success, and not the most important one.
What’s been your proudest moment?
Our proudest moment was when we hit 1000 authors interviewed. That was a highlight for us. However we have lots of little proud moments whenever an author tells us that their listing on our site produced sales for them, or got them reviews, or otherwise helped them get recognition.
We started out our site with podcasts with authors. Part of the deal with being on our podcast was to not only talk about themselves and their books, but to tell other authors about how they do things. They had to be helpful. The authors we interviewed loved sharing, to everyone’s benefit.
