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Claim Your LibraryThing Author's Profile

LibraryThing is not chasing the rhythm of a social feed. It is a serious cataloguing platform with community and recommendation features, used by more than 3.2 million committed readers, librarians, and collectors who document their libraries with rare care. For authors, a presence here is more than profile furniture. It is a searchable bibliographic foothold inside a deeply book minded ecosystem, one that supports long term discoverability and offers access to LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers programme, which has distributed more than 698,000 books since June 2007.

Millions

of dedicated Member

More than 3.2 million serious readers, librarians, and collectors make LibraryThing a platform defined by depth, care, and genuine literary attention.

200M+

Books Catalogued

LibraryThing now holds more than 239 million cataloged books, supported by access to six national Amazon sites and more than 2,200 libraries worldwide. It is not a passing stream of attention. It is a deep bibliographic infrastructure with long memory.

100K+

Early Reviewers Members

Over 100,000 active members participate in the Early Reviewers programme the pool from which your advance copy recipients are matched.

Why It Matters

LibraryThing is shaped by readers who take books seriously. They catalogue what they own, write reviews, join discussions, and engage with the platform in a way that feels deliberate rather than disposable. For authors, visibility there carries a deeper quality, grounded less in passing noise and more in sustained reader attention.

Long Tail Discoverability

On LibraryThing, discovery has a long memory. Books can continue surfacing through catalog search, tags, work pages, and recommendations long after launch week has passed

Bibliographic Accuracy and Identity

Claiming your author page helps keep your bibliography clearer, better attributed, and easier to distinguish from authors with similar names.

Access to Early Reviewers

LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers is a free programme for authors and publishers, matching new and forthcoming books with interested readers in exchange for honest reviews. Those reviews are posted on LibraryThing, with readers encouraged to share them elsewhere too.

Step by Step

On LibraryThing, authors enter through the same front door as everyone else. You start with a standard member account, locate the author page tied to your books, and claim Author status directly from that page.

01

Create a LibraryThing member account

Start with a standard LibraryThing account. The platform is free to all, and registered members do not see the visitor ads. This account becomes the foundation of your author presence.

02

Complete your member profile

Edit your profile, add a photo, write a concise professional bio, and set your account privacy the way you want it. LibraryThing lets members share as little or as much as they choose.

03

Confirm your author page exists

Search for your author page first. LibraryThing creates author pages as soon as someone adds a book by that author. If nothing appears yet, add the book to LibraryThing and search again.

04

Submit the claim

Open the author page and use the Is this you? box to request Author status. LibraryThing’s official author guidance points authors to that box directly.

05

Refine the page after approval

Once approved, polish the page properly. Add your photo, add your website links, and strengthen the author and work pages through Common Knowledge, which LibraryThing describes as a community maintained fielded wiki on work and author pages.

06

If the process stalls

If the page does not appear, add the book first and search again. If you still hit friction. Click HelpThing or click contact options for help.

Early Reviewers Programme

Since June 2007, LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers programme has sent out more than 698,000 books from hundreds of publishers and imprints, including Random House, Hachette, HarperCollins, Tor, Scholastic, and Oxford University Press. It remains free for authors and publishers, making it one of the more accessible and credible routes to early attention, early reviews, and meaningful reader interest.

How It Works

LibraryThing Early Reviewers is not a random giveaway. Authors and publishers submit titles through the giveaway entry page, members request the books they want, and LibraryThing matches each title to readers most likely to read it, review it, and generate real conversation. The selection process considers account content, review history, and signs that a reader is likely to follow through.

What You Offer

Authors and publicists can offer 5 to 30 paper copies or 5 to 10 ebook or digital audiobook copies per giveaway. Books can appear in two monthly batches, whether consecutive or not, and can also run in the same batch in different formats. Submissions close three days before launch, with each batch running from the first business day of the month to the 25th, or next business day.

Eligibility

Early Reviewers is for new and forthcoming books, not beta reading or editing. Titles published more than six months before the batch month are not eligible, and AI-authored books are not accepted. After winners receive their copies, reviews must be posted on LibraryThing within 90 days of the giveaway ending.

The Reach

Each batch is promoted to close to 100,000 Early Reviewers members, featured in LibraryThing’s monthly newsletter to more than one million members, surfaced on site, discussed in the ER group, and pushed through LibraryThing’s social channels. The result is reach with targeting, not noise without direction.

What Happens After Distribution

Winners post their reviews directly on LibraryThing. They are encouraged to share them on blogs and other reviewing sites as well, but that extra posting is not required. Authors and publishers receive perpetual non exclusive permission to use those reviews in marketing, publicity, and promotional material.

How to Enter

Submission is handled through LibraryThing’s Giveaway Entry page. The official pages do not explicitly state that verified author status is required to submit, but a stronger author presence still helps once readers click through. If you want the profile itself to work harder for you, becoming an official LibraryThing Author remains the best starting point.

Platform Features

What a Claimed Author Page Gives You Within LibraryThing

The author page functions as your permanent point of presence in LibraryThing's catalogue. Several features operate around it that are worth understanding.

01

Common Knowledge

Common Knowledge is the factual layer that helps shape how your books and author record appear on LibraryThing. Claiming your page gives you a stronger hand in keeping that information accurate, complete, and aligned with the way your work should be presented.

02

Author Conversations

For author reader engagement, LibraryThing’s older Author Chat format is now archived. The more current route is Hobnob with Authors, which fits better with how LibraryThing now presents author participation on the site.

03

The Author Library

Authors with LibraryThing Author status can build a personal library that shows readers more than a standard bio ever could. The books you catalogue, rate, and discuss give people a clearer sense of your influences, your taste, and the literary world around your work. For readers already interested in your books, that kind of access feels personal in the best way.

04

LibraryThing Local and Events

LibraryThing Local gives author and publisher events a place to be found by readers in the right locations. If you already maintain an events page or feed on your website, LibraryThing may be able to integrate it so those events are added automatically, making it a useful extra layer of visibility rather than one more thing to manage by hand. Contact them at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to discuss the setup.

LibraryThing's members catalogue every book they have ever owned with deliberate care. An author who appears correctly in that catalogue with an accurate bibliography, a complete profile, and a verified presence is not just discoverable. They are part of the permanent record of what serious readers read.

work with Blacksun

A LibraryThing author page is not an isolated asset. It is part of a wider author presence across Goodreads, Amazon Author Central, BookBub, and the other places serious readers look. Setting each one up properly, keeping every detail accurate, and understanding how they work together takes real time and real care. That is exactly where Blacksun comes in. If you want to discuss how we can help,

We would love to hear about your book get in touch and tell us about your goals.

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