Get a Goodreads author

Try in Playground

Retrieve a Goodreads author by URL or ID: name, photo, birth and death dates, birthplace, website, genres, influences, biography, average rating, rating and review counts, number of works and followers.

GET/v1/goodreads/authorx-api-key

Headers

Get your API key

x-api-keystringrequiredheader

Your ScrapeAtlas customer key. Create one on /account/ and set SCRAPEATLAS_API_KEY.

Query parameters

urlstringquery

Goodreads author URL such as https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/98765.Example_Author. Provide exactly one of url or id.

max 1024 chars

Examplehttps://www.goodreads.com/author/show/98765.Example_Author

idstringquery

Numeric Goodreads author ID such as 98765. Provide exactly one of url or id.

max 12 chars

Response fields

successboolean

True when usable data is returned; inspect status and coverage.

statusenum

success or partial for usable data; failed or challenged for a failure.

one of: success, partial

requestIdstring

Request correlation UUID.

sourceUrlstring

Public goodreads.com page the data describes.

absolute HTTPS URL

fetchedAtstring

UTC retrieval timestamp.

Returned-page coverage and mapping warnings.

coverage.sourcestring

Goodreads' public web pages and web API.

coverage.completeboolean

Whether every supported field on this page was mapped without a reported omission.

coverage.warningsenum[]

Named warnings: invalid_item (a record could not be mapped and was skipped), record_limit, total_unavailable (no result count), stats_unavailable (no rating statistics) or pagination_unavailable (no next-page signal).

Retrieval attempt, source byte and timing measurements.

accounting.upstreamRequestsinteger

Upstream request attempts, including redirects and any retry.

≥ 0

accounting.responseBytesinteger

Decoded source bytes read during this request.

≥ 0

accounting.durationMsnumber

Elapsed operation time in milliseconds.

≥ 0

Public Goodreads author profile.

author.idinteger

Numeric Goodreads author ID.

≥ 0

author.namestring

Author name.

author.urlstring

Public author page URL.

absolute HTTPS URL

author.imageUrlstringnullable

Author photo URL, or null.

absolute HTTPS URL

author.bornstringnullable

Birth date as published, for example August 11, 1962, or null.

author.birthPlacestringnullable

Birthplace as published, or null.

author.diedstringnullable

Death date as published, or null.

author.websitestringnullable

Published website URL, or null.

absolute HTTPS URL

Genres the author writes in.

up to 50 items

author.genres.namestring

Always included.

author.genres.urlstringnullable

Always included.

absolute HTTPS URL

Published influences in source order.

up to 100 items

author.influences.namestring

Always included.

author.influences.urlstringnullable

Always included.

absolute HTTPS URL

author.descriptionstringnullable

Biography as plain text, or null.

author.averageRatingnumbernullable

Average rating across the author's books, or null.

0 – 5

author.ratingsCountintegernullable

Ratings across the author's books, or null.

≥ 0

author.reviewsCountintegernullable

Text reviews across the author's books, or null.

≥ 0

author.worksCountintegernullable

Distinct works, or null.

≥ 0

author.followersCountintegernullable

Followers, or null.

≥ 0

HTTP 200 returns the success variant. Check status: partial means usable data with warnings, and failed or challenged requests carry a failure object described in Errors & responses.

Error codes

HTTP	failure.code	Meaning
200	`partial`	Usable data with named invalid-item, record-limit, total, stats or pagination warnings.
400	`invalid_request`	Missing, duplicate, malformed, unsafe or unsupported parameters.
401	`unauthorized`	Missing or invalid worker API key.
404	`not_found`	The requested Goodreads book or author was not found.
422	`restricted_page`	Goodreads requires sign-in for the requested page.
422	`unsupported_page`	The Goodreads page structure or identity could not be mapped.
502	`upstream_challenged`	Goodreads challenged retrieval.
502	`upstream_rate_limited`	Goodreads rate-limited retrieval.
502	`upstream_error`	Source retrieval did not complete.
502	`response_too_large`	Decoded source bytes exceeded the request limit.
502	`unsafe_redirect`	Goodreads redirected outside the requested book or author.
502	`request_limit`	The upstream request budget was exhausted.
503	`busy`	Worker request or queue capacity was exceeded.
504	`timeout`	The operation deadline expired.

Code example

curl "https://api.scrapeatlas.com/v1/goodreads/author?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.goodreads.com%2Fauthor%2Fshow%2F98765.Example_Author" \
  -H "x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY"

const response = await fetch(
  "https://api.scrapeatlas.com/v1/goodreads/author?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.goodreads.com%2Fauthor%2Fshow%2F98765.Example_Author",
  {
    headers: {
      "x-api-key": "YOUR_API_KEY"
    }
  }
);

const data = await response.json();
console.log(data.status, data);

type Result = {
  status: "success" | "partial" | "failed" | "challenged";
  requestId: string;
  [field: string]: unknown;
};

const response = await fetch(
  "https://api.scrapeatlas.com/v1/goodreads/author?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.goodreads.com%2Fauthor%2Fshow%2F98765.Example_Author",
  {
    headers: {
      "x-api-key": process.env.SCRAPEATLAS_API_KEY!
    }
  }
);

const data = (await response.json()) as Result;
if (data.status === "failed" || data.status === "challenged") {
  throw new Error(`Goodreads request failed: ${data.requestId}`);
}
console.log(data);

import requests

response = requests.get(
    "https://api.scrapeatlas.com/v1/goodreads/author",
    headers={"x-api-key": "YOUR_API_KEY"},
    params={
        "url": "https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/98765.Example_Author"
    },
    timeout=60,
)
data = response.json()
print(data["status"], data)

package main

import (
	"encoding/json"
	"fmt"
	"net/http"
)

func main() {
	req, _ := http.NewRequest("GET", "https://api.scrapeatlas.com/v1/goodreads/author?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.goodreads.com%2Fauthor%2Fshow%2F98765.Example_Author", nil)
	req.Header.Set("x-api-key", "YOUR_API_KEY")
	resp, err := http.DefaultClient.Do(req)
	if err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}
	defer resp.Body.Close()

	var data map[string]interface{}
	json.NewDecoder(resp.Body).Decode(&data)
	fmt.Println(data["status"], data)
}

import java.net.URI;
import java.net.http.HttpClient;
import java.net.http.HttpRequest;
import java.net.http.HttpResponse;

public class Main {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        var client = HttpClient.newHttpClient();
        var request = HttpRequest.newBuilder()
            .uri(URI.create("https://api.scrapeatlas.com/v1/goodreads/author?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.goodreads.com%2Fauthor%2Fshow%2F98765.Example_Author"))
            .GET()
            .header("x-api-key", "YOUR_API_KEY")
            .build();
        var response = client.send(request, HttpResponse.BodyHandlers.ofString());
        System.out.println(response.body());
    }
}

Use your sa_live_… customer key at https://api.scrapeatlas.com.

Responses

Successful result. Synthetic example validated against the runtime contract.

{
  "success": true,
  "status": "success",
  "requestId": "00000000-0000-4000-8000-000000000001",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/98765.Example_Author",
  "fetchedAt": "2026-11-12T00:00:00.000Z",
  "coverage": {
    "source": "public_web",
    "complete": true,
    "warnings": []
  },
  "accounting": {
    "upstreamRequests": 2,
    "responseBytes": 160000,
    "durationMs": 640
  },
  "author": {
    "id": 98765,
    "name": "Example Author",
    "url": "https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/98765.Example_Author",
    "imageUrl": "https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1600000000p5/98765.jpg",
    "born": "March 3, 1970",
    "birthPlace": "Example City, The United States",
    "died": null,
    "website": "https://www.example.com/",
    "genres": [
      {
        "name": "Fantasy",
        "url": "https://www.goodreads.com/genres/fantasy"
      }
    ],
    "influences": [
      {
        "name": "Another Author",
        "url": "https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/11111.Another_Author"
      }
    ],
    "description": "A synthetic author biography.",
    "averageRating": 4.05,
    "ratingsCount": 82000,
    "reviewsCount": 6100,
    "worksCount": 12,
    "followersCount": 1200
  }
}

Missing, duplicate, malformed, unsafe or unsupported parameters.

{
  "success": false,
  "status": "failed",
  "requestId": "9d2f1c0a-6b1e-4c7d-9a8e-2f3b4c5d6e7f",
  "accounting": {
    "upstreamRequests": 0,
    "responseBytes": 0,
    "durationMs": 0
  },
  "failure": {
    "code": "invalid_request",
    "message": "Invalid request: missing, duplicate, unsupported or malformed parameters."
  }
}