Search authors
Authors matching a name: id, name, profile link, photo, whether they are a Goodreads Author, how many works and followers they have. Up to 100 in one request, continuing with a cursor. 1 credit per 20 authors.
/search-authors Authors https://api.fetchlayer.dev/goodreads/search-authors Headers
Authorization string required Bearer token — your FetchLayer API key.
Parameters
query string required An author’s name, or part of it.
limit integer optional How many authors to return, 1–100; a larger value is served at 100. Authors come 20 to a page, and each page is 1 credit. (default: 20)
cursor string optional The nextCursor from a previous response, passed back with the same other parameters, to continue where it stopped.
format string optional json or markdown, lowercase; any other value is a 400. Over MCP, markdown returns the result rendered as text; the REST API accepts it and returns JSON. (default: json)
timeoutMs number optional Per-request time limit in milliseconds (max 600000).
Response Fields
search-authors
Search authors
transport string The data source: always the platform id, "goodreads".
notes string[] Caveats about this response you can act on, such as a series listing fewer works than its total. Empty when there are none.
query string The query served.
authorCount number Authors in this response.
authors object[] The matching authors.
authors[].id number The author id, which author-profile, author-books and quotes accept.
authors[].name string The author’s name.
authors[].url string Link to the author on goodreads.com.
authors[].imageUrl string | null Photo.
authors[].isGoodreadsAuthor boolean | null Whether the author manages their own Goodreads profile.
authors[].worksCount number | null How many distinct works they have.
authors[].followers number | null Followers on Goodreads.
totalCount number | null How many authors Goodreads has for this request in all, when it says.
nextCursor string | null Pass back as cursor, with the same other parameters, to continue. null when there is nothing further.
hasNextPage boolean Whether more authors remain.
pagesScraped number Pages of results this response covers, which is what it costs: one credit per page.
Request
curl -X POST "https://api.fetchlayer.dev/goodreads/search-authors" \
-H "Authorization: Bearer ss-your-key" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"query":"tolkien","limit":5}'Response
{
"transport": "goodreads",
"notes": [],
"query": "tolkien",
"totalCount": 31,
"authorCount": 5,
"authors": [
{
"id": 55701246,
"name": "Tolkien",
"url": "https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/55701246.Tolkien",
"imageUrl": "https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/nophoto/user/u_700x933.png",
"isGoodreadsAuthor": false,
"worksCount": 2,
"followers": 0
}
],
"nextCursor": "1.5",
"hasNextPage": true,
"pagesScraped": 1
}