Giveaway advice?

MarlynnOfMany · Sep 17, 2015

I set up a Goodreads Giveaway for the month of October -- it hasn't started yet, so there's still time to change details. Which is good, because I'm thinking I should.

I listed 10 copies, because the auto-fill form recommended it and I have them to spare. But now that I look at the other giveaways that are ending soon, there's no clear relation between the number of books and the number of entries. 10 copies is definitely not an easy route to 10 times as many interested people. There's probably a slight benefit to more copies, but not a big one. Most giveaways are giving just one book. I'm thinking I'll do that.

And as far as I can tell, no one will notice any changes I make before the giveaway starts. There's no link to it on the book's page, and the only place I've posted about it is my own website, which gets very little traffic at this point. I want to be really sure that people don't see any waffling on my part and Think Badly Of Me because of it. If you know of someplace on Goodreads where the giveaway is visible before it starts, please let me know!

And correct me if I'm wrong, but I can do as many giveaways for the same book as I want, right? I thought I was limited to two, but I went back and found that I was thinking of the guidelines that just recommended two: before and after publication.

So I'm going to change it from a single 10-book giveaway to several 1-book giveaways. And I'll probably shorten the time span, since it's really only noticeable on Goodreads at the beginning and end of that time ("Recently Listed" and "Ending Soon").

Any suggestions, oh you knowledgeable folks?

KiwiLady · Sep 17, 2015

I'm not knowledgeable at all but...I have listed a giveaway on Goodreads and the research I did before said pretty much exactly what you have decided yourself. I read somewhere (not sure where) that a number of people said that giving away more than one book made pretty much no difference to the number of books placed on the TBR shelf (although I also read a Goodreads article about Girl on a Train and they gave away 50 copies and were directly attributing the books success to the success it found on Goodreads, so who knows!). I only listed mine for 9 days. I found the first two and the final two days (the last day especially) I got more adds to the TBR list. When I compared the number of people signing up to my giveaway compared to others finishing at the same time, the numbers were similar, although there were no well known authors on the day mine finished, which no doubt helped.

Anyway - if I do another, I will do it for a week to ten days and only list the one book. I don't think I got any sales from my giveaway, but around 1400 people requested it and around 600 left it on their TBR list. As a new author I guess that is pretty good exposure.

WriterBN · Sep 18, 2015

Goodreads giveaways don't do as much as they used to, but you do get listed on the first and last day of the giveaway. I used to do them for a week, and never more than one copy at a time.

I think there's a time limit related to how new the book is--you can't do a giveaway beyond X months of the book's publication date, but I don't recall the details.

SBibb · Sep 20, 2015

I don't have any direct experience with this, but I have heard that doing more giveaways, with fewer books and a shorter time span is more likely to bring attention to your book.

That being said, I personally get annoyed if I see a book being listed for a giveaway repeatedly in a short time span. (I start to wonder if I would have better luck just trying to win it rather than buy it). But that may just be me, and I have no idea how well that has worked for the authors involved. It may well be worth it. I do know that I'm looking forward to having print editions available for one of my new releases because I do want to try doing a Goodreads giveaway, just to see how it does.

MarlynnOfMany · Oct 1, 2015

The giveaway is up!
And wildly successful!
253 people entered just today, which is super exciting.
Woohoo!

MarlynnOfMany · Oct 9, 2015

Holy cow, almost 1200 people entered to win that one copy! And all it cost me was the book I already had, and shipping to Utah. Not bad! I will definitely do that again, though not right away (don't want to spam people or look desperate).

Hooray for the giveaways!

Super_Duper · Oct 13, 2015

Be sure to keep us updated on if the winner(s) came back to review the book. I still have mixed feelings on Goodreads giveaways, for a couple of reasons. I've done giveaways where I sent out several copies that yielded no reviews; and I also did one giveaway for a fantasy book where the winner came back to give it two stars and said something to the effect of "fantasy isn't my thing," which left me wondering why the heck they entered the giveaway in the first place then. I'm all for a fair review if you legitimately don't like the book, but that just seemed odd.

WriterBN · Oct 14, 2015

The two-star thing isn't surprising, IMO. I've found that anything free tends to attract lots of freebie chasers. Reviews and sales, not so much.

Super_Duper · Oct 14, 2015

Right -- Goodreads giveaways are always good for Goodreads, not always so good for authors.

You're better off finding the right audience/reader/blog/etc. for your book and giving them a free copy instead.

MarlynnOfMany · Nov 11, 2015

No sign of the winner yet, but I have gotten a couple reviews from the Goodreads forums -- I posted on the "Read to Review" threads in genre groups that sounded like they might be interested, and offered to email a free ebook to people who wanted to review it.

The real benefit of the giveaway seems to be in pure book visibility -- hundreds of people have added my book to their to-read lists, and a few have noted that they're actively reading it now. None of them had heard of it beforehand.

Definitely worth the cost of one book plus shipping!

Giveaway advice?

MarlynnOfMany

KiwiLady

WriterBN

SBibb

MarlynnOfMany

MarlynnOfMany

Super_Duper

Jedi Knight

WriterBN

Super_Duper

Jedi Knight

MarlynnOfMany