Why Goodreads.com is better than Facebook for book promotion

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sarahdalton

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You're welcome. I should add that there are some criteria that your book has to meet. I can't recall exactly what it is, but something like at least 10 reviews with a 4.2 average rating or higher. If you go to the site www.ereadernewstoday.com and scroll all the way down to the small links at the bottom that say something about authors, advertise with us.

Thanks, I'll look into it once I've lowered the price. I might only be able to advertise my .com book as the .co.uk hasn't had as many reviews but it still looks worthwhile.
 

bookgirlac

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I took out ads on both Goodreads and Facebook for less than $50 combined and didn't see much return on them. However, I was told by the head of marketing at my publisher that ads serve a good purpose that has nothing to do with getting people to buy your book from the ad. Rather, ads allow your name to get exposure, and when you're creating an author brand, that has value. Just my two cents.
 

tanyadavies

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I'm keen to know if anyone has experience in marketing a children's book which I imagine is going to be a lot tougher - as kids don't have the same ease to buy.
I'm going to look in the children's fiction section to, but if anyone has any insight I'd be glad to hear it.:)
Thanks, and thanks to everyone who posted with their experiences. You are so generous.
 

Sherrie Cronin

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I think you are on the right track

What have I concluded? Gee, now I'm not sure. I was just trying to share.

Thank you everyone for you views. I appreciate the advice.

Luis -- I appreciate your sharing your experiences and as an author in a similar situation I want to let you know that I think that your analysis is quite good, and that the math of $200 spent and 4 books sold does not tell the whole story. Like you, I spent a good bit of time, energy and some money trying to get my two self-published books noticed. After awhile it occurred to me that the time I was spending asking (okay begging) lots of bloggers to review my books and trying to contribute on various authors' websites had been educational and entertaining but it was basically introducing me to other new writers, who frankly seldom have the time or money to buy the works of their fellow newcomers. Meanwhile, the time I was spending doing my own blogging got me some kudos from other bloggers, but what I really needed was the attention of folks who are readers first and foremost.

The time I used to spend on Goodreads was almost entirely devoted to interacting with the other new authors there and, as advised here, I was trying to engage not promote. I may have made a few mew friends, but it wasn't selling books.

When family members who do not have electronic readers convinced me to use Create Space to publish both books, I had low expectations for physical sales (and still do). However, once you have "real" books Goodreads not only allows you to do to giveaways, it helps you promote them! The combination of a giveaway and a low cost ad (you can do one for <$50 on Goodreads) generates a lot of attention amongst people looking for things to read and in just a month the number of folks with my books on their shelves has increased by two orders of magnitude. Yes, so far this has only translated into a few sales, but it has potential to snowball into good reviews and word of mouth recommendations and frankly this is the most encouraging development for me yet.

I am hoping that by sharing a kindred experience with you, I can encourage you continue trying to promote your book in ways that make sense. It is a slow proceess and seeking out those looking to buy a book has got to help move it along.

Feel free to send me a personal message if you'd like to exchange more details.
 

Sherrie Cronin

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Oh I meant to add that the Goodreads minimal advertising I did was used to promote the giveaway more than to promote the book itself. I would love to hear from any other new author who tried the giveaway with no advertising, to compare notes.
 

sarahdalton

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Oh I meant to add that the Goodreads minimal advertising I did was used to promote the giveaway more than to promote the book itself. I would love to hear from any other new author who tried the giveaway with no advertising, to compare notes.

Hey Sherrie,

I've been running a Goodreads giveaway for the last three months. I didn't use any paid advertising but I did go into various different YA groups to promote the book. I already had a few threads started from when I released the book and a good number of reviews, so I think that helped.

The number of people who added my book to their TBR lists sky rocketed - it went from around 200 back in October to 994 today. The number of entries into the competition has been 1114. But, it hasn't increased sales. In fact, I think they've dipped a little bit. I suppose people are holding off buying the book in case they win the competition or they would only be interested in the book if it's for free.

I don't feel like I can draw up a conclusion as to whether it's been good or bad for sales just yet. The comp finishes on the 31st December and will coincide with me reducing the price for the ebook version in January and the release of the second in the series at the end of January. So, despite the lack of sales in the past few months there's a good chance that the slow build up of interest in the book could lead to a bit of a snowball once the competition is over.

This is a bit of an experiment on my part so I'll have to see how it plays out. This is my first book so it's definitely a learning curve!

It could all be a damp squib. I know that when people enter into the competition it adds the book automatically to their TBR lists. So when they find out they didn't win they might just remove the book and that's that. It could be that everything just goes back to the way it was before I ran the competition. I'll have to report back and let you know.
 

sarahdalton

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A bit off topic but lovely - I was just posting on Goodreads in the various threads about my book to remind people that the giveaway ends soon and clicked on the 'posts mentioning the book' to find a fair few posts where the readers had mentioned my book in their 'favourite books' section. Got a bit of a fuzzy feeling. :)
 

Sherrie Cronin

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A bit off topic but lovely - I was just posting on Goodreads in the various threads about my book to remind people that the giveaway ends soon and clicked on the 'posts mentioning the book' to find a fair few posts where the readers had mentioned my book in their 'favourite books' section. Got a bit of a fuzzy feeling. :)

Excellent Sarah! Enjoy the fuzzy feeling.... This is an experiment for me as well and one that likely will not show results either way for several months, until those recieving the giveaways read and post reviews (at least some of them .. hopefully) and until the general increased exposure has had time to either fizzle or catch fire for just a bit. I will report back as well and look forward to hearing about your experiences --- and yours as well Luis and any others with similar info to share.
 

GOTHOS

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As a newbie just now considering self-pub, I find this discussion invaluable. Thanks to all.
 

Sherrie Cronin

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As a newbie just now considering self-pub, I find this discussion invaluable. Thanks to all.

You're most welcome Gothos. Good luck with your endeavors. There is a lot of good information to be had here and many helpful people. Other relatively new authors such as myself look forward to learning about your experiences as well.
 

sarahdalton

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Here's my update on my Goodreads giveaway.

Giveaway details:

04/10/2012 - 31/12/2012

Entries: 1913
TBRs to date: 1427
The competition is for one signed copy of my book.

I promoted the giveaway in groups. I put in two posts, one at the beginning and one near the end of the giveaway.

On the same day the giveaway ended I reduced the price of my ebook to £1.99 ($1.99 as well.) I posted in each of the groups to advertise the 'half price sale' and created an event.

I created the Goodreads event with the idea what I would invite all of the entries to the giveaway to the event. Unfortunately, Goodreads wouldn't let me do that. I could only invite 'friends' and of my friends I could only invite around 600. Of those 600 about 7 have responded 'yes' which is not surprising considering they weren't interested in the book to begin with.

The event was a little bit disappointing but I think the price reduction worked well with the end of the giveaway. I've sold 3 books since I reduced the price and had 3 sample downloads on Smashwords. This is a huge pick up. I've been selling around 1 book a week before reducing the price.

So far so good!
 

Sherrie Cronin

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Go Sarah Dalton!

Positive direction there --- good for you!! It sounds like your method was good and hopefully word of mouth now continues to work in your favor.

I opted to go with a few consecutive giveaways of a shorter (~1 month) duration after I noticed that the last couple of days of my first giveaway generated the most excitement. I am curious why you opted for a three month giveaway instead? Perhaps more time to advertise helps? Also -- do you think giving away a signed copy makes a difference?

I'll post stats when mine all finish and we can compare ideas and strategies. Thanks so very much for sharing! (And good luck with those sales.)
 

GOTHOS

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I think this is approaching the whole idea of "using Goodreads" in a counter-productive manner. Authors should not use Goodreads as an overt advertising tool. Authors should use it to socialize. It's just another Facebook, but everybody there is a reader. Don't go to Goodreads and look at it as competing with other authors who have a similar product to sell. Those who use Goodreads with an agenda (to sell their book to readers) will not sell their books to readers at all. Those who use Goodreads to meet interesting new people, discuss books they like to read, and yes, when relevant, perhaps discuss writing without flogging one's own book, will sell their books, because, as Medievalist pointed out, allowing readers to get to know you and making a good impression on them just as a person, not as a salesman, is about the smartest thing you can do.

I took this advice to heart as I joined Goodreads today--

But I can't figure out where these discussions take place, now that I see there's no particular forum, which is what I am used to. Am I right to assume these take place through the various "groups?"
 

williemeikle

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I've spent a fair bit of time these past few days on a Q&A Forum for my work over at Goodreads. Come and say hi.

http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/42755-q-a-with-william-meikle

I've no idea how popular they might get, but I've set up discussion topics for books, and for the genres I write in. Hopefully it'll spark up some traffic rather than having to pay for ads.

I have 142 members of the group so far, and there's a facility to broadcast a message to every group member that should come in very handy, as long as I don't abuse it.
 

sarahdalton

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Positive direction there --- good for you!! It sounds like your method was good and hopefully word of mouth now continues to work in your favor.

I opted to go with a few consecutive giveaways of a shorter (~1 month) duration after I noticed that the last couple of days of my first giveaway generated the most excitement. I am curious why you opted for a three month giveaway instead? Perhaps more time to advertise helps? Also -- do you think giving away a signed copy makes a difference?

I'll post stats when mine all finish and we can compare ideas and strategies. Thanks so very much for sharing! (And good luck with those sales.)

Thanks Sherrie!

I went for three months because I thought I might get more entries and because it led up to January. I'd always planned to release the second book in January so thought it would work out. Plus, I'd heard from other writers that sales increase during a goodreads giveaway (although in reality this didn't seem to be the case).

I'm not sure if signed copies make a difference or not. I had a look at some of the other giveaways and lots of them had many entries for a regular free book. It's a bit more costly to give away a signed copy because I have to order it to my house to sign it and then post it on to the winner. Depending on where the winner lives, I could have just had it posted directly to her. Oh well, it feels quite nice giving away something that's signed.

I want to do a giveaway for my new book, but it won't be released until Jan 30th. The annoying thing is that I can't set up a giveaway without an ISBN and can't get my ISBN from Create Space until I publish it. Now would be the perfect time to hold a giveaway in the run up to the release, but unless I buy an ISBN I can't. I'm trying to keep my spending at a minimum so I don't really want to buy one. Nevermind, I guess!
 

sarahdalton

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I took this advice to heart as I joined Goodreads today--

But I can't figure out where these discussions take place, now that I see there's no particular forum, which is what I am used to. Am I right to assume these take place through the various "groups?"

Yes, there are lots of groups. Have a browse around and see what interests you. There are usually sections for authors to promote their work as well.
 
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