How do book give-away / contests work?

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ania

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Or do they work at all?

My friend makes gorgeous wooden toys and has a story on etsy.com. She often hosts give aways of her toys on her blog, and even on the blogs of others in the crafting community. Everyone who responds to a post is eligiable for a random draw. She says that she brings many customers her way because of the give aways, and tells me I should do the same with my book.

But I can't figure out if this analogy even holds. How would giving away a book, entice other people to buy more books? Am I missing something, or does this concept work only when there are multiple products?
 

sheadakota

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The idea is to bring traffic to your site. I'm not sure about the numbers, but for something like 500 people who visit your site, one might buy your book- You need to entice people to stop and click and then once there, stop and look around and hopefully they like what they see. A book give away may or may not do that.

I did it and my traffic increased on my site exponetionaly, my book sales also rose for that period of time. But YMMV:Shrug:
 

ania

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The idea is to bring traffic to your site. I'm not sure about the numbers, but for something like 500 people who visit your site, one might buy your book- You need to entice people to stop and click and then once there, stop and look around and hopefully they like what they see. A book give away may or may not do that.

I did it and my traffic increased on my site exponetionaly, my book sales also rose for that period of time. But YMMV:Shrug:

Ah, this makes sense! Thanks!
 

jmascia

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Actually, the question I have is how does one actually set something like that up?
 

ania

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Actually, the question I have is how does one actually set something like that up?

My guess is you find a blogger who blogs about something related to your book and has a decent readership, and is willing to have your book as a give away.

Now, the give aways are designed to bring traffic to the bloggers who do them, and to the person who provides the product. Technically, a win-win situation. In crafting communities give aways are a big hit.

I'm still doubtful that a book would be the same lure. It doesn't photograph well, the blogger technically would need to read it (right?), and are people interested in free books at all?
 

nkkingston

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Competitions and giveaways are a very popular form of promotion. People love free books (what was that recent statistic? That only 40% of books are paid for?).

If it's a competition, only one person actually gets the book. If you're lucky, everyone else who entered will have invested enough time/effort/emotion to go out and buy it instead. If you're even luckier, the winner will read and and plug it elsewhere, doing your advertising for you.

Alternately, you could write a short story related to your book in some way and offer that as a free download. Hopefully readers will be so hooked they buy your book to find out what else happens. Equally, for people who've already read your book, it's a nice reward.

What most people do is post the cover image and an extract, rather than photos of the actual book. If you're doing a blog tour then you can run the competition (or set up the story download) on your own blog, not only driving taffic back to it but also only offering one book, instead of a book-per-blog. You don't have to persuade the blog-owners to actually read your book - though it's great if they do, obviously - just that they should let you make a post about it yourself (saving them lots of time and effort!).
 

DonnaDuck

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I have a YA books review blog (see Bites in my signature) that I give books away on all the time, both from my own collection and offered up my publicists as a means of promotion. Considering the majority of books are picked up via word of mouth, having a contest is an excellent means to spread that word.

Every book blogger works differently. Some (I consider them shills since it appears that all they do is have book contests and don't do much else, but that's just me) will have a contest for anything because it boosts their site numbers, regardless of whether they like the book or not. That also, in turn, gets them more attention from publishers and publicists and gets them more review copies and more chances for blog tours and promotions and such. Then there are those like me that only give away books that I can put my stamp of approval on. I won't have an author on my blog to promote their book unless I've already and it and liked it. I did that once (agreed to a promotion without reading the book) and I ended up not liking the book. It was awkward. So no more gimmegimmegimme shilling for me.

For the most part it's good for the blog and really, only if the blog has a decent following will it be worth while to offer something of your book on the blog (for instance you don't really want to promote on a blog with 28 followers and 1000 hits after 4 months of being up). So you hit the big blogs (and please, as someone that's been hit up to review books in the vein of The Clique even after my "Alphas Blows Ass" review, target your market, only hit up blogs that fit your book's genre, send emails, don't comment as that's viewed as spam, personalize the emails so we don't feel like a number in your promotions machine, things like that) or those that you feel would benefit your book the most. It required some research on your part but it will pay off.

Sean Beaudoin's publicist targeted me for Sean's most recent book Fade to Blue and he hit the nail on the head with that one. That book fit me to a T because the publicist took the time to get a feel for what I liked, read some of my reviews and took the chance.

So yes, it's mostly beneficial for the blog but word of mouth is a very powerful tool for books. Just don't inundate the book blogging world. Ugh. I hate it when that happens. Over the summer something like 20 different blogs were running blog tours/contests for the same damn book. I was so overkilled on it that I didn't even want to read it. So yeah, balance is a good thing too.
 

AliceAnderson

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There are several ways to set something like this up. You could post to your blog and say that everyone who leaves a comment is eligible. Use a random number selector to select a winner.

You could do the same thing but on other websites in the book community or related communities. Since I'm in the romance community, I can only speak to the sites and blogs there but there are many blogs and websites open to giving away books and other related items.

An alternative is to use a service that gives away your book for you via however they have the giveaways set up. They may do the blog method. They may have a different method set up. There are some pieces of software and scripts out there that let you host giveaways and I've seen some sites that use those. The Romance Studio comes to mind. And winabook, which will launch later this year.

I've also been known to host giveaways on twitter, facebook, myspace, etc. On twitter you might say "giving away a copy of my book to the first person who answers this question correctly: " or "RT and be entered to win ________."

The last way I can think of is to have visitors subscribe to your newsletter. Then select one subscriber to win the book. nkkingston mentioned giving away a free read, and I second that opinion. I've set up autoresponders for several of my clients so that when a new visitor subscribes to their mailing list they get a copy of the author's free read or access to all of the authors currently available free reads. Both are an excellent option as this builds your mailing list (always a good thing!) and offers up your work so that readers can get a feel for your writing (also a good thing).

Years ago one of my clients was putting together prizes for contests and to send to booksellers. She made an observation that's stuck with me. She never gives away a copy of her current or most recent release. Why? She's still trying to sell that one! This was way back during her debut release, so she was fighting for every sale possible.

She posted long excerpts to attract readers and wrote a free read or two. The prizes she gave out? Packets of Greek Coffee...since her debut book was about a Greek tycoon. It was a brilliant campaign and worked wonderfully. She tied the prize back to her book and gave away something people really wanted.
 

hughhowey

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Two sites just set one up for me. I think we came up with something novel and entertaining. Readers download the first portion of my book in three parts. Each site has a part and leads them to the next site, where they find an interview with me, a review of my book, etc... Once they get to my site, they download the third part, answer five questions about what they read, and that enters them to win one of two signed copies.

Every participant gets a link to a fourth part and a coupon for half off the digital version of book two. I think it's a pretty cool way to give away part of your story, entice readers with a free, signed copy, and drive traffic to multiple sites.

If you want to see how it works, the first site is here: http://residentialaliens.blogspot.com/2010/01/give-away-contest-for-molly-fyde-and.html

Or you can see how I used my own website to drive traffic in that direction: http://www.hughhowey.com/?p=984
 

Undercover

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silly question here, how does the winner get chosen? How do you get their address to send the copy? Do you contact them that they are the winner and ask them for it?
 

Jess Haines

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1) Find a blogger in your genre. Offer a guest post and giveaway. Indicate whether the giveaway is (your country only) or international.
2) Blogger will post it. Generally they are the ones who determine how long it runs.
3) You promote the heck out of it on Twitter and Facebook and wherever else. Hopefully, so will the blogger.
4) Contest closes.
5) Blogger picks a winner, contacts them for the address, and will forward the winner's information to you.

Hope that answers everything.
 

Undercover

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okay another silly question, do I have to find a blogger to do it? Can I run the contest myself somehow? I was thinking of a more creative way to promote by picking the winner myself for via how interested they are in reading it, does that sound crazy? My idea is to get readers who are MOST interested in reading my book. Not just someone that wants a free book. You can enter any old contest for that. I want mine unique and only want to draw in my targeted audience, which is more than just my genre.

Searching for that certain special reader that I know would enjoy it. The reason I say all this is this one novel is fictional, but it also draws in the awareness of mental illness. Maybe that's a bit too much to ask? Just trying to search on my fan base.

So in other words I'm looking for those who want to learn more and understand more on mental diseases. (even though it's fictional)
 

Cyia

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Determining how *much* someone wants something is too subjective to be a legitimate contest criteria.

Normally it goes something along the lines of:

Post in comments +1 entry
Tweet the contest +1 entry / day tweeted
Add a link in your blog or sidebar for the contest +5 (or whatever) entries.

Then, when the contest closes, you add up the points and go to a site that pulls a random name and that person wins.
 

Undercover

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Then, when the contest closes, you add up the points and go to a site that pulls a random name and that person wins.

what site will pull up a name that's in the pile of entries? still confused.
 

Undercover

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and i kinda thought my idea was too complicated, was just brainstorming here...

i want to keep it simple and light, yet draw in as many readers as possible, if that's even possible.
 

pbook

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You could try customizing it to fit with your audience?
 

Button

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I just wanted to add that I have had several giveaways on my blog. Some were books. I do not know the results of the book giveaways or if they helped with sales.

What I usually do is I do a book review and then I'll give the book I read away and maybe another copy or two. (The author is usually welcome to work with me on how many they want to give.) Author interview optional. ;)

So after that, I go let all of the contest websites know that I'm holding a contest. There are people out there that will be very happy to not only enter the contest for a book they find interesting, they will Tweet their friends as well. Sometimes the contest will ask for people to tweet or talk about it at Facebook and so on and the person doing the tweeting gets an "extra" entry. So you'll get lots of attention that way.

For something under $100 like a book, it's best to keep the contest short, maximum two weeks. There's lots of places to promote a contest, including other blogs that announce contests. It's a pretty big network.

Regarding sales, it's a complete optional thing that happens and there's no way to promise (no matter who the blogger is) if the book will sell more through contests. If you make the cover really pretty and respond to all the entries that make a comment, there's a better connection, I think.
 

Button

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what site will pull up a name that's in the pile of entries? still confused.

I do a count of all entries, assigning each one a number. Random number generator picks one (or two or however many).

Random number picked gets the item. :)

I email that person for an address to send it in to.
 

Undercover

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Okay cool, gotcha B.

Where do I find these blogging/sites that host contests? Do I just do a search for it?
 

Button

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Here's a blog with a list of current contest listings:
http://acontestblog.com/

Use the list. Visit the blog, see what they give away and then use the contact information to talk about your book and ask about doing a giveaway. :)
 

LadyLex

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Great thread. I hope to utilize some of these tips to get traffic on my blog. Thanks.
 
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