Goodreads charging for giveaways?

Amazon does whatever makes the most profit for their shareholders. However that falls out for anyone else is not their concern. People, whether buyers or sellers, will continue to use it as long as it meets their own best interests. If better options come about, they will attract the Amazon users away.

I think those who are arguing that Amazon is their personal friend (or foe) just misunderstand the nature of it. Amazon is neither. If their decision-makers did not do business according to what was best for their shareholder owners, they'd be in plenty of hot water and/or soon replaced. That is who they answer to, not us.

But, Aggy, if your small press uses Amazon to sell your book and you chose to go with that publisher, you are using Amazon. If you're happy with it, that's fine, but I don't understand the distinction there. ?

Fruitbat said:

But, Aggy, if your small press uses Amazon to sell your book and you chose to go with that publisher, you are using Amazon. If you're happy with it, that's fine, but I don't understand the distinction there. ?

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When they're responsible for marketing and placing a book in various venues they believe are profitable, they can choose Amazon as one of their distribution platforms. When I'm paying for everything (self-pub) I place where I want. But going with a publisher does mean relinquishing control over every aspect. (Quite frankly "distributes through Amazon" was on my list of cons when considering their offer, but the pros outweighed it for various other reasons.)

I've just watched so many self-pub folks take the shitty end of the stick, while they assured me that all that fine print didn't mean what I thought, and then lose money and get burned out on publishing in general when they got repeatedly screwed by the Kindle Page Reads or couldn't offer sales when they wanted or whatever it was that they had been confident wouldn't apply to them, or would be handled fairly, or would be simple to request through the system.

*shrugs*

Yep, I too see it like just trying to do the best we can with each title, weighing the various factors involved. I agree that the clueless rah-rah stuff about SP/Amazon does get old.

I'm just curious to know who will pay $119, let alone $599. I assume they've worked this all out and know there's a market for the program. But I doubt it's authors like me, who can only do paper copies, pay for postage (I only give away two copies at a time), and run giveaways mostly to boost the books' visibility to readers who wouldn't otherwise hear about them. For all those reasons, I was advised by other writers to run small, short, and frequent giveaways, which this program clearly discourages.

Are those fees similar to what you might pay for targeted ads on GR or Facebook? Again, curious.

Fuchsia Groan said:

I'm just curious to know who will pay $119, let alone $599. I assume they've worked this all out and know there's a market for the program.

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That's true, I was wondering about this myself. I talked about it with my wife and she's of the opinion that this effort is at least partially directed at REDUCING the number of authors that engage in giveways, by putting up a financial barrier.

Fuchsia Groan said:

I'm just curious to know who will pay $119, let alone $599. I assume they've worked this all out and know there's a market for the program. But I doubt it's authors like me, who can only do paper copies, pay for postage (I only give away two copies at a time), and run giveaways mostly to boost the books' visibility to readers who wouldn't otherwise hear about them. For all those reasons, I was advised by other writers to run small, short, and frequent giveaways, which this program clearly discourages.

Are those fees similar to what you might pay for targeted ads on GR or Facebook? Again, curious.

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Targeted ads on FB can be much cheaper. (My publisher actually started running ads recently for his own books and said for the $30 he spends per month he's making an additional $80 - over his previous months sales. He has a large backlist though so that always plays into the effectiveness of ads.) However, FB will take pretty much all the money you want to throw at them so it's possible to spend $100-600 on ads if you had that kind of capital.

I doubt I'll bother with it. If someone has a book with broad appeal, it might pay off well, with less people in the program and the addition of e-books. But mine aren't that and NF doesn't seem nearly as big on GR as fiction anyway. I just like a few Amazon reviews to get some visibility with, and can get those pretty easily elsewhere. If anyone does it, please let us know how it goes!

Richard White said:

Amazon was NEVER in this to "help independent publishers". IMHO Amazon was in it to hurt commercial publishers, drive self-publishers and small presses to rely on Amazon and maximize Amazon's profits whatever it took to do so and eventually set itself up as the only game in town.

And it's damn near done that.

That people ever thought that Amazon was their partner amazes me still.

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Yeah, agreed. That petition ages ago that was SPed authors singing the praises of Amazon made me headdesk a million times. I still don't understand how anyone thought Amazon was on anyone's side but Amazon's.

Plus, SPed authors individually have very little power, so there is no leverage in place when their(our) interests and Amazon's stop being aligned.

Fruitbat said:

Amazon does whatever makes the most profit for their shareholders. However that falls out for anyone else is not their concern. People, whether buyers or sellers, will continue to use it as long as it meets their own best interests. If better options come about, they will attract the Amazon users away.

I think those who are arguing that Amazon is their personal friend (or foe) just misunderstand the nature of it. Amazon is neither. If their decision-makers did not do business according to what was best for their shareholder owners, they'd be in plenty of hot water and/or soon replaced. That is who they answer to, not us.

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Agreed.

But beyond this, I think there's a distinct difference between Amazon and other large companies in the book market -- eg, Barnes and Noble, or publishing houses -- in that Amazons profits do not come only, or even mainly(?), from books. So they don't care about driving the book industry into the ground if it serves their interests. Book-only companies, on the other hand -- their self-interest is aligned with the publishing industry being a relatively healthy place. It doesn't mean they'll always make decisions that are good for that industry or good for authors, but they will live and die by the book industry in a way Amazon doesn't, so are answerable to their decisions that affect market health. At least, that's my (admittedly non-expert) read on the situation...

lizmonster said:

I love doing Goodreads giveaways...I haven't any idea if giveaways are a decent marketing tool. I'd be a little surprised if I made back even a fraction of what I paid in postage. But they made me happy...[O]n principle - I'm not interested in subsidizing Amazon's market grab. And there are too many authors out there for whom $119 is genuinely prohibitive.

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Late to the conversation (just discovered the change when I went to set up a new giveaway to celebrate some critical acclaim), but all the quoted describes my feelings perfectly. Also, this change strikes me as fitting for the Trump era.

Trying to . . .

Anna Iguana said:

Has anyone used Amazon Giveaway? There's a link to the program near the bottom of every book page on Amazon, I think (in the desktop view only, not mobile view). I haven't read anyone talking about it, and it seems like it relates to Amazon's moves with Goodreads and BookBub.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/giveaway/

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I've been trying to set up an Amazon Giveaway, but the Twitter options have disappeared (to enter, the person has to tweet a message of your choice, or subscribe to your Twitter feed). Now the only options are having entrants watch a video, follow an Amazon Author Central account, or nothing at all. I've e-mailed Amazon many times, talked to multiple people on the phone for about two hours total, and still no one can answer the question of how to get back the Twitter options. Reps keep recommending things that don't make sense, like signing up for a seller account or filtering my Kindle library when I don't even own a Kindle. Only one person at Amazon so far seemed to have any idea what their Giveaway program was.

It's been disappointing, especially after having only positive experiences with Amazon when it comes to Author Central.