Henderson Smith's Blog: The Beginning... - Posts Tagged "giveaway-frustrations"

Call me old fashioned, but when I enter a giveaway and if I'm lucky enough to win, I do feel obligated to read and review the book as quickly as possible. Afterall, I got it for free and that was the deal I agreed to. Goodreads says only 50% of all winners in book giveaways ever review the book. That seems unfair, especially when Goodreads warns you not to contact the readers who have your free book sitting in their home and are not reading it. Cause that's what I want to do. I want to write them a note and say, "Hey, that book cost me over $20 to get to you (if they live out of the U.S.) and you can darn well read my book!" But then, of course, I'd be worried I'd tick off the reader and they'd give me a one star rating and that would be even worse than nothing. A lot of authors won't do giveaways because of these issues. Maybe next time I'll put in the synopsis for my book on the givewaway page, "Please do not enter unless you really promise to read my book and if you don't, you'll write me a check for what it cost me!" Of course, for those lovely readers who do fulfill their part of the bargain and do read and review the book - thank you! It's just frustrating to spend the money and the time to mail it all out and not have any response at all from so many "winners".