Sadly, no more contests from me via Facebook

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Okay, guys.  Somebody drew my attention to this blog post by Ashley March and the way Facebook does things is seriously going to affect how authors (or anybody) can do contests there.

She hits on the rules Facebook has laid out for contests done via Facebook.  And it makes giving away anything, even a $2.99 ebook, complicated as I dunno what.  The rules, copied from Facebook's page:

1) May NOT hold a contest on our Facebook pages unless it is administered through a third party app and is placed on a unique page tab or canvas page.

2) Must disclose that participants are giving information to us and not to Facebook; must acknowledge to participants that the contest is not sponsored, endorsed, or associated with Facebook; and must have participants somehow acknowledge that they release Facebook from any liability.

3) May NOT use any part of Facebook's features or functionality to enter participants in the contest. This means participants cannot be required to like a status/picture, comment on a status/picture, enter their own status/picture, or even like the page as a condition to be entered into the contest.

Number one makes things complicated-I don't know anything about 3rd party apps.  But do they cost $$? Do I need a new one every time I do a contest?  Shudder.

Number two…pfft.  Fine.  But I'm not taking a course in legal-eze just to do a contest and as often as Facebook changes things?  I'd almost have to.  Shoot, I'd have to almost hire a contest person just to keep up with things.  I can't afford that.

Number 3…yanno what this mean?  No more… when I hit 1600, 2000, 5000 likes I'll give away a prize…now I hadn't done any of these yet, but I might have at some point.  A lot of authors have done these.  If they do it now, they run the risk of losing their page.

Keep in mind, this is a FACEBOOK thing-I can't control it.  If I don't abide by their rules, they can shut my page down.

Unfortunately, these rules have made it so complicated…basically Facebook has made it too complicated to give away prizes.

Big companies, this won't affect much–they have people to do this stuff for them.  I'm not a company. I'm just me.  And if I'm spending time on crap like this?  I'm not writing.  Contests are complicated enough as it is.  I can't let them get any more complicated.

This means, sadly, I won't even be able to use Facebook as a means of entry in the future.  Again, I can't control this.  This is facebook.  This is also one of the reasons I've never much cared for Facebook. Yes, this is a new development, but still.  They want to control too much, have too much input in everything and bleh.

Sorry facebook friends…you can still hop over to my blog.  That's where most of my contests are run anyway and it's just a click away.