Should you do a Goodreads Giveaway? The results of my paid giveaway. #WriterWednesday #BookMarketing #Goodreads #AmWriting

At the start of the year, there was a lot of talk about the Goodreads Giveaway and how it is now too expensive for indie authors. I decided to give it a go anyway, because I’ll try anything once (except eating snake because that’s just gross!). So, how did my giveaway go? Here are the statistics Goodreads sent me upon completion of the giveaway:

[image error]

The number of entrants was low – atrociously low! I’d hoped for around five-hundred entries. I’d be curious to see if buying the premium package would yield different results. Of course, I’d have to win the lottery first to pay for it as, at the time, it was $480 more than the standard package. (The differences between the standard and premium package are outlined in my blog about how to do a Goodreads giveaway here.)

The real reason I did the giveaway, though, was not to add to my ‘want to read’ shelf. I’m pretty sure 307 of those who shelved Searching for Gertrude as ‘want to read’ have never thought about my book again. I wanted reviews. I gave fifty copies of the novel away thinking I’d reap at least ten reviews from the entire process. I even waited several months to write this blog article hoping (and praying!) more reviews would come in.

I was wrong. Here are the current stats for Searching for Gertrude.

[image error]

There is only one review and one rating from readers who won the novel in the giveaway. There are an additional two ratings I can’t trace and may be from the giveaway. Pretty dismal statistics, if you ask me. Also, these reviews and ratings are only on Goodreads and not Amazon or any other retailer site.

It’s obvious from the above that if you want to do a Goodreads giveaway to gain reviews, you might want to think long and hard about it. Although your genre may do may better than mine as I’m finding historical romance is a tough sell.

What about other writers? Has anyone tried a giveaway and had better results? Please, have better results.