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Goodreads Giveaways Just Got Even Better! Kindle Ebook Giveaways Now Available (U.S. members)
Do you love free books? How about reading a book before it’s published to the wide world? Are you one of the many Goodreads members who reads ebooks? Well, we have good news for you! Our popular Giveaways program now includes Kindle ebook giveaways. Starting today, U.S. members can enter to win Kindle ebooks, and the winners will get their copies downloaded instantly to their favorite device—no more waiting for the mailman to hurry up and make the delivery.
Many of you are already big fans of our Giveaways program. Last year alone, readers won more than 300,000 free print books on Goodreads. Giveaways are popular because you can enter to win a range of books, from the latest advance review copy (ARC) by a bestselling author to books from debut authors.
Check out the list of currently active Kindle ebook giveaways today.
I don’t have a Kindle ereader. How can I read Kindle ebooks?
Not a problem! You can read the Kindle ebooks you win using the free Kindle iOS app, the free Android app, or in a web browser using the free Kindle Cloud Reader.
Why aren’t there as many Kindle ebook giveaways listed as print book giveaways?
We’re starting off the program by working with Amazon Publishing on a closed beta. Once out of beta, the program will be open to any author or publisher who sells their ebooks on Amazon.
I like reading print books. Are you going to get rid of print book giveaways?
Not to worry, we’ll still have plenty of great print giveaways to choose from! Nothing about the print giveaway program is changing, and you’ll now be able to customize the giveaway page so that you see only the types of giveaways that interest you. You’re also welcome to enter both types of giveaways. And members outside the U.S. will still be able to enter print book giveaways for their country.
When will Kindle ebook giveaways be available outside the U.S.?
We’re starting off the program in the U.S. Our goal is to make sure that we offer all of our features in other countries, but we do not have any timing on this yet.
I’m an author/publisher and I’m interested in learning more about Kindle ebook giveaways.
Find out all the details for authors and publishers in our post on the Author & Advertisers Blog.
Feeling lucky? Head over to the Giveaways page and enter some Kindle ebook giveaways.
Many of you are already big fans of our Giveaways program. Last year alone, readers won more than 300,000 free print books on Goodreads. Giveaways are popular because you can enter to win a range of books, from the latest advance review copy (ARC) by a bestselling author to books from debut authors.
Check out the list of currently active Kindle ebook giveaways today.
I don’t have a Kindle ereader. How can I read Kindle ebooks?
Not a problem! You can read the Kindle ebooks you win using the free Kindle iOS app, the free Android app, or in a web browser using the free Kindle Cloud Reader.
Why aren’t there as many Kindle ebook giveaways listed as print book giveaways?
We’re starting off the program by working with Amazon Publishing on a closed beta. Once out of beta, the program will be open to any author or publisher who sells their ebooks on Amazon.
I like reading print books. Are you going to get rid of print book giveaways?
Not to worry, we’ll still have plenty of great print giveaways to choose from! Nothing about the print giveaway program is changing, and you’ll now be able to customize the giveaway page so that you see only the types of giveaways that interest you. You’re also welcome to enter both types of giveaways. And members outside the U.S. will still be able to enter print book giveaways for their country.
When will Kindle ebook giveaways be available outside the U.S.?
We’re starting off the program in the U.S. Our goal is to make sure that we offer all of our features in other countries, but we do not have any timing on this yet.
I’m an author/publisher and I’m interested in learning more about Kindle ebook giveaways.
Find out all the details for authors and publishers in our post on the Author & Advertisers Blog.
Feeling lucky? Head over to the Giveaways page and enter some Kindle ebook giveaways.
Comments Showing 1-50 of 100 (100 new)
Just as long as they're always clearly marked. I hate ebooks and would not consider them a prize worth winning.
RobinLeigh wrote: "IT'S ABOUT TIME !!! .."+1, now I just have to wait for some of my fav authors to participate.
FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes yes yes yes yes!! This opens so many more possibilities for indie- and self-pub authors. Thank you so much, Goodreads!Edit: I spoke too soon. It seems it costs $119 for auths/pubs to start offering ebook giveaways. So no, this is absolutely not helpful for anyone except the big 5 pubs, who really don't need any help anyway.
I'm very pleased to see this and I hope those of us outside of the USA can access this soon. The only reason I don't enter these contests right now is the obvious requirement to provide a mailing address which I don't feel comfortable doing if these books can go straight to my kindle i'm all for it.
This is great! Considering how costly it is as an indie author to run a paperback giveaway, this is wonderful.
Not all of us want an ereader, we still like our print books. Please do not take away all print books.
Hi everyone, thank you for your wonderful comments! Julie and Roxanne: Rest assured nothing about the print giveaway program is changing, and you’ll now be able to customize the giveaway page so that you see only the types of giveaways that interest you, be them print or Kindle ebook.
This is nice, but I'm looking forward to the day when it is easier to find the audiobook listings.
Only the USA, that sucks. Please add Canada to the list ASAP. Thanks
Yes! I really hope this takes off and that it becomes available for other countries soon, but I love that this has been added.
I love ink and paper books, but I like that I can take lots of books with my on my Kindle and not have to worry about them taking up so much room, or getting lost, so I'm glad to have this opened up as a chance for new ebooks ^^
Well upon further exploration perhaps I spoke too soon. I honestly don't see many of the indie/self-pubbed authors I read going this route when it's going to cost them over a hundred dollars for the privilege."The cost of listing a Kindle book giveaway is $119, which allows you to offer up to 100 Kindle ebooks. Listing a print book giveaway will continue to be free. Why the difference?"
Yes indeed, why the difference? The infrastructure is already in place (aka "Amazon") so the overhead is low, why the high price point to entry into the giveaways here when they can give them away for free themselves as they already do in numerous free for review type programs? Is this some sort of attempt to level the playing field with print giveaways so authors don't abandon one in favor of the other? Did you take into account how many giveaway quantities are in the single digits or under 20? It makes zero fiscal sense for an indie author to participate at that price point with the avg giveaway quantities. It'd be cheaper for them to do an Amazon giveaway in those instances.
Wonderful! The US already has all the best giveaways anyway. E-books can easily cross borders. Please recognise there is a world outside the US (and pro-tip: many countries are forced by Amazon to use the US Kindle store anyway!).
$119 for an e-book giveaway through GR makes little sense to Indie authors and publishers...trade publishers, perhaps.
Tal wrote: "Well upon further exploration perhaps I spoke too soon. I honestly don't see many of the indie/self-pubbed authors I read going this route when it's going to cost them over a hundred dollars for th..."Well that SUCKS. I wonder if that's some sort of effort to intentionally keep the giveaways from being flooded with self-pub/indie auths, who often have less-attractive covers and, y'know, so many people are biased against them, maybe goodreads is too? Sigh. That's really unfortunate. I was so excited to hear about this, too.
Tal wrote: "...why the high price point to entry into the giveaways here when they can give them away for free themselves as they already do in numerous free for review type programs?..."Rian (͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) wrote: "$119 for an e-book giveaway through GR makes little sense to Indie authors and publishers...trade publishers, perhaps."
Because it's an incredibly cheap fee for the exposure. With print giveaways, there was already a cost ( shipping, printing, handling, ...) so giveaways were not swamped and the books were "seen" by potentially millions of readers plus their friends and followers here seeing when they entered ...
Many authors and other commercial interests have considered goodreads giveaways to be a tool for discoverability and buzz. If it was free for authors to list any ebook, I suspect there would be a concern that the giveaways would be too flooded with too many to still be useful for discoverability. If every indie with an ebook on Amazon put that ebook on goodreads giveaway ... wouldn't be much different than just browsing Amazon and goodreads to find the indie ebooks.
I would like to see a cheaper price though. Possibly even something pro-rated for categories like "1-10 books for $60" "11-50 books for $75" "50-100 books for $119." I don't mind a fee or something to do some gatekeeping so giveaways aren't flooded to useless-ness; but, I suspect some indies might not want to pay to giveaway 100 books at a time.
Carola wrote: "Wonderful! The US already has all the best giveaways anyway. E-books can easily cross borders. Please recognise there is a world outside the US (and pro-tip: many countries are forced by Amazon to ..."
It's beta. Just starting in U.S. and just with Amazon publishers. Goodreads is a U.S. site. Other countries may have different sweepstakes legalities and foreign rights to navigate when adding.
ETA: Jaylee wrote: "...effort to intentionally keep the giveaways from being flooded with self-pub/indie auths, who often have less-attractive covers and, y'know, so many people are biased against them, maybe goodreads is too? ..."
Flooding would ruin it. Nevermind if there is or is not a bias, a huge hurdle for indie authors is always going to be the number of indie authors competing for same discoverability and readers/reviewers.
I don't see it ever working for indie authors to use goodreads giveaways for ebooks for free; it would "flood." Might even lead to having to let entrants filter by traditionally published and by "other" rather than "other" getting exact same discoverability possibilities.
Just to add to this, Giveaways are valuable because they raise the profile of a particular title in front of our millions of members. It’s worth noting that the price is the same for up to 100 ebooks, making fulfillment cost much less per book than in a comparable print giveaway. We appreciate the feedback on pricing, though, and we will pass on your feedback to our team!
@Cai, are authors given email addresses for ebook winners like they are given shipping addresses for print book winners?
D.A. • shelf! Shelf! SHELF! wrote: "@Cai, are authors given email addresses for ebook winners like they are given shipping addresses for print book winners?"To clarify, we don’t provide hosts the list of winners’ email addresses after the giveaway ends; rather, winners are selected randomly and the Kindle ebooks are automatically sent to their preferred devices and Cloud accounts. That said, hosts will be able to see the list of winners and visit their user profiles!
Carola wrote: "Wonderful! The US already has all the best giveaways anyway. E-books can easily cross borders. Please recognise there is a world outside the US (and pro-tip: many countries are forced by Amazon to ..."Yeah, uh, I'm in the US but I have to stick up for friends outside the US here. I understand when indie authors don't want to pay shipping, but it costs no more to send an e-book to someone in Ireland than it does in the US. Is this only for closed beta or will it continue to be exclusive to one country?
Carola wrote: "Wonderful! The US already has all the best giveaways anyway. E-books can easily cross borders. Please recognise there is a world outside the US (and pro-tip: many countries are forced by Amazon to ..."Books Without Borders!! I don't see any reason why borders even exist in e-commerce. It is all computer generated.
Aaron wrote: "This is nice, but I'm looking forward to the day when it is easier to find the audiobook listings."Me too!!
There are laws regarding what can be given away as prizes and how those giveaways have to work. That often restricts other countries from participating. It's not always about the shipping costs. I know from friends living in Quebec that even when Canada is included, Quebec is excluded because they have different laws about giveaways and prizes. I'm unsure if that applies here, but there's more to it than just "why can't they ship everywhere"
Jaylee wrote: "There are laws regarding what can be given away as prizes and how those giveaways have to work. That often restricts other countries from participating. It's not always about the shipping costs. I ..."Huh, that's interesting about Quebec. Most of the friends and family I know are in Ontario so that's interesting.
Laws regarding prizes are tricky, yes. I definitely understand why it's set as it is for beta while they work out all of the kinks. I'm just curious if the plan is to keep it as is, or if they're looking at those laws and trying to pin down what countries they can open this up to.
YES! Finally! This now opens up Giveaways to folks who must depend on e-readers for large print accessibility. Thank you!
YES FINALLY!!! Well done Goodreads, I look forward to hosting several giveaways in the near future :)
Super exciting! Except for the bug that won't let you filter for kindle giveaways and sort (most requested/popular author/etc) at the same time. Hmm...
In regards to Tal's remark aboveIf you're giving away a KINDLE Edition for a book you've written and are enrolled in KDPublishing and only have your book[s] like I have listed on Amazon; you'll get approximately 67% of your money back in the form of royalties when you buy each copy that you're giving away.
Now compare this to buying print copies of your book[s] and then add in the cost of packaging and mailing them to the winners of your giveaway,
The next thing you've to consider is whether or not you'll get the review you're looking for [be it bad or be it good] E-book giveaways are a far better out lay of funds versus paperback/hard covers
Rian (͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) wrote: "$119 for an e-book giveaway through GR makes little sense to Indie authors and publishers...trade publishers, perhaps."How did you arrive at the $119 figure?
"Nothing about the print giveaway program is changing"I have a feeling that a lot of authors will be more likely to go with ebook giveaways instead of print ones to save on overhead, which will change the program, even if that isn't Goodreads' intent.
Filtering I want to see the kindle giveaways via popular author or most requested but when kindle is selected it takes me back to the ending soon tab.
I agree, I hate that bright light in my face. I am very positive with the reviews I give and I cannot help the author get awareness of their book if it does not come in print. Many authors have sent me messages about getting a free download of another one of their books and I have to decline.
Rebecca wrote: " I can't stand trying to read a book if it's a digital file on a glowing screen. Some people love ebooks and I don't mind that if that's their choice, but I'd rather read a ..."At least most of the kindle devices are not glowing (backlit) screens but rather eInk technology (exception being the Fire tablet). Like you said, just a choice if someone prefers ebooks to print books or vice versa -- but not necessarily because of issues with backlit screens.
I never enter giveaways for print books from unknown indie authors for two reasons: not wanting to give my shipping address to internet strangers and preferring ebooks.
That's great. Now, maybe I'll get the books I win!
Looking forward to this coming to Europe! (please please)
As commented by others, in that you can't choose print books AND Recently Listed. I have won a couple of e-books on another site without realising it. I can understand the appeal but they're just not for me.
Please make the media selection of Print vs. Kindle stick. It is EXTREMELY annoying to have to repeatedly make the dropdown selection on each giveaway page when browsing through different genres. UGH! No Kindle for me, ever.
Maybe there should be 2 links at the top of the page rather than a dropdown menu?
Rian (͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) wrote: "$119 for an e-book giveaway through GR makes little sense to Indie authors and publishers...trade publishers, perhaps."I can't see taking advantage of it, not when I can give away books on my blog for free.
I thought about entering one of these and then Goodreads wanted me to link my Amazon account. I understand why this would be necessary, but I don't want to integrate my Amazon and Goodreads accounts and I'm worried that this would happen if I entered Goodreads e-book giveaways.
I am not linked up to Amazon either at my choice.
As someone who works in tax, and who has a close friend who works in international product regulations and quality control, I completely understand the need to beta test in one country, especially one where Goodreads is already familiar with the legal and financial environment. Keep in mind, any expansion Goodreads does in delivering products of any form to other countries may create legal and tax ramifications for them in those other countries. It will take them time to determine whether this is cost effective or an appropriate risk for their business model, and even once they make that decision, they may need to jump through compliance loopholes in those countries first. It's not a simple process.For Indie authors, the advantage of paying to give away your books on Goodreads rather than doing it for free on your blog or Amazon is the exposure to the Goodreads user base. It's advertising, plain and simple. If you think that the advertising is worth the money, then pay. If you don't, then don't. Goodreads is a business, and they are not obligated to provide this service to you for free. They will change the pricing model if they determine it to be cost effective to do so.
Awesome. Been looking forward to this for a while since I'm out of shelf space!
I'm so insanely happy about this! Thank you!!
As a decently ranked Book Reviewer on Amazon I've always preferred the old fashioned way of having a physical book in my hands to read as I sit in a comfortable reclining chair just as I did when I was a child,
But times are changing and I've got to go along with the change. Since I DON'T ACCEPT requests to review books and only review those books I've bought or have won through giveaways I welcome the change GoodReads has made here as it affords me the opportunity to win more books to read and review on the 5 sites I post all of the reviews I write for the books I've won.
BRING ON THOSE BOOKS !!!