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Goodreads Introduces Kindle Ebook Giveaways Beta Program (U.S. market)
Posted by Greg on May 3, 2016
Last year, Goodreads helped authors and publishers give away more than 300,000 print books in our popular Giveaways program! Thanks to this success, authors and publishers have been clamoring for the option to run ebook giveaways with Goodreads. Today, we have the news you’ve been waiting for! The beta launch of our new Kindle ebook giveaways program is now underway.
Here’s how it works: The author or publisher of a book – whoever controls the digital distribution rights to the book – can now offer up to 100 copies of the Kindle ebook in a giveaway. The author or publisher chooses how long the giveaway will run, and Goodreads does the rest. At the end of the giveaway, Goodreads randomly chooses winners and automatically sends the Kindle ebooks to their preferred devices and Cloud accounts. Winners receive real Kindle ebooks, complete with all the great features and security that Amazon’s Kindle platform provides.
Kindle ebook giveaways will initially be open to Goodreads members in the U.S. During this beta period, Goodreads is working with several publishers to host Kindle ebook giveaways, but once out of beta, the program will be open to any author or publisher - whoever owns the digital distribution rights for the book - who sells their ebooks on Amazon.
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? Both types of giveaways give authors and publishers a powerful way to market their books, reach lots of new readers, and drive buzz. With a Kindle ebook giveaway, we give you the opportunity to offer a large number of free books, reaching even more readers. We also save you on both costs and hassle. No more printing books, hauling them down to the post office, filling out address labels, and paying to ship them off to winners (which can cost hundreds of dollars for a 100-copy giveaway). No more delays in getting your books in winners’ hands. The readers who win your Kindle ebook giveaway will get their Kindle ebook instantly and will be able to start reading right away, which means you can get readers talking about your title faster than ever.
Authors and publishers have come to count on Goodreads print giveaways as a key part of their marketing plans. They are a powerful way to raise awareness of an upcoming book or reignite interest in a previously published book, and they generate the kind of engagement that makes readers take note. Giveaways are especially useful before a book is published, building the buzz and word-of-mouth excitement – through pre-release reviews and friends seeing their friends adding the book to their want to read shelves – that help successfully launch books.
Why should I run a Goodreads Giveaway?
The primary benefit of running a giveaway on Goodreads is generating excitement for your book. Many giveaway winners review the books they win, meaning that you can build word-of-mouth buzz early in your book’s life. The ability to offer up to 100 copies of a book will greatly increase your chances of receiving a good number of reviews.
Additionally, when a reader enters your giveaway, a post appears in all of their Goodreads friends’ and followers’ newsfeeds, which in turn, creates more entries, more people adding your book to their Want To Read shelves, and more awareness. That’s something you won’t get anywhere else.
Giving away 100 books or more is the technique that large publishers have been using for years with great success on Goodreads. For example, Riverhead Books has said that Goodreads played a major role in helping The Girl on the Train break out to early success. To help drive early reviews, they gave away 100 copies on Goodreads (case study). In total, they printed more than 4,000 advanced copies of the debut novel, as they knew that getting the book into a lot of readers’ hands was a key way to help make it a breakout hit.
Will I still be able to run print book giveaways?
If you love our print book giveaway program, don’t worry; it’s not going anywhere. Print book giveaways will remain free to list (though you are responsible for the costs of printing and shipping the books to the winners).
I’m an author and I want to run a Kindle book giveaway. What do I do?
For this initial beta, we are working exclusively with select publishing partners, but you’ll be able to list a Kindle ebook giveaway soon. We will open up Kindle ebook giveaways to all publishers and KDP authors with an ebook in the Amazon store in the near future. Stay tuned for more!
When will Kindle ebook giveaways be available outside the U.S.?
We’re starting off with the program in the U.S. Our goal is to make sure that we offer all of our features in other markets, but we do not have any timing on this.
My book isn’t published yet. Can I offer ebook ARCs?
You can run a giveaway for a book that has not yet been published yet. The only requirement is that the ARC must be in a Kindle ebook format and loaded into the Kindle store before you list your giveaway.
How are these giveaways different from Amazon Giveaways?
The two programs are completely separate. With Amazon Giveaways, you purchase each copy of whatever book you want to give away. With Kindle Ebook Giveaways, you pay a flat listing fee to give away up to 100 copies of your book. Additionally, Kindle Ebook Giveaways are available for pre-publication titles, while Amazon Giveaways are not.
Next: Six Lovely Lessons Learned at the Romantic Times Convention
You might also like: Five Tips for Running a Giveaway on Goodreads
Goodreads Authors can subscribe to the Monthly Author Newsletter by editing their account settings.
Comments Showing 101-150 of 323 (323 new)
Derek wrote: "To clarify, I don't actually use fiverr to get reviews, but there are 100's of people on fiverr who will do an actual, unbiased review, not just glorify your book because you paid them. I wouldn't ..."Plenty of us have said as much. Maybe, once it's out of beta, they'll drop the price to a reasonable $19.99? I'd pay that for the exposure since there are a ton of readers here on Goodreads everyday.
I'm not angry; just aghast that anyone is equating a fee on a long requested voluntary promotions feature during it's beta rollout as some behind the scenes plot against them or all indie authors/publishers because it's not free or lower priced (again, I think they should consider some different pricing tiers and cheaper options so long as not do cheap opens the floodgates -- that's not the same as seeing some evil plot against indies).Derek wrote: "...Library Thing lets you do exactly this for absolutely free and they even allow you to give away way more than 100 copies. Maybe you guys might want to r..."
Lots of book sites handle giveaways lots of different ways.
As to LibraryThing -- despite the partial Amazon ownership -- that's not goodreads and it has a subscription fee (small $10 per year) if you want to catalog/review more than 200 books. LT seldom approves books by indie authors in their early review (ARC / pre-publish) giveaways and don't promise to always approve them in their regular giveaways (I assume they would approve until they felt the regular giveaways were too flooded). Generally, they usually see more reader participation in and reviews resulting from their early reviewer program. Visit their site for details. And keep in mind that goodreads has roughly 95% more members than LT and 98% more authors (well, for both sites "authors" meaning members who have claimed their author profiles). (LT has just over 2 million members versus goodreads 25+-whatever-million-it-currently-is members.)
That's good or bad for your discoverability; you can peruse LT and other book sites to get an idea of how many giveaways, how many entrants, how/if entering a giveaway ( and/or shelving) is shared out to other members to get an idea, checkout site TOS and giveaway details, their social / social-media aspects that can lead to yiur book being discovered via member activity (giveaways,,reading updates, shelvings, cataloging, ...), etc. A lot of book cataloging activity on LT is personal and actually doesn't share out.
Different sites are better fits for different people *shrugs.* I have no clue as to statistics on the number of reviews generated from giveaways anywhere. Nor statistics on how many readers not entering indie giveaways don't because not wanting to give Internet strangers their contact info that might if direct from Amazon who already has that contact information.
ETA: Hopefully for clarity and to add that goodreads did recently celebrate its 50 million reviews mark. LT just over 2.7 million reviews. https://www.librarything.com/zeitgeist -- for what it's worth, I like LT for book cataloging (and book data backup) enough to have purchased a lifetime membership before coming to goodreads but really don't see much social to it (so never discover new books there outside of the groups/bookclubs). Not trying to bad mouth it in any way -- just saying it's not an apples to apples comparison to goodreads nor would an author/publisher commercial use needs be apples to apples comparison to my needs as a reader. On book sites where I do see more social, some of them even appear to me to be better for different audiences or genres (not trying to advertise any specific one but one of the sites I use seems to have a heavy horror genre fans membership, another heavy on romance genre, etc.).
For ARCs, again LT very seldom approves indie books. The next closest to goodreads site with ARC giveaways (in terms of size of membership and number of reviews generated) is likely NetGalley with fees starting at $395 (last I read in their site details).
I think what needs to be realized is that this cost is a huge amount and also seems to not be justified. We have no reason given as to why we're being charged a ridiculous amount like 119 dollars, and it's all on the MAYBE that somebody who receives my ebook might actually review it. I mean, I might as well spend that money on PPC ads. Also, I've done work for a publisher and we've had over 30 books accepted by LT for ARC promotion--that's 30 out of 30, by the way. We've put out thousands of books this way and have got great, honest reviews. It's not how many people belong to a site, it's how responsive those people are. LT does all of this FOR FREE, and with great results at that.
I'm not trying to compare the two sites, I'm simply pointing out that as an indie author on a limited budget, what Goodreads is rolling out right now is highly unattractive and something I guarantee a lot of writers aren't going to use. This is clearly meant for publishers and people with money, a.ka., KNOWN WRITERS who don't even need to do this, more or less. For an indie author who has to work two jobs just to pay his rent and writes on the side, yeah, you really think that writer is going to spend 119 on a MAYBE? Don't think so.
As to paid/commercial reviews -- of course those are not being posted on any U.S. site in wth consumer reviews or what appear to be consumer reviews without disclosing the payments (including services like return reviews, advertising, etc.), connections, biases, incentives and conditions as required by federal law.Of course on Amazon they are only being quoted in the editorial description in accordance with their TOS and review policies.
And of course those are not posting on goodreads at all since their TOS and policies prohibit commercial reviews.
F.P. wrote: ""For a 99c Countdown promo with KND you'd move a good few hundred copies, making your money back if not twice or three times over." --Can anyone guarantee this?
F.P. - I wasn't talking about quality, the review system, etc. Simple economics. This is not value for money - you don't even need to test it to figure that it makes no sense for a writer. $119 = 100 copies given away? There are better, more effective places to spend that cash and build an audience.
As for KND, go check their results. They're public for everyone to see - download their spreadsheet. Personally I think they're also overpriced compared to impact, IMHO. You don't have to like them and certainly, not everyone does. I tend to stick to cheaper advertising options myself and was just using them as an example.
hmm...lower the cost something like $9.99 and will think about it. Can understand the cost of downloads (transfer over the network etc) for which authors are being charged. Also books are large and small so why this one size fits all?
Maggie wrote: "$119? Surely you jest!" hmm somehow that sounded like poetry..:-)
D.A. • shelf! Shelf! SHELF! wrote: "As to paid/commercial reviews -- of course those are not being posted on any U.S. site in wth consumer reviews or what appear to be consumer reviews without disclosing the payments (including servi..."Not true. Last I checked, there are about 3 million books on Amazon with Kirkus reviews on them. Last I checked, those are paid reviews. So....
Derek wrote: "Not true. Last I checked, there are about 3 million books on Amazon with Kirkus reviews on them. Last I checked, those are paid reviews. ..."Huh? Kirkus reviews are only in the editorial description section of Amazon.
Care to link to even one Kirkus Review on Amazon that's in with the customer reviews as proof it isn't true?
[Either it's true that Kirkus (and other commercial reviews) are NOT allowed in with customer reviews on Amazon (not allowed at all on goodreads) or the FTC and State of Washington both have exempted Amazon reviews from the deceptive trade practice, consumer protection and consumer fraud laws -- while Amazon, Forbes (http://www.forbes.com/sites/cherylsna... ) and CNN (http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/18/techn... ) must really have it wrong, Amazon needs to update their review policies and the courts were wrong to not dismiss their suit.]
ETA: If anyone is unfamiliar with applicable Amazon review guidelines, see under the spoiler with links. (view spoiler)
If unfamiliar which goodreads review guidelines (In addition to TOS prohibiting commercial use) at right of main "help" page, they flat out state (view spoiler)
I'm done going off topic for ebook giveaways by talking about paid reviews. I was reacting to seeing a commercial review site recommended as if those were allowed here or Amazon.Believe what you want. I still believe what I said is true -- that the site policies are as quoted and that the consumer laws are what they are.
Rhetorical questions worthy of a separate thread or on one of the existing "goodreads does not allow commercial review" threads by staff if anyone wants to pursue the issue of paid reviews:
Because people are doing it anyway, do you believe what I said is "not true"? Because it's being done, it's not illegal? Because it's being done it's not against site policies? Because not immediately removed or legal actions taken, what I said is "not true"? *eyeroll*
Out of the 3 million Kirkus reviews on Amazon, why no links to where one was posted in with customer reviews instead of editorial descriptions? When links are provided, any bets on how long those reviews stay once reported to Amazon? w
I am an Author and I wish to participate in a e-giveaway for the US readers before the launch of my Novel on 27th May. Can you guide me how I must go about it.
D.A. • shelf! Shelf! SHELF! wrote: "Derek wrote: "Not true. Last I checked, there are about 3 million books on Amazon with Kirkus reviews on them. Last I checked, those are paid reviews. ..."Huh? Kirkus reviews are only in the edit..."
I think this is getting off topic. Here's the deal with Amazon: Whether they allow Kirkus Reviews in the editorial section or the customer reviews section (which I agree with the other GR member-I've seen them mixed in with customer reviews as well), the point is that Amazon is allowing paid reviews to be on their site. There is no argument there simply because of the geographical location of where those paid reviews occur on an Amazon book page. It's still the same.
Also, just as an added last word from me on this point with Amazon...according to the TOU you posted by Amazon, they also allow for paid reviews, albeit in a "discounted" form. But discounted means money is still be taken for the book, so, again, my point is valid...it's a paid review. The problem is that by saying you have got a "paid review," a person automatically assumes it will be a positive review and I can tell you from my experience that this is not always the case.
However, in terms of Goodreads and this whole 119 dollars for the chance to get a review, that qualifies to me as a paid review, since if even one person decides to review my book through the 119 ebook "giveaway," then post that review on Amazon, it's therefore a paid review. Library Thing is the only site that offers free ebook giveaway programs, and a site I've personally built, Bookscomingsoon (dot) com, allows any author with a book coming out to post their book on the site and give away as many free ARC copies as they want. But those are the only two sites that do, to the best of my knowledge (and apologize for the self-promotion, please don't think I'm bringing all this up for that purpose. I'm really not).
However, this is all just subjective discussion, and I'm not trying to win a debate here. I have stated my opinion about this new program and I'll state it again: Goodreads is not doing any authors any favors by making us pay 119 dollars for a "chance" to be reviewed, and in fact, it seems to go counter to every single thing they've stood for up to this point in time to me. I really think it's wrong on so many levels they would even consider charging an author a dime to do this kind of a giveaway, and I think that if Library Thing can do it, which is as somebody else wrote, a much smaller site, then Goodreads in all their massiveness, should be able to do so as well. The fact that they are choosing to take the approach of bleeding authors of money every time they want to do a promotional run with these ebooks is just the most insane thing I've seen any book social media website do so far, and the fact that it's Goodreads, which is arguably the greatest book social media site currently in existence, it's just going to set a terrible precedent for other sites that are out there to "help" authors spread the word about their books. And that's strictly my opinion, nothing more, nothing less. Please respect Goodread's forum here and stay on point with the reason we are even discussing anything here, which is whether or not this 119 dollar ebook giveaway is a good thing or a bad thing. My checkmark goes into the bad column for sure.
Derek wrote: "...that qualifies to me as a paid review, since if even one person decides to review my book through the 119 ebook "giveaway,"..."100% accurate. Giveaway (paid or free) wins are paid reviews.
Policies on other sites will vary. But as previously quoted, both Amazon and goodreads make an exception for those giveaway or free-for-review reviews (provided the giveaway-win/free-product is disclosed along with anything else required to comply with federal laws).
U.S. laws require disclosing the giveaway/free-product when mixing in with consumer reviews. (So do many state laws -- for goodreads that's California and for Amazon that's Washington.)
ETA: still kinda suited to a separate thread. And only two book sites I've used (goodreads is one) that had giveaways failed to offer ebook giveaways once self-publishing and ereaders got underway. So not sure that "...Library Thing is the only site that offers free ebook giveaway programs..." is 100% accurate. I can easily rattle off a few dozen sites with free ebook giveaways and another dozen with paid ebook giveaways. *shrugs* whatever suits authors needss; but please don't think LT is the only site that offers free ebook giveaways--in fact, LT diesn't always approve indie giveaways in theirs. I'm not trying to promote for or against any other sites on these ebook giveaway threads but plenty have already been mentioned ( to best of my knowledge all mentioned do still offer ebook giveaways). I will say that few sites have as many ebook giveaways (or members) as goodreads and LT.
F.P. wrote: "Derek wrote: "However, in terms of Goodreads and this whole 119 dollars for the chance to get a review, that qualifies to me as a paid review, since if even one person decides to review my book thr..."Again, perhaps this is getting off topic, but I should clarify: If Goodreads charges me 119 dollars to send out my books to 100 different reviewers, and then those reviewers are going to potentially review my book, then to me, that qualifies as a paid review, because I had to PAY for the access to that reviewer who may or may not post a review on Amazon. So the argument I have isn't with whether or not somebody is obligated to post on Amazon...they clearly are NOT obligated to do so with the "free" ebook giveaway. And I personally could care less about whether or not the reviewer I am connected to via this "free" ebook giveaway posts on Amazon or not, at least for the purposes of this argument, because my argument certainly isn't with any reviewer who is awesome enough to post a review in this kind of a setting. My problem, and that which I think is being overlooked entirely here, is that I am PAYING somebody to give me access to a reviewer, and that access point, I think, should be free, not paid for. Especially when there is no guarantee a reviewer will even like or hate my book enough to praise or criticize it on Amazon, or Goodreads, or wherever else they choose to do so. I really don't even care if Amazon puts paid reviews or non paid reviews up on their sites, since you can't tell anyways what is fake and what isn't when it comes to reviews, and I never buy a book based on its reviews anyway. But I know many others DO, and so I realize as a writer myself, it's absolutely CRITICAL to get reviews for your books and hopefully put on Amazon, where most reviews probably get read before anywhere else.
So the problem, once again for complete clarification, is that I personally think that Goodreads is at a grave and serious fault for asking for ANY money to connect me to reviewers or any kind. They have been awesome up to this point by giving all of us a place to come and discuss books, pitch books we've written, and even offer that ridiculous program that preceded the ebook giveaway, where you were forced to send out physical copies in giveaways instead of however my winners wanted their books from me to be sent as. At least that was free though. I think the problem is that Goodreads should be helping authors, not bleeding them of money, and sorry, but 119 dollars if you are working a minimum wage job is a lot of money to shell out for a MAYBE situation with absolutely no guarantee of any kind of a result. Goodreads should enable authors, not take from them, and by asking 119 dollars, I feel that they are starting to cross over from a fun, mostly FREE social media platform, to a place where I can expect to pay money for a service that IMHO should and could be free. My question is... where is that money going? Answer that, if you don't already know the answer, and you'll understand where my subjective opinion is coming from.
F.P. wrote: ""Again, perhaps this is getting off topic, but I should clarify: If Goodreads charges me 119 dollars to send out my books to 100 different reviewers, and then those reviewers are going to potential..."I've been a writer for years, have one book out that was number on Amazon as a best seller in the horror category and which has won an award for best horror book of this past year, and I am working on several more books. Since you asked.
I think reviews are highly important. I think they may not necessarily lead to more sales, as I agree with you completely that buzz sells books, via word of mouth usually. BUT, and I have to stress this completely...being reviewed can open up doors for us writers. For example, I am working on getting my book made into a movie. Part of the reason I can even have a conversation like that is because I can direct people with the ability to make my book into a movie to a review site where my book was lucky enough to get a decent review. So in that sense, without that review showing somebody other than myself and my friends and family thought the book was good, that translates into the idea that others may also think my book is good, and that could translate into sales of movie tickets when and if my book ever reaches that medium. And of course, word of mouth does the same.
So we aren't in disagreement, I think, except I am vehemently opposed to Goodreads asking us little guys to pay for anything like this. I would submit that if Goodreads really was listening to us little guys, they would surely see that many of us don't have huge writing careers and are often working crap jobs that don't pay well and supporting families. So asking me to pay money for a possible "reader" on Goodreads who gets my book and may or not even review the book because they aren't even a reviewer (Thanks for saying this...it further proves my point!), is just insane. I don't want to just give my book away to somebody here unless I can do it for free. Because whether the person who gets my book thru this giveaway is just a reader looking for free swag on Goodreads or an actual reviewer who wants to offer a review and can use this giveaway program to get books to review that they are interested in, the point is still the same... I am having to pay for this privilege. Why? Amazon allows you five days out of the month to do this for free if you are part of their KDP program. LT allows you to do it if you have a book coming out, and both don't cost me a thing, so whoever gets the books, be it a reader who has a lot of friends and can spread the word about my book verbally, or a reviewer who prefers to share their impressions of my book online or with friends, is inconsequential to the fact that I think making me pay for this possibility is borderline greedy and malicious to struggling, financially strapped indie authors. And this all seems to support writers who are already big, much like you said Goodreads seems set up to do and I agree with you on this in some respects. But as it stands, they should dismiss this silly idea of making us pay, or at least be wiling to drop their price point down to something realistic (I guess I could live with that if I had to), and continue to be the awesome Goodreads I know and love. As it stands right now, I'm disappointed as all heck about this, and I really can't see how anyone who knows what it means to struggle financially and yet still wants to write a book and share it could see this as beneficial until the pricing situation is either fixed or this is becomes a free program.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts though! Very good points!
Why the drama over kindle giveaways needing to be disclosed as if print giveaways didn't have to be? Nothing has changed about reviewing giveaway wins just because goodreads now offers kindle edition. Site policies on goodreads and Amazon have always said you need to disclose if what you are reviewing was won or if you received free product in return for your review.
(1) That you won in a sweepstakes/giveaway (or received a free product by agreeing to review it) is a potential bias, incentive or payment that has to be disclosed in U.S. consumer reviews.
(2) That the retail price was $0.00 for any member of general public buying from retailers is just the price reader paid for the book and doesn't have to be disclosed. Same if free because you borrowed from a friend, the library, etc. You're not required in consumer reviews to spell out what it cost if it costs the same for everyone.
The difference is that (1) is limited and may not be readily apparent to everyone while (2) is available to everyone so considered readily apparent.
A consumer review in with consumer reviews is just a consumer review. A paid/biased/incentivized review in with consumer undisclosed is a fake or deceptive consumer review.
Just what do you expect a site with TOS prohibiting commercial use -- while promising members that spam is prohibited and actively restricting how/where authors can promote their books to places readers opt into like following an author's posts -- to be doing for authors and other commercial interests?
[General FTC guidelines are that anything behind why writing a consumer review or how you got the product not readily apparent or available to general public shopping a retailer should be disclosed. They go on to list items and examples that definitely need to be disclosed. Particularly any payment, incentives, potential biases, conditions and connections.
That's not new because the giveaway now offers digital content in edition to physical.].
F.P. wrote: "...I've said on this site before that it seems like this site exists to make already well-known writers even more well-known--the powers-that-be here give those books most of the visibility here..."Nah. The more activity on a book the more it's shared out by readers so made visible here in goodreads. The more activity, the more popular gr cinsuders it so the higher it moves up in various feature displays.
I don't think it's that odd or a conspiracy that the already discovered bestselling books selling/distributing x number of copies average y% of x reviews, visibility and other activities. That less discovered or undiscovered indie books selling/distributing z number of copies average y% of z reviews, visibility and other activities.
Or odd that popular genres see more reviews and activities than less popular genres. Or that readers who make or read bestsellers apparently will buy/read bestsellers so increases bestseller visibility and word-of-mouth.
Pre-Amazon buyout at least book visibility here was all just crowdsourced activity. The more people see it shared, the more it's discovered. Plus the more activity the more "popular" goodreads algorithms and displays consider the book to be-- even if the activity is one-starring, shelving as "awful" or "not for me," boycotting, etc. Still is except some areas at now echoing same visibility as on Amazon. (It was only last year, I think, that goodreads at least stopped recommending books based on books we one-starred because popularity=activity.)
If no one is discovering a book, then no one is adding to its visibility. Doesn't mean goodreads did anything to hide the book from readers like not putting it in same library here as all the other books.
ETA: an example, "Popular DNF books" (DNF = didvnot finish) at https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/dnf shows in order of how many people shelved the book as DNF. Crowdsourced. Think a visibility/display here on goodrwads isn't crowdsourced -- click on the books if not showing to see numbers like how many ratings and shelvings to judge if by activity or by some against the smaller publishers and authors.
Derek wrote: "119$???? You serious Goodreads? No thanks.
Library Thing lets you do exactly this for absolutely free and they even allow you to give away way more than 100 copies. Maybe you guys might want to r..."
Derek, I'd like to try Library Thing's giveaway program, but can't find the link. If you can, will you share it please? Thanks!
Thanks, everyone, for your feedback on this new feature. We've been reading through the comments and wanted to answer a few of the questions that have come up.The best way to think of giveaways is as an innovative form of advertising, in which you use free copies of your book to reach a wide audience of new readers. Goodreads promotes your giveaway in a variety of ways - both on the site and via email (for example, we send an email to anyone who already has the book on their Want to Read shelves when a new giveaway for that book is created) - that further help raise awareness of your title. The bottom line is that you end up reaching many more people than just the 100 winners of the giveaway.
In addition, giveaway winners may write reviews, an essential tool in helping even more readers decide this book is for them. To reach as many readers in other ways would likely require more time, more money, or both. Goodreads Giveaways make this easy. Print giveaways are free to list because we recognize that the author or publisher has to bear the costs of printing, storage, and shipping.
Our goal with this product is to enable any author or publisher -- large or small -- to do what the biggest, most successful publishers have been doing on Goodreads for a long time, which is give away lots of books to generate early buzz for their titles.
To clarify one additional point -- the fee for the giveaway is a listing fee. You are not purchasing copies of your books through this program, and it will not impact your sales rank.
Thanks again for the feedback. We'll continue to monitor this post for any additional comments or questions.
Thanks to everyone for sharing your varied thoughts and opinions on this new plan. All are appreciated, both negative and positive, and I am factoring your insights in on my potential future enlistment in this program. My only question is, when will this become available to authors other than the beta group?
Kerry wrote: "Derek, I'd like to try Library Thing's giveaway program, but can't find the link. If you can, will you share it please? Thanks..."I'm not Derek ;) but the link to giveaways is https://www.librarything.com/more/fre... ; more giveaway details for authors at https://www.librarything.com/wiki/ind... ; and more details on their author program at http://www.librarything.com/about_aut... ; public statistics at http://www.librarything.com/zeitgeist
Recently they had some perks for downloading their new app if you want to try joining that way (not sure if just an intro offer or still offering).
This conversation has taken a turn from showcasing the program to opinions about how different platforms do giveaways. What I'd like to know is if there's a chance this feature will, if not now, then eventually free for authors to participate in? I admit I'm no an expert, but seems odd to me that paperbacks can be given away free while donating e-books, that come at little-to-no cost compared to paperbacks, is more expensive than most small-time authors can afford, if they want to one day make a living by writing. Over a hundred bucks? Come on guys, you know that's totally unreasonable. All this does is drive away people who have good or great stories to tell but unable to due to financial reasons. That, if anything, creates a huge rift between big-name authors and less-known ones. To me, that spells a reality of discrimination based on a person's financial situation. And that's just wrong.
I can see why indies are baulking at the fee - to me, $119 seems a bit high and giving away 100 copies in one go doesn't seem an optimal marketing plan for smaller/self-publishers (as opposed to the saturation type plan that obviously worked for Girl On a Train.)Maybe a smaller-scale option could be offered.
But I also think those authors commenting/complaining here about a level playing field, discrimination, etc. are being totally unrealistic. The selling and advertising of books is business. Goodreads isn't here to warm the cockles of their heart, they need to pay the (virtual) rent, the payroll, and the piper--Amazon. GR offers indies a lot of free/low-cost opportunities but they don't 'owe' anybody free or cheap advertising.
Goodreads hasn't prohibited authors from doing any of the free free-for-review options already here (groups/bookclubs set up to do, threads in other groups set up for, etc. -- if interested I'd recommend exploring the group's here, particularly ones that read your genre; lurk around older giveaways to see what reviews were generated). Those, while free and requiring reviews, just won't have goodreads giving them the same exposure as the official site giveaways--and won't attract readers leery of giving internet strangers contact details.
$119.00 per giveaway won't work for me! My book is already available for FREE to kindle subscribers on Amazon and $2.99 if you're not a kindle subscriber. I run monthly giveaways on Goodreads for a hard copy book, which usually runs me under $10.00. $119.00 is too much.
F.P. wrote: "Miss M wrote: "I can see why indies are baulking at the fee - to me, $119 seems a bit high and giving away 100 copies in one go doesn't seem an optimal marketing plan for smaller/self-publishers (a..."Really? I shouldn't expect something for nothing? Goodreads has been free pretty much up until this point in terms of what they do and offer for authors. And Library Thing does this same exact thing that Goodreads is about to do FOR FREE. So I guess in that sense, if Library Thing can do this kind of thing for authors FOR FREE, you mean to tell me Goodreads, who has a much much larger staff and budget to run their company, can't?
Yeah, me thinks not. 119 is an obscene amount to pay for an indie author, investment or not. I think the only people who probably don't have an issue with this 119 dollars are those who can spend that much and not blink an eye. Try working a minimum wage job and supporting three kids on that job and seeking the dream of writing which is your only outlet and ask them if they think 119 is okay. I am pretty sure I can tell you what their answer would be.
Miss M wrote: "I can see why indies are baulking at the fee - to me, $119 seems a bit high and giving away 100 copies in one go doesn't seem an optimal marketing plan for smaller/self-publishers (as opposed to th..."I get your point. However, small-time authors have to compete with big names. Sometimes, one book doesn't even sell as much as a hundred copies GR now "suggests" we give away for a fee. Being a small press author, that takes me in the red financially. At that point, I don't know what you think will happen. Nice reviews, I might not even get, to keep me warm when I can't pay the bills? $119 is high, and giving away a hundred e-books is not good for business.
Second, I was complaining about the fact, which GR and Amazon well know, that if other places, like Librarything, offers the same program for free, they don't really get to justify the cost with nothing but "hey, our readership is way bigger than anyone else's." It's true GR still has free services for authors, but this is one program I know a lot of authors have wished and waited for. Now it turns out to be nothing than what sounds like a rip-off scheme by a big corporation. What would be better for their business as well as ours is lowering the cost. After all, the more authors refuse to participate in this experimental program, the more money they lose. Surely they can cover their own costs by ensuring as many authors as possible take part in this instead of driving them away by asking for too much. Higher fees, less authors; lower fees, more authors, and higher amounts of profit for them. That's just common sense.
The goodreads giveaways have never been limited to new or forthcoming publications; that's just usually where publishers and authors were pushing to get "buzz" and a big part of goodreads marketing on their program.Hopefully staff will post back to confirm -- I'm reasonably certain that publication date and other parameters ( including number of reviews, average ratings) won't matter so long as book is available as a kindle edition on Amazon and you pay the listing/processing fee.
Not all sites offering free or fee ebook giveaways can say that. Nor do they all accept all indie books.
In fact, all the sites I saw mentioned earlier don't accept any and all indie books in their giveaway programs. They and others will even limit how many or which are accepted so if interested just check that site's giveaway details. The ones that have fees just to join don't have outrageous membership fees but by not being free can steer some readers away.
It can even be a combination of any of three catch-22 scenarios: you cannot list your book in a giveaway to get reviews until you get a certain number of reviews (or even reviews plus a minimum average rating); sites that let you list it to get reviews don't have the membership to enter, win or review it much less reviewers with large followings or who are likely to cross post on sites like goodreads and Amazon to improve your visibility; or site lacks the social features that advertise your book to crease visibility when there is activity like entering a giveaway for it or reviewing it. Add in sites with good sized memberships that effectively bury your ebook giveaway unless you promote the link well or it just gets buried because so many on offer. Or free/cheap sites that offer to get your book to their subscribers but fail to mention that most of the # of subscribers they advertised are other authors jumping on same free review service or that the way they get reviewers means the reviews can only get quoted in editorial description on Amazon ...
Different book communities will suit different members best. And suit author marketing needs best; whatever works for you. I don't get ignoring your biggest potential marketing audience myself if part of your marketing involves trying to get maximum visibility or more reviews even if it means giveaways. Goodreads is not the only site with giveaways that don't promise or require reviews.
I've ditched lots of book sites because pretty dead with little social and little activity after being used to VB, Shelfari and goodreads that I wouldn't recommend to authors. I'm actually happier and more active elsewhere, review elsewhere and keep better book catalogs elsewhere--but still like gr for the feeds, the groups, the book data many of us contributed to over the years, other people's reviews, friends still here, and I haven't given up that they'll fix the follow author bugs where I can go back to reading author blogs all in one place.
Authors on this thread are clearly here on goodreads. If goodreads, Amazon and their large reader membership isn't of any use or something you don't consider effective for visibility and marketing needs where you feel instead you would be better served by sites with fewer readers, well, why would it matter if giveaway was free or not? If the fee was $1 or $999 or $119? (Again, I'm not saying $119 for up to 100 copies is a good thing-- I sympathize with the budget and the wish for a tiered fee--but it's not out of line in terms of advertising with the reach gr has).
Love this new functionality, but the price is too high. I regularly do giveaways on paperbacks; the cost is less than $15 (and I ship direct through Amazon with a few clicks). I have no problem paying for the ability to give away ebooks but this price is way too steep. I can do it direct on my own website for free, and in my experience any free giveaway draws new visitors and readers. My cap on cost for sending 1-10 ebooks would be $25. I've also found it beneficial to do more giveaways throughout the year, giving away fewer books each time. I can't imagine a scenario where I'd be giving away 100 ebooks a pop. Giving away one book gets just as many eyes and entrants as giving away three on a GR giveaway.
Great idea; needs some work!
Too soon to judge if -- with same initial exposure/visibility as on a 1 copy giveaway -- a 100-copy giveaway nets more reviews plus the additional visibility of those reviews sharing to newsfeed plus the additional visibility of other winner activity sharing to the feed (shelving as currently reading, sharing reading progresses, shelving as read, potentially adding quotes and trivia, voting not listopias, using in group reads and challenges ...).Hopefully whatever statistics come out of the beta and the first ebook giveaways are broken out by genre and such. It's not always the same effectiveness with different types of books and readers.
It's a random drawing so not a good way to judge, either, when a book is going to be won by a reader who shares a lot or one who doesn't. Only a small percentage of readers even review books online.
www.zeehuxley.comI wouldn't mind paying Goodreads a little something--maybe a few dollars an e-book. to run a contest and get a few e-book copies of my book out there. I don't know if flooding the market with hundreds of free books is a good thing for the indie publishing market. But I might go for giving away a few copies for a much lesser price.
I had another thought about this: In my experience, the benefit of a Goodreads giveaway is not getting your book into the hands of readers. Most of my winners never even left a review. The benefit is that when you post a giveaway, hundreds of people add your book to their to-read lists. Eventually, some of them buy that book. Most people who enter giveaways are just looking for freebies. What you want are the people who add your book to their to-read lists. This is why there's no reason to give away more than one book at a time.
Amazon shares in the profits when readers buy the books, and they own Goodreads. As I said in my previous comment, I'm not opposed to paying a small fee for a giveaway but 100 books is outrageous as is $119.
Marc wrote: "Great idea, GR, but you've priced yourselves out of the market. No writer who values their dollar would bother to advertise with you at this inflated price.Out in the real world, $119 buys you a ..."
Hi Marc :-) Do KND still do a 99c Countdown promo ? I couldn't find it on their website. If you know where it is please would you send me the link?
Thanks,
David.
Barbara wrote: "$119? I run a 'one autographed copy of a paperback' giveaway every month. Postage is just over $3.00. Envelope about a buck and book $6-$9. Cheaper. Maybe give a range of prices, per book given aw..."
My thoughts exactly! $119 is outrageous.
RE: Can I offer ebook ARCs?"The only requirement is that the ARC must be in a Kindle ebook format and loaded into the Kindle store before you list your giveaway. "
This is very appealing for ARCs, but my question is... is the .mobi ARC loaded up to KDP but not published? If it is published on Kindle and available on Amazon, then I assume we should be adding (ADVANCE READER COPY) to the title listing on Amazon, correct?
I love this idea, Please keep me posted. Next I want to be able to post my existing blog on my Author page. Over the summer I want to do more with Goodreads. It occasionally seems too time consuming, but I know there is much for me to learn! Thank you.
Off topic butMaureen wrote: " Next I want to be able to post my existing blog on my Author pag..."
If you're having trouble syncing up your blog, try using the RSS feed URL instead of main blog URL. If that's still not working, email staff (or use contact form under help screens) with the blog info.
(Needs to be staff; goodreads librarians cannot edit an author profile once claimed like they can book data and unclaimed ones or ones lurking this thread would be happy to help. You can also edit or ask staff to edit for you to include links any social media or other sites.)
Charles wrote: "What kind of promotion(s) can authors do on goodreads before and during giveaway?"Last I knew (pre-Amazon buyout):
"on goodreads" itself you can make status updates from your author profile. That's visible when anyone visits your author page. Unless someone has their update feed set to see everyone and is looking right that very instant, likely only seen by your existing followers on the feed.
Some groups/bookclubs are set up for author promotions (or have threads where you can). Goodreads let's the group's set their own rules about promotions.
The big promotion on goodreads -- remember the TOS agreed to when getting an account here actually prohibits commercial use and unasked commercial contact (aka spam) -- is intended to be the giveaways themselves. Not just your listing but also advertises out to their friends and followers whenever someone enters giveaway and when they shelve the book. Once there are lots of ebook giveaways, you might see the most activity towards giveaway end as it sorts towards top of ending soon" giveaways. Post giveaway the intent of goodreads adding book to "to read" unless opting out during entry is to put your book on the shekf they think members use as a " wishlist" so they'll be reminded.
The giveaway pages historically do see more viewing and activity than most paid below the fold ads. You can judge that just by looking at number of entrants.
You can promote the giveaway link off goodreads however you want. According to the help screens and marketing slideshows, the giveaways are partly to give you a fun link to promote on social media, blog posts, blog tours, etc.
ETA: Looks like the initial May 5 ebook giveaways all have over 1,000 entries up to just over 4,000 already. No doubt the big banner advertising of new ebook giveaways played a part, but not atypical for giveaways here.
The giveaways here do add to book visibility at least. No guarantees of getting sales or reviews (giveaways unlike read for review programs in various goodreads groups don't require). Certainly not guaranteed winner will read and review in a timely fashion or in time for your book release or other promotions.When people view open giveaways, it's seen. When viewing book page, the open giveaway is seen. When entering a giveaway, that's shared on the update/news feed on goodreads (realistically only entrants friends/followers are likely to see that post but still...). When shelving, posting reading progresses, and any other activities including but not limited to reviewing -- seen.
The other problem with this is Goodreads restricts you from using the address again of the winner. So here you are paying $119.00 and you can't even reuse the addresses of the winners. Why not invest that $119.00 in Facebook ads and be able to keep the email addresses you acquire. Seems like a more sound investment to me.
So the Amazon buy-out of Goodreads rears it's head. I'm disappointed to see it actually happening, but not surprised. I might do an ebook giveaway if I controlled how many copies were to be given away and it was priced accordingly, but trying to squeeze $119 out of everybody no matter how many copies they want to give away is shameless and I certainly won't be part of it.
Robin wrote: "The other problem with this is Goodreads restricts you from using the address again of the winner. So here you are paying $119.00 and you can't even reuse the addresses of the winners. Why not inve..."Why is that a problem? You agreed to goodreads and Amazon TOS and policies when getting your account.
Just what are you going to do with that address -- continually advertise to someone. who didn't signup for your mailing list? Nag/spam winners for reviews and new releases? Sell the addresses to marketing services and phishers?
Maybe instead try offering a mailing list interested readers can sign up for. Maybe reviewers and bloggers interested in getting author communications are bright enough to provide that info on profiles and submission guidelines, to actually ask for author contact.
Maybe readers -- who have been (or have been made) leery of entering print giveaways because Internet strangers would be getting their contact information, particularly Internet strangers already known to be likely to spam even if not re-selling the info -- are delighted the kindle giveaways keep that information just between them and Amazon/goodreads.
Maybe readers who trust Amazon with their details enough to keep an account there trust Amazon's privacy policy but have no idea what your policies are unless stated when they sign up for your mailing list (and even then you are still an Internet stranger who may or may not honor stated privacy policies but at least by signing up for your mailing list the future mailings were requested).
Do you also feel entitled to customer addresses from online or real world bookstores when someone buys your book?
Do you think everyone with a retail product sold or given away via third parties must be provided with customer data?
That customers providing Amazon (or others) shipping and email information don't expect privacy policies be honored and instead expect the manufacturer/publisher/author/artist behind the retail product be given their customer's details?
Why are so many authors determined to have real name, emails, addresses, other contact info, for goodreads and other sites to drop their no-spam policy to let them message on site, etc.? It's getting to be a broken record.
It's not like goodreads allows commissioned commercial reviews where you need to be able to contact the reviewer you hired. The reviews here are all supposed to just be consumer reviews volunteered by readers who -- unlike professionals and businesses -- have no need to have public contact details so clients can reach them.
Seriously, what's wrong with the idea that readers who want to follow you here and elsewhere and subscribe to your updates can? Do you think cold call marketing to addresses you got because a site violated the customer's privacy are more effective? Granted, mailing lists and posts to followers only go out to folk who already discovered you/book but the giveaway entrant also already discovered your book.
Maybe goodreads could add the follow author button to giveaway entry form.(As opt-in option, not opt-out like the teensy check box for putting book on "to read" shelf -- I always thought that should be opt-in as well or even go to a shelf called "goodreads giveaway" or "first reads")
Seriously, though - what new author actually wants to give away 100 books at a time? That's great for the big publishing houses who can eat the costs, but new indie authors can't really stand to lose that kind of cash right away. (Especially when it takes Amazon over two months to actually PAY us.)That said... I understand that Goodreads wants to get some money back for the service rendered, and the additional work it would take to organize and code the giveaways. Coding isn't magic, it doesn't just happen. So I understand why they want to charge for the service, and that's fine.
But I'm not going to pay $119 to give away 10 books, and 10 books is all I feel comfortable giving away at this stage in my professional career.
I'd be totally up for putting 5, even 10 copies of my books up for a Giveaway... but at a comparable price. If $119 gets me the ability to give away 100 books, shouldn't $15-20 allow me to give away 10?
(And yeah - obviously the amount of coding into giving away 100 books is the same as the amount going into give away 10. But just like pricing a book lower in order to get more people to buy it and hopefully get them to buy more expensive books - if Goodreads lets me try their program at a reduced cost, I'm more likely to buy a larger package later on.)
Penelope wrote: "... but new indie authors can't really stand to lose that kind if cash right away...takes Amazon over two months to pay us..."I don't understand -- other than missing potential future sales because an interested reader already won the book -- how is it costing kindle authors more to use this giveaway program to giveaway 100 copies than to give away 1-5?
It's not like authors have to buy each kindle edition listed on top of the $119 fee; goodreads/Amazon covers that.
I'm unclear why time to pay royalties matters to the giveaways -- presumably there's either no royalties involved, royalties will be paid the exact same schedule as agreed to when listing a kindle edition with Amazon, or the giveaway terms will specify some other schedule.
Of course, I'm also not sure there will be sales/royalties from the $119 giveaways (only the author or publisher holding digital rights to list kindle edition on Amazon can list for giveaway here at least -- so if there will be no sales rank boost and no royalties you are authorizing forfeiting those when listing). Not saying there are or aren't royalties involved -- staff hasn't said or confirmed either way (presumably the terms of giveaway authors see when listing spell that out).
ETA: on the Amazon.com site, when you list a kindle edition for giveaway you have to buy it first. I think you do see royalties from that purchase but that any resulting review from the winner won't be eligible to say "verified purchaser" -- could be wrong, Amazon has made changes to giveaways before (initially they prohibited digital content including kindle editions in giveaways).
D.A. • shelf! Shelf! SHELF! wrote: "Penelope wrote: "... but new indie authors can't really stand to lose that kind if cash right away...takes Amazon over two months to pay us..."I don't understand -- other than missing potential f..."
You're right. It's not costing more to give away 100 instead of 10 books - and that's my problem. I don't want to give away 100 books. That's a HUGE percentage of my overall sales, and the loss of potential sales isn't something most indie authors can really ignore, especially those of us just starting out.
But with a single price, the entire give-away is really only worth it to me if I'm giving away the maximum number of books allowed - something which I'm not comfortable doing at this stage in my professional writing career. I can't speak for other indie authors. I mean... I didn't have 100 people who pre-ordered my first book. If I'd given away 100 copies? I wouldn't have made a cent in its first week of publication.
(And that's not even getting into the territory of whether or not the giveaway counted toward sales or rankings, which I'm willing to bet they wouldn't.)
Look, I'd like to do a giveaway. I'd like to do it through Goodreads. I'm even willing to pay for the privilege. But the price right now is more than I'm willing to spend, and I'm happy to spend less to get less. That's pretty much all I wanted to say.
As an indie author, I can't afford $119 for a giveaway like this. And I'm seeing from this thread that I'm not the only one. What if I don't want to give away 100 books? What if I only want to give away five? I got all excited about the possibility of an e-book giveaway here on Goodreads, but I've been priced right out of it. I'm running into that a lot everywhere, so I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised.
I spend a lot of time querying both bloggers and top amazon reviewers for reviews and probably I'd say after about 400 queries, I've got ten reviews. So programs like Library Thing's review program where you can get reviews for your books before they come out are absolutely wonderful, because it's free and if you don't get a review, it's still a great way to reach a lot of people all at once. Library Thing is very easy to work with too. They give you the emails and you personally contact each reviewer to send them your book. How cool is that?
I would've expected this from Goodreads years ago, and I've been waiting forever for them to offer this kind of a program for us, but it's really, really sad that they decided to ask us to pay 119 dollars for the opportunity to get reviews. I mean, I am losing 100 books worth of profit already, and now on top of that, I am going to pay for MAYBE the chance to get reviewed? Nope..sounds like it's all about money to me, and that's not what I would expect from Goodreads. If they don't have the manpower to offer this incredible opportunity in a free capacity, they shouldn't offer it at all.