Suggestion: Update genre list for giveaways

[Ken]

When setting up a giveaway, the list of genres is pretty limited. The most glaring omission is that there's no entry for "literary fiction". I had to choose "contemporary" for my giveaway recently, because I had no other option that came even remotely close.

Also, I'm curious why "e-book" is listed as a genre, when we can't give away e-books!

[Christie]

Good questions.

[Jaclyn]

Ken, I'm going to ask our developers to look into modifying the list of available genres.

[Ken]

Thanks, Jaclyn!

[Sheila]

Excellent suggestion. More legit readers might enter a giveaway for a specific genre.

[Gerry]

I ran into the same problem with ebook give-a-ways.
I am new and not sure what to do. What kind of results have you had with paperback give-a-ways? How many books do you suggest someone should give?

[Joshua]

I'm on my 5th giveaway. From what I've experienced and others have written in this forum, it seems that whether you give-away 1 or 10 books, about the same number of readers sign up. If the give away is meant to draw attention to your book, and you don't wish to spend a lot of money, it seems reasonable to give away 1. If, as in my case, you want a number of people to actually have your book to read, with the hopes that it may make it onto their facebook page, as well as receive as many reviews as you can, then 5, 10 or more, depending on your budget.

Another thing to consider are the countries depending on the genre. I'm currently running a give away only for Indian Citizens as I've had feedback that suggests the content is consistent with Hindu Philosophy.

Lastly, it would be nice if GoodReads allowed in the give aways to be genre specific.

My Saturday morning thoughts.

[Debbie's Spurts (D.A.)]

Ken wrote: "When setting up a giveaway, the list of genres is pretty limited. ,..."

Joshua wrote: "...Lastly, it would be nice if GoodReads allowed in the give aways to be genre specific..."

Huh? Can authors specify from a limited list of genres or not?

(As a reader looking at giveaways, that defaults to "ending soon" but at right I can pick from common shelves/tags/genres or search for ones not listed.)

[Ken]

D.A.—just reading ... wrote: "Ken wrote: "When setting up a giveaway, the list of genres is pretty limited. ,..." "

Authors can select from a very limited list of genres (around 10, one of which is the completely irrelevant "e-books") when setting up a giveaway. I have no idea how the tags get assigned, but there are hundreds of them.

I tried to find my book on the first day of the giveaway, and it was buried among thousands of others, even under the "Recently Listed". An option to sort by genre would be nice. I'm actually surprised that anyone found it at all!

[Debbie's Spurts (D.A.)]

I'm pretty sure the tags on the giveaway page are shelves which are what goodreads uses to crowdsource genre. I'm still able to use those to search for giveaways for books in a genre. Not sure if shows differently to authors -- if you logout you see what public and non-author members see.

Honestly, because I've always been able to find books and giveaways by genre (unless unshelved) I hadn't thought about it.

Another author years ago told me the genres you see for giveaway and other features are same list of genres readers see to check to help with recommendations and other features. It us limited. They have never explained why " ebook" is a choice. Unless it's changed, the genre list you see isn't just for giveaway feature.

(Few authors seem to shelve/tag their books as a certain genre; I'm not sure goodreads makes it very clear that until someone shelves the book on a genre-related shelf it isn't in a genre on goodreads. It may not show correctly when looking for giveaways in a genre, exploring by genre, new releases by genre, the new release emails members subscribe to, various shekf related group activities, and other features.)

I didn't glance to see what genres your book was in.

[Debbie's Spurts (D.A.)]

In case it helps anyone -- I glanced to see your book's genres.

Looks like neither Ken or Joshua added their books to a genre (either add one or more shelves with genre names to "My Books" or from the "Want to read" button shelf icon/list and shelve book that way).

Looks like other readers added Ken's first listed book to genre/tags/shelves/keywords "Cultural > Inda," "Contemporary," "Short Stories," and "Fiction" -- no clue if that's accurate. It's a bit strange sometimes getting goodreads members to even agree if a book was fiction or nonfiction.

There's a cache delay where changes like adding a genre to the book page usually take 10 minutes to 72 hours to populate out to all areas and features of goodreads (just in case you shelve a book and it doesn't immediately seem to work). It's okay for authors to shelve their own books; not like the old Amazon tag drives that drove sites nutty.

[Ken]

D.A.—just reading ... wrote: "Looks like neither Ken or Joshua added their books to a genre (either add one or more shelves with genre names to "My Books" or from the "Want to read" button shelf icon/list and shelve book that way)...."

Thanks for checking. I usually shelve my own books, but I'd neglected to do so for this one. Fixed it now.

In any case, when setting up a giveaway, authors are still forced to select from a very limited list of genres (different from shelves), so my original issue still remains.

[Rusti]

December will be my third giveaway... The first one I gave away 10 books, it wasn't easy...this month is two and next is two as well. The third giveaway is an e-book but it also comes in hard copy, so that is how you can give it away. None of it is easy as far as cost. But it's still exciting none the less. And you are right about the genres, my romances aren't just romance. They could use the other genre to help with the giveaway.