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Introducing Our New U.S. Giveaways Program–A More Powerful Book Marketing Tool for Authors and Publishers!
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A friend has told me how they’ve won 4 books since the start of the year (they’re in America and still entering). They have always won quite a few, maybe because of the volume they enter, but this was four books in less than two weeks... I think numbers of entrants have dropped already, and this is why one person has won so many copies.And yeah, they told me about the “keep on your Want to Read list while the giveaway is running, or you will not be eligible to win.”
Figgy wrote: "They have always won quite a few, maybe because of the volume they enter, but this was four books in less than two weeks... I think numbers of entrants have dropped already, and this is why one person has won so many copies."I used to enter sometimes, several years ago. Never won, and it seemed pretty hard and a rare thing to win.
Could be less people entering, could also be the big rise in the number of self-pubbed authors here now. Maybe both. But with the change to Giveaways now having a fee many authors are saying they won't do it.
So yeah, the recent changes will mean less on both sides participating.
The checkbox is for the giveaways that were created prior to Jan 9th. I am an INTL reader so I can only enter the ones created before.
I think Goodreads/AZ are grossly over-estimating how much value there is for an author just to have their book added to want-to-read lists. As an author, it looks good for a book to be on a lot of lists, but that doesn't mean people are going to buy the book. They end up with a ton of want-to-reads that they ignore.
I am reading this with a mix of anger and dismay. I have enjoyed participating in the Giveaways of signed copies of my books to interested readers. I have given away copies of four of the eight books I have, and planned to do another this month, only to find out I have to PAY? WHY? The books cost to get printed and shipped and this now makes it even more expensive and I found the extra cost you now charge prohibitive. I asked and was told in a separate, now-closed thread and I quote "While we were charging for Kindle ebook giveaways, we were providing the marketing value of our print book giveaways for free. "REALLY? I just TRIED to start a Giveaway for one of my print copies and ONLY the pay options cam e up.
Why did you change the Giveaway process at all? I will be looking for another venue. Not all of us Indie authors have tons of $$ to promote our books.
I've given away two books on Goodreads and I have a third give-away underway now (started last month). In the first two give-aways, I received NO reviews in return for either book. The Goodreads give-away program isn't such a great deal and most certainly, not worth this huge amount of money! I'm giving away books elsewhere for free like my G+ account and BookGobblers.com In return, I received reviews that were posted on Amazon, G+, BookGobblers AND Goodreads. Whoever came up with this idea of charging authors so much made a serious error. No way am I going to pay to give away my books here.
Patricia wrote: "I think Goodreads/AZ are grossly over-estimating how much value there is for an author just to have their book added to want-to-read lists. As an author, it looks good for a book to be on a lot of ..."While I do agree GR is very much over-estimating the value, I just want to point out that visibility for a book when someone enters a contest and/or shelves a book, is greater than that one person.
These actions telegraph that book to that user's Friends and Followers in all of their Feeds.
So, exposure is larger than someone might realize. I don't even participate in Giveaways, but have many times learned of a book I become interested in because someone else enters a Giveaway for it and/or shelves it Want To Read.
However, although I'm coming from the position of a reader and not an author, even then it does seem the cost they've implemented is too high for the value. Seems to me with that sort of cost GR should be providing a reasonable estimate of how many sales are generated, on average, from Giveways.
I think that's valid information to expect, and my guess is they haven't provided it, and probably can't. If I were an author, I'd be asking for the results of their statistical analysis on exactly what "value" they're claiming the Giveways provide - in $$$.
Until then, it's all just a vague claim. Sure Giveaways might result in sales down the line, might not. Free or cheap it may be worth trying it. But I sure wouldn't for the cost they've implemented without solid figures, and perhaps even a money-back option, if the "value" they claim isn't met.
Run your own giveaway Barbra. I do. What Goodreads have done is creating what capitalism does in actual reality. A class society.
Barbra wrote: "I am sorry that Goodreads had to change their giveaway program. Being an indie author myself, i could never afford the premium package price and pay for sending out my books. This is a sad day for ..."
Hi Marie,I couldn't agree more. GR is a great place to discover new books and for readers to connect. The giveaway program was a good way of generating interest, just interest for ones work.
I have begun running my own giveaway on my site. It's fairly simple as I use WP with a plugin but of course I don't have the bulk users of GR. Mind you. This "Want To Read" feature is added automatically. Many users remove it afterwards so those who will visit a personal giveaway on my site always has the option of buying the book cheaper than anywhere else or giving it a go in the giveaway. If they wish to shelf it, they can go back to GR and find it and do so. All I'm saying is that we can continue and I think GR will smell the beans very quickly on this one. Most authors don't have much money, including myself. Some of my friends earn what GR is charging in a month so for them it's another way of further marginalising non-western authors. There are many aspects of the Giveaways but the reality is it's easy to do on your own website or through websites that offer this feature.
GR's marketing values are extremely overstated but the sad things is, same with any kind of PR or promotion, that those with money are the ones who people read. Because you'll see their books in your face all the time, good or bad. That's how marketing works.
GR's author program is the same. It's for those authors who are financially strong.
Marie wrote: "I am reading this with a mix of anger and dismay. I have enjoyed participating in the Giveaways of signed copies of my books to interested readers. I have given away copies of four of the eight boo..."
I do have a comment here. It seems to me the Goodreads giveaways for ebooks poses a serious problem for them: There are other services that have the potential of thousands of free downloads at a far cheaper cost to the author. The only reason an author would choose Goodreads Giveaways is if the email they write to winners actually results in reviews. They can't force a reader or winner to tender a review or comment, so it still looks like a gamble, at a fee much higher than other sites who promote free ebook downloads charge. It would be nice if Goodreads offered some data to show that their giveaways produce reviews. So I ask, "Where's the beef, Goodreads?" Show us some data. Otherwise, for the same $119, I could select sites that have the potential of 2-5K free downloads.
I have been a member of Goodreads' author program since the middle of 2013. That's about 4 and a half years.During that time, I have listed 124 Giveaways for my library of six historical fiction novels.
The new and improved Giveaway Program would have cost me $24,276 at the $199 level and $74,276 at the $599 level.
Very impressive new revenue generation. Amazon reaches deeper into author's pockets I suppose.
I will have given away 350+ copies of my books on Goodreads.
I have 160 ratings and 109 reviews.
Do the math!
Considering postage at "about" $3 apiece plus the cost of the book at "about" $4, that's an additional out-of-pocket expense of $3,400.
That's a lot less that $24 or $75 thousand!
The new and improvedGoodreads Giveaway Program will have a reduced participation rate from grumpy old men such as I.
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It looks like the giveaway program as a whole is greatly reduced from a couple of months ago. When the fees were announced, back in December, I started keeping some very rough stats - simply going to the Giveaways page and noting how many pages there are.Results over the last month:
27-Jan: 29 pages
31-Jan: 26
13-Feb: 18
17-Feb: 15
21-Feb: 14
Note - as I'm in Canada these are giveaways available in CA. When I started capturing data in December, I selected "show all" to get a fairer picture. However GR has since changed the layout of the page, putting their featured giveaways first, and I can no longer access "all" like I used to. Pages for all giveaways on December 1 were 101, but I didn't make a note of the purely Canadian ones for a fair comparison. I think it was somewhere in the 40s though.
That’s really interesting to see, Ian. Thanks for sharing!
Ian, I am in the U.S. and seeing a similar trend. Today there are 64 pages of giveaways when there were around 110 per day last year.
The important distinction between the number of
giveaway
pages and the reduced number we see is all the
new revenue (money)
that has been generated at the
expense of the authors
!The old Giveaway program didn't create cash for Amazon. The new Giveaway program does ...
Plain and simple.
In 2012 and again in 2016 I conducted a giveaway through Goodreads and paid nothing for them. Both were successful. After Amazon purchased Goodreads all of the value of having an author-centric website began to diminish in favor of Amazon, instead of the authors who sell their books on the Amazon site. I would be willing to pay a small fee to conduct the giveaways, but the price of doing it now is too high. Amazon is now benefitting first through a giveaway fee, then again from a percent of sales. I also suspect the books they promote that are published by the Big Five likely are the result of huge fees paid to Amazon by those publishers. Can't support that, but given Amazon's profitability strategies, I could be right.
Amazon bought GoodReads in 2013.
If so, then perhaps my 2016 event occurred before they added a fee for it. I did not pay anything and the results were good.
The fee changes are recent.
What constitutes a successful giveaway? I've held two prior to the change. Both times I had sizable interest and gave away some books, but I have no idea if this venture was successful or not. No reviews came for the 10 books I gave away in the two contests. How does one determine success? Thanks!
I did get some reviews for both books I had on giveaway, and three of the recipients for the second book signed up for my newsletter, but I had to wait until my royalty payments came in to figure out if the free books boosted sales. There were spikes on my Amazon author page, but even with those and the royalties, I found it difficult to decide how many sales were generated by the giveaways.I think the readers who signed up for my newsletter most likely will buy my next novel. So if that is success, it's worth the free copies I gave away.
Sarah, that sounds like success to me. Thanks for sharing this.Ed
Michael, Absolutely right. It's an incredible jump Goodreads has taken without any kind of data to back it up. I have begun with my first giveaway through my own site and the participation is great. But I'm not hunting a mass of downloads or a mass of reviews, I'm looking to generate interest in what I write about which is fiction based on real stories from my own work as a photographer and journalist. These are real, often very confronting stories - and they need time to mature. Writers I find are often very impatient with their work. Books need time. Often great works have been on the shelves for years. I'm in copyediting with my last novel and at the same time I'm seeing a strong interest in the previous one. It's been released for over a year and giveaways, 1 at a time, have certainly added to an interest in what I do and what I write about. The book has been awarded, excerpted and I've been interviewed. No GR giveaway, at the ridiculous price they're asking, can do that.
I don't know about Amazon, most copies I sell are paperbacks although some are electronic. I'd like to try a giveaway for a kindle or eBook version of my works but not sure where to start on that. So many sites say they're great but I've heard many writers say depends what you are writing about but not sure which would fit my genre... Any comments to that?
Michael wrote: "I do have a comment here. It seems to me the Goodreads giveaways for ebooks poses a serious problem for them: There are other services that have the potential of thousands of free downloads at a fa..."
Seems like shooting themselves in the foot though, which each new negative thing that means less readers are gonna want to bother.