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“The Strategic Use of Book Giveaways and How They Can Increase Earnings Potential“ article by Friedman
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It's been working for me since I fist published in April 2016, so I would say still valid.
I'm seriously considering doing a goodreads eBOOK giveaway for A Subtle Agency (100 books) with around 1900 to 2000 entrants for my previous paperback giveaways, I may well get a lot of entrants and actual readers out the other side of the process.
Now that the cost has substantially increased, it's no longer a no brainer. You should evaluate it against other more targeted paid promos that are more for generating purchases. Plus, GR is quite a bit smaller than some of the groups on FB. You also have a number of enthusiastic readers. So, In light of the following quote from the article, it might also be worthwhile to start building up your mailing list. You have some good content that you haven't published that could be used to reward people who join your email list. (Check out bookfunnel. You're also wide, so bookfunnel can help streamline the distribution process.)Better Than Free
Giveaways can be an effective part of a larger content and marketing strategy. Don’t use them without considering your funnel, as well as your demand curve. If you have fans who value your work, they aren’t seeking everything for free—and in fact once you have a fanbase, they’ll be looking for experiences that are much better than a free book. Kevin Kelly commented at length about all the ways you can deliver something that makes it a delight for people to hand over their money.
I've scanned the ebook giveaways a few times, but it seems most of them have just a few hundred entries total on the last day of their give away. Ebook giveaways are only open to GR members who have linked their GR and Amazon accounts (and I believe the author hosting the giveaway must do the same) so this seems to limit entries.
Hi Alex,Back when I was doing paperback giveaways, I was ordering the books from the US, signing them, and posting them somewhere else in the world away from Australia.
Postage was expensive in both directions.
The levers here (I think) are my current ASA TBR of 2234, and the fact that it is 100 eBOOKs.
If 50 of these recipients actually read the book, it's a good chance plenty will like it, and start buzz on GR as they are already on GR.
If I do 3x BargainBooksy promos (same cost), I'll get 30 to 50 sales. Total readers may be similar or less than this giveaway.
I'm willing to try it once and see.
(Ah, I see about the postage. Yes, since it's ebooks that makes a difference.) How many reviews/ratings do you think you received during those giveaways or as a tail effect? So, you think that from your previous giveaway numbers, there's a "good chance" that you'll get 50 readers who will spread the good news. That's a 50% conversion rate. I see you're basing that off of the barginbooksy impression-to-purchase conversion rate, but how many of those conversions leave a review or rating? That would be the purchase-to-rating conversion rate, which is what we'd want to measure for an ebook giveaway. I'd expect the ones who actually bought your book to have some tail effect similar to a rating/review, although maybe to a somewhat lesser degree. But those who would get it free but did not rate/review would have hardly any effect on the tail. So I think that only the purchase-to-rating conversion rate from bargainbooksy can be used to predict the effectiveness of a GR giveaway. Am I on the right track here? (Here I'm equating tail effect to virality. Just thinking out loud here, if we could somehow measure the tail effect, then that might be a measure of virality. Say, one were to cut off buys a week after the promo ends, than all the following buys until the next promo would all be viral buys.)
Edited: To make clear a conversion from ad impression to purchase vs. purchase to rating/review. Clarified tail effect as equivalent to virality.
Or maybe the virality would last for a few days or a week at the most. Ideally, the virality would increase as one did more promos and other marketing activities.
Paperbacks garnered about 20% reviews - all 5 stars. Readers either loved the books and said so or were completely silent.Potentially I will get 20 reviews.
Although I am more interested in new readers than reviews. My view is that reviews will happen organically if I do a good job of entertaining people, that's the main goal.
Do you think it’s still valid?
https://www.janefriedman.com/book-giv...