We authors can be overwhelmed when deciding how much money we should spend, and where, in order to get customers to spend money on our book. Let’s be candid. Most new and independent authors set aside idealistic expectations of initial profit and focus on exposure, ratings, reviews, and the ability to quickly turn these aspects into more promotional materials to garner more buzz. Thus, we find ourselves paying to give our books away.
This spring, I released a novel on Amazon and sprung for a Goodreads giveaway. My chosen product was Apocalypse Thoughts, a speculative young adult novel, a stand-alone set in an unnumbered series (ideally, the best of both marketing worlds from an indie author perspective—related to, but not reliant upon, the other novels). AT is my third released novel on Amazon and I, having learned the value of a release plan, was willing to spend to garner immediate reviews. I opted for the cheaper giveaway version at $119 (explained below), ran it for thirty days beginning on my release date, and gave away 100 ebooks. Here are five things I learned and which I offer for your consideration:
One: You’re competing with John Green.
What? Yes, really. Famous, successful authors are also using Goodreads giveaways to generate buzz, especially before a new release. Your book will never get as many votes as theirs, even if you spring for the $600 package. Goodreads is part of Amazon, a megacorporation not in the business of helping small and indie authors. What’s more, customer service is sketchy, especially when compared with KDP’s (Kindle Direct Publishing), which is surprisingly stellar. My posts in the Goodreads author forums went largely unnoticed, were out of date, or were responded to with “contact Goodreads for answers” although I already had. Email responses took three to five business days and often regurgitated the same confusing website info that caused me to email in the first place. If you choose this a Goodreads giveaway, you’re essentially on your own.
Two: Recipients of free books are less likely to give ratings and more likely to give poor ratings because they request free books in genres they’re only half interested in. Their lower ratings may have little relationship to the quality of your book. Whatever you do, develop a thick skin. Goodreads users, being more literary and discerning than average Amazon readers, rate more harshly in general, so if you do get that precious crossover to Amazon reviews (vendor reviews being the ultimate goal of a giveaway on any site), be prepared for this. However, Amazon customers are more concerned with the number of ratings than that they are all 5-star.
Three: This brings us to the importance of properly labelling your genre for any giveaway. Particularly when blending genres, my advice is to glance through a few giveaway descriptions and make sure you’re reaching your target audience. You also want to ignore Goodreads’ writing advice for the giveaway teaser. Don’t waste time naming the genre or explaining you’re giving your book away. Readers know all of this. You’ll have about double the word count as your elevator pitch. Grab readers’ attention and make sure to stand out, because remember, you’re competing with John Green here, too.
Four: Publicize your giveaway. Don’t rely on Goodreads. Advertise on your website, Facebook and with friends. Heck, you can even mention it on your Amazon author page (just make sure to update when it’s over!) New authors are shy to ask people to shell out money for their book, so blogging or advertising a free book is a great way to push through this socially awkward moment.
Five: If you’re giving away ebooks, you might as well give away all one hundred. Goodreads has the authority to pull directly from Kindle to Goodreads readers. Ebooks are delivered through no cost to you no matter your current listing price, and more readers means more possible reviews. It’s easy for new authors to clutch to the idea of charging a good price for the thousands of hours that went into their book, but none of it will matter if you don’t generate buzz. Be aware that these 100 free will unfortunately not affect your sales rankings.
At the time of my writing this blog, AT has been out for seven weeks and the release ended three weeks ago. I received 11 ratings on Goodreads, likely attributed to the giveaway. (I’m excluding prior readers and those whose names I recognize as having rated my previous book). 685 readers participated in the giveaway and shelved AT on their “to read” list. 19 are “currently reading,” some of whom were reading AT before the giveaway ended, suggesting they purchased through Amazon due to the visibility the giveaway afforded. Crosschecking names suggests that several readers rated me on Amazon as well (far more important for sales than Goodreads ratings). These are all roughly double the stats my first book received without the giveaway, though to be fair, I had little understanding of marketing back then.
Goodreads does, despite posting conflicting info posted in different website locations, claim to contact readers with a follow-up email asking them to rate your book. This means the benefits to spending $600 on a pricier giveaway would be more prominent placement and the chance to send your own follow-up message to all applicants. Both sound great, but this price tag is likely unmanageable for new authors. (I’m sure John Green was able to afford this.)
The final skinny? I would do this again. I would just do it better. It’s hard to host your first Goodreads giveaway well, because frankly Goodreads demonstrates a lack of concern over its product. But $119 is a fair price for early returns on ratings, and let’s face it, authors cannot even apply for the more prestigious free sites (like Bookbub) without reviews.
Whatever you decide, I wish you luck! I’d love to answer more specific questions about my experience, as well as any random details I learned by calling Amazon’s KDP team and emailing with Goodreads, so feel free to respond to this post! You can check out my Goodreads author page here.
Kendra, as an English teacher, you of all people should know English grammar. The simple past tense for the word “spring” is “sprang,” not “sprung.” This is what you wrote: “This spring, I released a novel on Amazon and sprung for a Goodreads giveaway.” As they say, the key to good writing is rewriting. That includes a close examination of sentence structure and grammar. Best of luck.
Peter, both “sprang” and “sprung” are acceptable as the past tense of “spring”. One reference I found says, “The past-tense forms sprang and sprung are both well attested historically. In modern usage, sprang is comparatively formal (and more often considered correct), sprung comparatively informal.” I’ve also found than “sprang” is more common in the UK, and “sprung” is the usual form in North America.
Funnily enough, this is a conversation my family and I often had around the dinner table — my mother was an English teacher, and spoke a bit more properly than my father, a cop/veteran/mechanic/jack-of-all-trades raised in the deep woods of Appalachia, could stand without mocking her sometimes. Also, we had a spring on our property. So I can still remember the lively debate about this word when I was young, about whether I should or should not have happily declared, “The ice melted and the spring has sprung!” Nothing was resolved that evening, but “sprung” has always stuck in my head, and “sprang,” in fact, has always sounded a titch too twangy. I also consulted the Internet gods for this post though I admit I’m growing fond of the luxury of having an editor I trust!
Particularly in the past few years, I’ve made the purposeful decision that when guiding my students I want to focus on content and communication. Somehow in my heart this decision connects to equity and inclusion. However, had I noticed the simple clunky echo of using the noun “spring” and a verbal of the same word in such proximity, I might have smoothed that out with a synonym!
Also, disclaimer, “titch” is coming up in red and I’m leaving it here. Not sure where I got this word. But I like it.
Kendra, this reminds me of the old “rhyme”:
Spring has sprung.
Fall has fell,
It’s summer again
And it’s hotter than usual.
And “titch” is a word, it means a small person or a small amount. The adverb form is “titchy”, as in “I like a titchy bit of sugar in my coffee,” and the plural is “titches”. It comes from the Middle English word “touchen” (to touch).
As a recently published Amazon author (A Memory of Murder), I’ve been wrestling with the very issues you describe. I’ve shot my wad of social media advertising, and am now wondering what to do next. I’ve been active on Goodreads for years, and in all that time I’ve only ever entered two giveaways. But it does seem to be a good way to get name awareness out there, since so many people are on it. Specifically readers. Thanks for posting the pros and cons. It helps immensely.
I’m so glad it helpedI I just entered a giveaway to see it from the reader’s view and did win a book which of course I have no time to read being busy with my day and night job! Writing and promoting can be exhausting. I’d love to say, “Well, try to only avail yourself of those promotional activities that feed your creative soul” but that’s not realistic. Blogging regularly and putting out good content, even if it’s fun and creative, takes a great deal of time. I did join some chat groups in Goodreads, and I suppose that might be a good idea if you can find the time. I also noticed GR will be closing their “events” board before long, which does not surprise me as it did not seem to be functioning.
It’s not free, but, with a small investment of maybe $5, you can try the Amazon marketing and see what keywords it generates for you. Then try chasing those keywords down yourself and using them in your copy or SEO. Just a thought. I’ve fiddled with this a bit. If you come across any other great tips please share!
Marketing tips are always welcome in my world. Esp. with personal experiences detailed. I’d love another post about these promotions for genre versus mainstream. I suspect the more easily defined books are easier to market than the broader women’s, literary or mainstream. Thanks!
“New authors are shy to ask people to shell out money for their book….”
It has been around three weeks and I am still roaring with laughter at that sentence {fragment}. The doctors think it is a permanent condition, and they suggest Thorazine.
I’m glad I could write anything to make someone laugh that much!
My friends and I often have to remind ourselves it’s okay to ask for compensation for the hard work we’ve done on our novels. I felt the same way as a musician selling CDs in NYC back in the day. Luckily, I have many good writer pals to muck through this process with me.
Thank you Kendra for the Giveaway information. Do you think it is worth the extra money for the Premium level at $600.00 ? Also ,have you done anymore Giveaways since this article? If so, which level did you go with? I am in the processing of doing my first Giveaway and am debating between which level to choose. Thanks for getting back to me. Susan
Hi Susan! Thanks for writing!
Unless something has changed in GR’s offerings in the the past few months, I can’t see spending that much on a trial run. The only difference I could really see listed for the two prices was that for the higher price they offered to let you contact all who had applied with a follow up email. Now, that could be hugely useful if tons of people applied, but I passed and chose the lesser-priced option. The features were listed differently in two places, and I emailed to ask. In fact, according to Goodreads, the winners of either were prompted with another email, at some point after winning, to write a review. I felt this was good enough and didn’t really see the point in contacting everyone for $ 480 more as I did not get the impression we were allowed to market to them. However, this part WAS unclear to me in GR’s wording. Still, I felt like the participants had already been marketed to anyway, and if they wanted my book after not winning, they knew where to find it. Keep in mind, I am still learning about mailing lists and so this is not my forte.
While I can see either price level being of benefit, I would think that the learning curve involved in doing one of these giveaways might warrant a trial run, at least, with the lesser price.
I have not done another giveaway since, but I hope to. It looks to me like a few recent reviews on Amazon came from this giveaway, and it seems that Amazon and Goodreads are now linking their reviews better. If that’s the case, it’s much more valuable to me, because the reviews on Amazon are worth more for marketing/sales purposes, and many people who win in the giveaway only review on GR. If those reviews now populate on both, that’s really helpful for my sales. However, I need to follow up on this. I hope to do another Giveaway next month and I will let you know how it goes! Please do let me know your experience also; maybe I can do a follow-up blog here!
Good luck!