Book Giveaways - Page 3

SWEET · ‎03-09-2010

@LoriLori wrote:
@songbird wrote:
I won only 1. Well it should be 2 actually. I once got a paperback book in the mail. I had to submit a review. They called me for it.

Who called you, @songbird ? That is alarming. Unless you have to give it for e-ARCs?

@SWEET can answer that but I'd be surprised because taking a book does not legally obligate you to write a review so whoever was calling you was harassing you.

I would never give out my phone number and there's no reason they should have it. Amazon has everyone's phone numbers who shops there but they never make outgoing calls and the publishers and everyone else are not allowed to know our identities.

I just got a book that's not out until September, I emailed the publisher and had to show my GR page and do some begging and some advocating for myself and the easy part was I demonstrated my love for the author and that shined through and now his American publicist and I have been emailing LOL -- but she didn't ask for my phone number and I wouldn't have given it.

No one called me! I never give out my phone # even in giveaways if it asks for it.

Why did you email the publisher?

gardenman · ‎03-09-2010

Just some notes on how book giveaways on Goodreads work. An author or publisher has to buy a giveaway package on Goodreads starting at $119 and up for the giveaway. They then have to set up a timetable for the giveaway. Goodreads recommends the giveaway should last a month, but it can be less.

You can give away up to a hundred copies of e-books. Print books are sent out by the author or publishers and you have two weeks from the end of the giveaway to send them out. Shipping and publishing costs are borne by the author/publisher so fewer print books tend to get awarded. Goodreads will send the author/publisher the addresses of the winner/winners to send them the print copies. You're more apt to win an e-book than a print book as they cost less to award and are more likely to be given away in larger volume. E-books can also be delivered almost instantly.

If there's an author you like, you're typically better off putting their books on your Amazon wishlist and chances are they'll have a free giveaway themselves at some point, outside of Goodreads, where you can get the book for free, or nearly free. Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing service lets authors/publishers give away e-books without cost or restriction. (I've given away 165 free copies of "Sara X" in the last two days alone.) If a book you've placed on your wishlist goes up for free, Amazon will typically drop you an email and inform you it's available. You still get the book for free that way, you just don't "win" it.

Goodreads recommends free book giveaways for ARCs (Advance Reader Copies) as that can generate more buzz for an author. The winners feel special in that they get to read the book before anyone else, even if it's just by a few days/weeks. It's reader manipulation more than anything else. If I have a book that's done and ready to go on sale, but I do a Goodreads ARC giveaway for it instead of just publishing it and giving away free copies, those that win it feel special while those that just get it for free view it as just another free book.

The "I won it!" instead of the "anyone can get this for free" mindset is kind of interesting. If you win it you feel special, lucky, gifted, etc. If anyone can get it for free, well, you don't feel quite the same way. The book is the same no matter how you get it though.

Fly!!! Eagles!!! Fly!!!

hooked on books · ‎10-15-2018

@gardenman, thanks so much for that great information! I am a voracious reader and yes, the idea of "winning" a copy of a book is definitely exciting! I didn't know about the Amazon Wishlist and I will be checking that site out, for sure!! I don't use an e-reader as I just really prefer the feeling of actually holding that book in my hands, LOL!!! 📖😀

LoriLori · ‎03-12-2010

@gardenman wrote:
Just some notes on how book giveaways on Goodreads work. An author or publisher has to buy a giveaway package on Goodreads starting at $119 and up for the giveaway. They then have to set up a timetable for the giveaway. Goodreads recommends the giveaway should last a month, but it can be less.

You can give away up to a hundred copies of e-books. Print books are sent out by the author or publishers and you have two weeks from the end of the giveaway to send them out. Shipping and publishing costs are borne by the author/publisher so fewer print books tend to get awarded. Goodreads will send the author/publisher the addresses of the winner/winners to send them the print copies. You're more apt to win an e-book than a print book as they cost less to award and are more likely to be given away in larger volume. E-books can also be delivered almost instantly.

If there's an author you like, you're typically better off putting their books on your Amazon wishlist and chances are they'll have a free giveaway themselves at some point, outside of Goodreads, where you can get the book for free, or nearly free. Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing service lets authors/publishers give away e-books without cost or restriction. (I've given away 165 free copies of "Sara X" in the last two days alone.) If a book you've placed on your wishlist goes up for free, Amazon will typically drop you an email and inform you it's available. You still get the book for free that way, you just don't "win" it.

Goodreads recommends free book giveaways for ARCs (Advance Reader Copies) as that can generate more buzz for an author. The winners feel special in that they get to read the book before anyone else, even if it's just by a few days/weeks. It's reader manipulation more than anything else. If I have a book that's done and ready to go on sale, but I do a Goodreads ARC giveaway for it instead of just publishing it and giving away free copies, those that win it feel special while those that just get it for free view it as just another free book.

The "I won it!" instead of the "anyone can get this for free" mindset is kind of interesting. If you win it you feel special, lucky, gifted, etc. If anyone can get it for free, well, you don't feel quite the same way. The book is the same no matter how you get it though.

@gardenman you speak for self-published books

Vine giveaways, Netgalley & Edelweiss giveaways and GR giveaways are three totally different things. Didn't know Amazon does regular giveaways, is that only Kindle stuff?

It doesn't work the way you say. The netgalley and Edelweiss galleys are given out by real publishers up to a year in advance to test create buzz and get a sense of the reception for the book. Publsihers' and Amazon Vine ARCs are all paperbacks.

I have a bound MS now of what will be a major bestseller out in September, only four people have it and I had to jump through a lot of hoops to get it. Next week the publisher will give the green light to netgalley and Edelweiss to begin sending e-copies to their top reviewers and take requests from the others.

The publisher will send paper copies to paid reviewers like NYTBR and NYer and to top bloggers and take requests from other bloggers. They will all be paper copies. Mine has no cover. Theirs will.

Amazon Vine books are now given out closer to publication because the e-books cost nothing and each Amazon Vine review costs thousands. Also Vine gets fewer books all the time because we're encouraged to be honest and most reviewers are and they work hard to cull the rest.

GR gives away pre-publication books after the e-ones. But it also gives away many paperbacks. For example "Daisy Jones and the Six" will come out in paperback and I got an email about that giveaway.

Kindle Unlimited is a whole separate tning.

GR book giveaways are not to make people feel good. It comes out of their advertising and marketing budgets and create buzz. Winning is all luck (I was private the one time I won so no one ever saw my review but my real life family and friends).

And GR doesn't give away anything self-published. Apples and oranges. But authors do. I don't know why you're not on there. You're turning your back on over four million people, if you just find a handful to review it and some like it you'll be doing very very well.

Everybody on GR with a decent reach gets followed by authors and pestered by self-published authors begging to have their stuff read. Most of us have a blanket statement don't send me your stuff.

But I have a GR friend who does it and guess what, she found someone super talented and I've bought his stuff for my despised Fire and I love his stuff.

You should really be on GR. There are millions of books on Kindle. You can't spam but you can ask and if you find your audience or go through someone here who's a fan it could help you a lot. You set up an author page and take questions and interact with people. Yes it involves accepting feedback and that includes negative reviews. OTOH if your stuff is so good you might get an agent or publisher but again you'd have to accept feedback; the trade-off has to be worth it.

I too was published only before e-reading and by reputable outlets. I don't like to talk about it.

I'm a compulsive editor, nothing was ever good enough for me, it was a painful process (i.e., I was much harder on myself than editors and publishers. never satisfied with my work, not even with my posts here half the time, I was like Proust without his talent, on his deathbed he was not just working on the ones that weren't out yet he was rewriting the ones that were LOL) and gave up writing altogether although I've been known to write novellas here on the Q boards, not unintentionally.

gardenman · ‎03-09-2010

@LoriLori

I am on GoodReads. That's how I know how the GoodReads giveaways work (at least for self-published works) as I looked into them once I joined. To me spending $119 or more to give away books I can give away for free makes little to no sense. They limit you to 100 e-books also. I just finished a giveaway for "Sara X" through Amazon where I gave away 209 e-book copies in five days at absolutely no cost to me. Could I have paid $119 or more to give away a hundred through GoodReads? Yeah, but why? So people can say they won them? What about those that didn't "win" them? Would they be disappointed? Is it smart to disappoint potential readers? That's where my brain is regarding the GR giveaways. I've looked into it and don't really see an upside. Feel free to ask me any questions you want on GoodReads. I'm accepting questions there on my author's page.

I think most writers are obsessed with editing their stuff. I've got five "finished" books on my computer now that I'm still giving one more read through to fix any flaws. (By the way, you didn't capitalize the n in never towards the end of your post. Yeah, I'm that crazy as an editor. Don't even get me started on modern newspapers and online articles. I want to scream reading many of them.) Grammarly is a neat little tool to have on your computer. It even points out issues on posts here before you post them. (I never knew I was under-hyphenated until I started using Grammarly.)

You should get back to writing. Modern writing tools like Grammarly help to control the irrational editing gene. Writing tends to help you escape from the chaos of the real world into a world you create for yourself. There's nothing quite like the feeling when a story is just streaming out of you and everything is flowing perfectly. It's a neat feeling and much more fun than the endless editing process. (There comes a point where you just have to decide, "Close enough. Out it goes." Then hope and pray you didn't miss anything too major.)

Back to book giveaways for a minute. I haven't been a huge fan of just giving books away, but a recent survey of self-published writers listed free book giveaways as one of the keys to their success. They also said the volume of books you had out helped a lot. (Most of the successful ones had 22 or more books in circulation.) Now that I've crossed the ten-book threshold I'm trying the endless giveaway route to see what that does. As soon as one title comes off a giveaway, I throw something else up for free. It's gotten me a modest (very modest) boost in sales, so I'm keeping at it.

As to getting pestered by self-published authors to read their stuff, believe me, I know that feeling well. I get multiple requests each week from authors I don't know to give their book a read and that's just from the reviews that I post on Amazon. If it's an author I know, mostly from the old ABNA, I'll give it a read and offer my feedback, but there aren't enough hours in the day to give everyone everything they want.

Fly!!! Eagles!!! Fly!!!

LoriLori · ‎03-12-2010

@gardenman

Congratulations! Just saw you signed up as an official Goodreads author and good for you! I hope it brings you joy and success!!!

Glad you made the distinction between self-published writers and publishers' writers, it's huge. I never heard of Colleen Hoover before you and I was private on GR, OMG she's huge! And beloved! So it happens and I hope it happens to you although writing across genres you're making it a lot harder for yourself, the self-published ones I've learned about from GR friends write mystery and horror, full stop which is a lot easier to market. You can throw in the off-brand thing but with comments here about Sara X and your success with it why not stay in that lane until you're more established?...

Regarding my editing it's not typos, that's what proofreaders get paid for. It's content -- and that's what editors get paid for, but you hve to let it get to the editor, you have to feel good enough about your content to hand it to the editor who then makes you rewrite it anyway unless you're Stephen King, sometimes rewrite a few times, sometimes the editor makes the book, pulls a thread the writer wasn't focusing on, orders a rewrite with instructions and thereby helps create a much, much better book.

As I said, Proust was still rewriting book one (In Search of Lost Time was so long it has to be published in five or seven volumes although I've seen three you need a pulley for) and he was never happy with his words and never stopped although for the ones already out it did him not one bit of good for the ones already out LOL.

It's content, always. I have a cousin who has written a major bestseller then three cozies that were very NY-oriented and lost her contract. But she's got a new novel (not a cozy, not a mystery) and a new publisher now and a contact and is late. I know many writers struggle to meet contract deadlines/ For me I foresaw give us back your advance, bye!! and I think that's how it would have gone. Accomodations are made only for the biggest, like Backman's nervous breakdown and they gave him the space and now he's high-pro again

So after being published, the whole thing, based on one cold submission, I went in an easier direction for me (not that television and broadcast advertising are easy, but more tolerable, rather a knife in my back than a character I'm not quite happy with).

Congratulations, again! Maybe I'll be your first "ask the author" question: "Do I drive you bananas?" LOL, nah I'm glad for you! Let people here know when you're having a giveaway! Oh, the (tv) advertising/marketing person in me never shuts off. I love it. And being a READER Keep it up, G-man!

LoriLori · ‎03-12-2010

@gardenman

p.s. one of the self-published authors I reviewed "sold out." Mind I heard of him from a very popular GR friend. She extolled his virtues and I bit and loved. It's based on the author who stalked the GR reviewer who gave her one star but it's simultaneously mystery and satire. Anyway that (thanks to D) and a Kindle book I reviewed (thanks to me) "sold out." How can something electronic sell out?

gardenman · ‎03-09-2010

@LoriLori

As far as I know, e-books can't sell out. I'm guessing it's some sort of marketing ploy. Maybe they ran out of electrons? Who knows?

I know that I should stick to one genre, but I just write the stories that come to me. It's why I self-publish. Whatever pops into my head finds its way to paper. I tend to view myself as a storyteller more than a writer in a genre. If a good story pops into my head, I write it regardless of the genre. If you go the traditional route, you're stuck in whatever genre they put you and you can't pry yourself out of it. Then you also have deadlines and people looking over your shoulder while you write, which can be both good and bad. The traditional route tends to be rather ineffective also. Something like 94% of traditionally published authors never see a second book in print. Traditionally published books have a very short shelf-life also. You might have a window of a couple of months in which your book has to sell and sell well to ever get a second chance. By self-publishing, my books stay available forever.

Feel free to pop me any questions you want on GoodReads. I'll start things by asking you a question. What do you want to read in a writer's blog? Stuff about my life? My cats? My garden? My writing that week? I'm planning to do a blog entry every week. I can write about just about anything. What would you like to read?

As to promoting free books here, it can't be done. The powers-that-be here are a bit strict about stuff like that. Suffice to say something of mine should be free pretty much every day and whatever's free will change after five days. I'm giving that a shot to see how it works. I've got ten books out there now so every five days something else will go up. Between the StoryBundle it was in and the other sales and giveaways, Sara now has over a thousand copies out there in the universe floating around. That's kind of a neat number.

Colleen Hoover was one of my favorite people on the old ABNA forums. Her sense of humor is amazing. When things are going bad I remind myself that I beat her in the 2012 ABNA. She's done a whole lot better than me since then, but I crushed her back then. She's the perfect example of someone whose book found the right reader at the right time.

Fly!!! Eagles!!! Fly!!!