Goodreads Giveaway
I recently entered two signed copies of my novel, Eye of the Timegate, into the Goodreads giveaway, I chose not to limit the amount of countries that can enter, simply because I didn't want to discriminate. I gave the giveaway about a month to run, and by the end of it I had over 1,600 readers entered into it, and the exposure translated into over 500 readers putting the novel on their 'to read' lists. Not a bad result.
When the winners were announced (one was in the US, the other in Turkey) I duly prepared my two signed copies and went to the post office to send them off. Problem was, the postage alone amounted to over $90! For two books! Ouch!
So, what have I learned from all this? Maybe I should have just set the eligible country to just Australia, and discrimination be damned. The trade-off of course means that would have attracted much less entries and given the book less exposure. I guess you've got to weigh it all up and decide what works best for you. For me, ninety bucks is still a lot of money for just two books - and of course I haven't even factored in the price they cost me for Create Space to print and send them out to me in the first place, which was about $12 each. Damn that Australia Post! So, anyway, consider this a word to the wise.
I'm presently struggling to get the money together to send the books. Of course I still have to send them - they both have autographs addressed to the two winners, so they'd be no good to anyone else. And reneging on the deal would, understandably, get me in all kinds of trouble with Goodreads (and the winners!), who would no doubt kick me off the site.
The epilogue to this saga is the recent announcement by Goodreads that they will no longer be making the giveaway deal free for authors. So it would seem I got my giveaway in just in time. There's definitely no way I would have bothered with it if I'd had to pay for it in the first place - and doubly so now that I know how much it really costs.
I wonder how many takers Goodreads will get when the new rules kick in…
When the winners were announced (one was in the US, the other in Turkey) I duly prepared my two signed copies and went to the post office to send them off. Problem was, the postage alone amounted to over $90! For two books! Ouch!
So, what have I learned from all this? Maybe I should have just set the eligible country to just Australia, and discrimination be damned. The trade-off of course means that would have attracted much less entries and given the book less exposure. I guess you've got to weigh it all up and decide what works best for you. For me, ninety bucks is still a lot of money for just two books - and of course I haven't even factored in the price they cost me for Create Space to print and send them out to me in the first place, which was about $12 each. Damn that Australia Post! So, anyway, consider this a word to the wise.
I'm presently struggling to get the money together to send the books. Of course I still have to send them - they both have autographs addressed to the two winners, so they'd be no good to anyone else. And reneging on the deal would, understandably, get me in all kinds of trouble with Goodreads (and the winners!), who would no doubt kick me off the site.
The epilogue to this saga is the recent announcement by Goodreads that they will no longer be making the giveaway deal free for authors. So it would seem I got my giveaway in just in time. There's definitely no way I would have bothered with it if I'd had to pay for it in the first place - and doubly so now that I know how much it really costs.
I wonder how many takers Goodreads will get when the new rules kick in…
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