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Did You Miss This? Less Business, More Art (So I Can Do More Art Business)

Goodreads Giveaway Wrap

I assumed that a giveaway ending October 27th meant at the end of the day, not the beginning. There’s one surprise to keep in mind with Goodreads giveaways.

The numbers surprised me as well: 731 entries for a single book. Of those, 401 unchecked the “Add to my reading list” box (that’s 55%).

But that means 330 new people have A Long, Hard Look on their Goodreads list. All for the price of a single book, mailed to (it turns out) Canada.

The fun news is that the winner entered on the very first day, and has it on their reading list.

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Goodreads Giveaway Gains Momentum

Over 200 people have entered to win the paperback copy of A Long, Hard Look in the Goodreads giveaway. That’s 209 people who’d never heard of the book, but now they have. (Since I have copies on hand, I’ll even make it an autographed copy.)

During the sign-up process, they’re offered a checkbox which says “Put this on my ‘to read’ list” which is checked by default. It looks like out of the 209 who’ve signed up, about 90 left the box checked. Whether this is because they missed it, or wanted it, there’s no telling. I’m not sure why those 100+ people want the book but don’t want it on their ‘to read’ list. I can’t imagine anyone thinking they’ll make money winning free books and reselling them. It’s quite the mystery.

But here it is, in case you’d like to join the teeming hordes.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

A Long, Hard Look

by Joel D Canfield

Giveaway begins October 19th and ends October 27, 2014.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

End date is next Monday, so I’ll have some nearly complete numbers on signups and reading list adds.

Goodreads Giveaway Going Live

My Goodreads giveaway goes live on Sunday, October 19th. Many of my readers use Friday’s newsletter as a trigger to catch up on posts, so they may not read this until Friday or Saturday; thus the Sunday start date.

I also used some statistical analysis to add more countries. Intuition said my fans were mostly in the US, Canada, England, and Australia. 72% of my readers are in the US. If I add Canada that bumps up to over 80%, but adding England and Australia makes it 90% of all the visitors to this blog in the past year.

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Goodreads: Making the Decisions

Onward with our experimental Goodreads giveaways. Yes, plural.

Here are the questions we raised in the last post:

When?

The sooner the better. A 1-week giveaway as soon as I can set it up, then a 1-week break, and another 1-week giveaway, to maximize the benefits of being on the “new giveaways” list and the “ending soon” list.

How many copies to give away?

One. This is an experiment. I see no value in spending more than the minimum until we learn something. The experiment with Story Cartel reminds me that even the perfect tool might not be perfect for me.

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Goodreads Giveaway: Gathering the Info

First step to doing a Goodreads giveaway is to upgrade your account so they list you as an author, not just a reader. It’s free. They give directions on the site. (Dear Goodreads: Please have a data specialist organize your site and make things easier to find. Thank you.)

Next, you’ll need to be sure your book is listed at Goodreads. If you just released it, you’ll have to fill out the form and wait patiently for it all to coalesce. They recommend searching for the book first, in case someone else has already added it. I recommend it too, because A Long, Hard Look was already there. (Perhaps Sue added it.)

Now, decisions about the giveaway itself. Here are the questions we’ll have to answer:

When?

As we learned from Catherine, a few short giveaways will be more effective than one long one. How many? And when? How much time between them? Goodreads sets no limitations except it can’t overlap itself, which seems logical.

How many copies to give away?

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Next Experiment: Goodreads Giveaway

Still learning little bits from the Story Cartel experiment: two new 5-star reviews — both from people in my own network, not Story Cartel. And their explanation of the “every download is an entry” is that making folks write a review is the legal equivalent of making them buy something to enter a sweepstakes, which isn’t legal in the US. I make no comment. Yet.

You deserve more of this wild entertainment, watching me flail my way through some forms of marketing I’ve never done. After reading a great article by Catherine Ryan Howard, who does not post nearly often enough Cath are you listening? I’ve chose Goodreads as my next skydive.

Best Beloved and I will research what’s involved in doing a Goodreads giveaway (hopefully in more detail than I “researched” Story Cartel’s process) and report what we do and how it works.

What do you know about Goodreads or giveaways? What would you like to know?