Editor’s note: Throughout this book marketing series, I will have a few guest posts from authors and editors who have shown true promise in the topics they write about. My hope is that by bringing in guests with experience and knowledge, you’ll get an in-depth walkthrough of what to do and why, and the details will allow you to be effective in your journey as you market and sell your book.
In this post, Kayla Krantz, author of several horror novels, will talk about how to advertise with book giveaways and how useful they can be in an author’s career.
Giveaways are probably one of my favorite things to run as an author. Advertising can be a tiresome process, but I’ve always enjoyed creating giveaways because it’s a good way to show appreciation to my fans for all of their love and support. Authors can offer things ranging from e-books to physical books to book merchandise they have created. No matter what the objective of the contest, they all work equally well.
Goodreads giveaway
My favorite way to host a giveaway is through the website Goodreads. From my experience, this allows an author to connect directly with readers, people who are hungry to pick up new books. When I do a giveaway through this site, I always make sure to offer a signed paperback book, something that readers can’t get from just anywhere. Depending on how large or small you want the giveaway to be, you can actually add or exclude various countries from being able to participate. The only downside to this, however, is that as the host of the giveaway, you are responsible for having the prize that is offered as well as for mailing it to the winners yourself.
Giveaways through Amazon
Amazon is another way to go for giveaways. They allow you to purchase a copy of your paperback, and while you pay the costs of shipping and handling, they will mail the book to the winner themselves. Amazon lets the host of the contest decide the way a winner is chosen either by the giveaway reaching a certain number of entrants or having a winner decided in predetermined intervals. The Amazon giveaways give the participants a call to action, which the author can decide on before the contest is finalized. I always choose the option to have people follow my Twitter page to enter the giveaway. It’s a good way to build a platform and perhaps find future readers who may see something on my page that interests them.
E-book gifts
Amazon also has the feature to “gift” e-books to people. All this requires is that the author purchase a copy of their e-book and simply forward the gift code to the recipient. While this method is slightly unreliable compared to the rest, it can be helpful for authors with a tight budget. The way to take advantage of this is by playing minigames or running small limited time promotions on various social media platforms and e-mailing the winner the gift code. This is a particularly good promotion for authors who have their own reader’s groups on Facebook.
Personally, I wasn’t pleased when I tried to use this method. Since the gift code gives people money in the amount of your e-book, there is no real guarantee they’ll use it to buy your book. I learned this the hard way.
Using Rafflecopter
A third method I’ve seen but have never actually used is Rafflecopter. Through this, people are given a random number of “entries” (predetermined by the host) and can earn points toward the giveaway by doing certain things such as liking a page on Facebook or following a page on Twitter.
Personally, I think Rafflecopter may be the best way to help build a platform since it requires the most engagement from entrants in order for them to participate in the contest.
I’m planning on hosting a giveaway sometime in October 2017 for a bundle of paperbacks and will use Rafflecopter just to see how it goes.
No matter what social media platform is chosen, each way of hosting a giveaway can be beneficial. Goodreads giveaways help to get the word out about a book directly to readers while Amazon giveaways can help draw attention not just to a specific book but to other works on Amazon that the author may have to offer. Rafflecopter gives you the power to direct interested people in the exact direction you’d like them to go.
In the end, a giveaway is a giveaway. It’s supposed to be fun for both the author and the reader. Don’t stress too much about which way to go—just try out various things and you’ll find the one that works best for you and your books!