I just posted my first book giveaway on Goodreads and already discovered 2 things I'll do differently next time. Please remember these if you plan to set up your own Goodreads contest in the future.
1. Give yourself a couple days of lead time. I didn't realize until I'd filled out my giveaway form, and hit submit, that a Goodreads Librarian has to approve all giveaways before they go live which can take a day or two. This is a problem because you might lose a couple of days of your contest while waiting for approval, and more importantly, giveaways appear in order of start date--most recent first--so mine went up just this morning but was already buried by giveaways with a June 8 start date.
2. Those tags they make you enter are IMPORTANT. I just came up with some that seemed appropriate to my book. What I should have done was looked at how the book giveaways were set up. If you look at the sidebar of the giveaway page, it shows a list under "Brows By Tag" that you can click through to find books you might be interested in. Luckily I included "young-adult" as a tag on mine, so my contest is listed under that link, but I failed to include "ya" or "teen" or "family" which would have helped make my book more visible.
I hope these tips help some of you! Don't make the same mistakes I did. Of course, this may be common knowledge and I simply missed the memo, but if I'm not the only one who did please consider this your memo. :)
And I will say, despite the mistakes on my part, I've seen a big jump in interest this morning with dozens of people adding my book to their "to-be-read" and other shelves. High-fives to everyone who did!
If you'd like a chance to win a signed hardcover of RAPE GIRL, please enter via this link:
1. Give yourself a couple days of lead time. I didn't realize until I'd filled out my giveaway form, and hit submit, that a Goodreads Librarian has to approve all giveaways before they go live which can take a day or two. This is a problem because you might lose a couple of days of your contest while waiting for approval, and more importantly, giveaways appear in order of start date--most recent first--so mine went up just this morning but was already buried by giveaways with a June 8 start date.
2. Those tags they make you enter are IMPORTANT. I just came up with some that seemed appropriate to my book. What I should have done was looked at how the book giveaways were set up. If you look at the sidebar of the giveaway page, it shows a list under "Brows By Tag" that you can click through to find books you might be interested in. Luckily I included "young-adult" as a tag on mine, so my contest is listed under that link, but I failed to include "ya" or "teen" or "family" which would have helped make my book more visible.
I hope these tips help some of you! Don't make the same mistakes I did. Of course, this may be common knowledge and I simply missed the memo, but if I'm not the only one who did please consider this your memo. :)
And I will say, despite the mistakes on my part, I've seen a big jump in interest this morning with dozens of people adding my book to their "to-be-read" and other shelves. High-fives to everyone who did!
If you'd like a chance to win a signed hardcover of RAPE GIRL, please enter via this link:
Thanks, as always, for your support. <3
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Sometimes when I am tagging books, I will go to the LC Authority page (http://authorities.loc.gov/) and look for corresponding subject headings...or what you think the library might catalog your book under. Just a tip from your friendly neighborhood librarian.
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ReplyDeleteThank you, Kate! That's a great resource. I added it to my bookmarks. :)
DeleteWell, I have no book to giveaway...but thanks for the great advice in case I actually get a book published while GoodReads is still in existence. ;)
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