Running your own giveaways – the why and how

The Problem

We’ve written a book and for most of us, that is a major, major accomplishment. It might have taken between one and ten years of work and represents much blood, sweat, and angst. But then the book sits there and the world goes on. How does an author get reviews, sales, and opportunities to share about the book? And how might giveaways help us?

This is our problem. Most (if not all) of us start from zero in terms of networks with other authors, bloggers, reviewers …

First steps

• Don’t panic – you are not alone with this problem and you’re not alone at all (especially if you’re a Christian writer)!
• The goal is to slowly build. Let me tell you how I did it with one small area – networking/giveaways …

My story

My first novel was published in October 2017 after four and a half years of hard work (the whole process from idea to publication was more than ten years).

I had some advantages to the average writer in that I was a missionary and so had many contacts from many countries, many prayer partners, and a reasonable platform in terms of non-fiction (evangelism training and Bible storytelling). I’d also already had two non-fiction books traditionally published, so I had some know-how. BUT fiction and especially self-publishing were totally new. Those first years of writing and publishing felt like I was doing multiple concurrent university degrees in writing craft, marketing, website design, and business … marketing and business were not at all my natural environment.

We are told to ‘find our readers’. Such a difficult thing to do. One of the first things I did was start reading as many authors in my genre as possible (women’s fiction at first and now Biblical-era novels). For each author whose books I liked, I wrote reviews and if possible wrote to thank them for their book and how it impacted me spiritually. At the same time, I joined various Facebook groups for readers (e.g. Avid Readers of Christian Fiction) and authors (Christian Indie Authors, Wide for the Win, ACW, Christian Writers Downunder …)

Giveaways

I began by participating in giveaways with other authors – mostly unknown to me. Bookfunnel has various giveaways and I also joined the Ryan Zee ones. I would recommend RZ ones in the early days to help you build your newsletter subscribers and BookBub followers. However, I soon became frustrated with these giveaways because I didn’t really like the way they were run. I especially didn’t like the idea that there were only 1-2 winners and they scooped the pool receiving many books, some of which they might not want or ever read. I wanted readers to receive a book they’d chosen. It soon became clear that the only way to have the kind of giveaways I liked was to run them myself!

Early giveaways

Like most new authors I was overwhelmed by the sheer cost of the process, so my first giveaways were run on free versions of giveaways tools. Gleam first and then Rafflecopter. The big disadvantage of these free tools was that I only knew the contact details of the winners and couldn’t really grow my audience.

King Sumo giveaways

The weaknesses of the free versions of Gleam and Rafflecopter made me consider whether to get a paid version. At just that moment there was a special on a lifetime usage of King Sumo. It still cost me USD49 but it has now been worth it for me.

My first KS giveaway was a simple giveaway of my book only (so a 1 author giveaway). Only 20 people entered but this low number allowed me to begin to get familiar with the app and the process and to firm up my philosophy of giveaways (see below).

3 months later I ran my first multiple authors giveaway with two other handpicked authors that I’d ‘met’ through my online groups and connected with. Two of us were women’s fiction authors and one was a historical author whose work I’d enjoyed. We had ninety-seven entrants and already I was seeing the power of harnessing other author’s networks.

A year later (Easter 2020) the giveaway had twelve authors and we’d settled on a giveaway name, ‘Hope for times like these’ (note the date – the start of the Covid pandemic). This giveaway attracted over eight-hundred participants. I was still mixing genres but the books were all from my ‘top ten for X year‘ posts.

In November 2020, I also did a second WF giveaway. The later-in-the-year giveaways were not as popular with the authors or the participants as many North Americans have started on the distracted Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons.

Mistakes I would have preferred to avoid in my giveaways

• Mixing genres – although I and many readers do read in multiple genres, it seems to work best to network and work in your own genre.
• Some of the authors who wrote well were not good at marketing and didn’t necessarily fulfill their obligations (which I clearly tell them upfront). It was embarrassing to have to follow up because their winners hadn’t yet received their prize … I didn’t invite those authors again. What disappointed me the most were that these were ‘small’ authors who were being handed a fantastic opportunity and they couldn’t be bothered seizing it. They had the chance to have their books presented to the readers of authors who had subscriber lists of thousands. If a new author is offered such a chance, work hard to prove that you deserve to be in the group!
• Occasionally I have invited an author I haven’t read on the recommendation of another author in the group. I have learned that I must read all the books so that I can personally recommend them. I still occasionally mess up on this because I’ve read other books they’ve written (and liked them) and then discover that the author’s quality might not be consistent.
• I’ve learned (the hard way) to always check that all the links work for every giveaway. I now let the giveaway quietly go live and enter the giveaway immediately and check all the links. I don’t promote the giveaway or let the other authors know it is live until I know there are no glitches. Glitches can be as simple as leaving an extra space before a web link.
• Almost no one reads the rules of the giveaway and despite all my pleas, many don’t confirm their entry into the giveaway. The problem with this comes when you try and notify the winners. There is always someone who never finds out they have won. I’ve learned to have a few extra prizes (self-published authors are usually happy to give out an extra ebook) ready just in case.
• Iola Goulton’s recent article gives some warnings.

Things that have worked well for the giveaways

• KS allows me to add tasks that participants can do to gain extra chances of winning. Each of the authors can nominate a 5-point and a 2-point task. I have consistently done ‘subscribe to newsletter’ and ‘follow on Bookbub’ but other authors have chosen ‘follow on instagram’ or ‘Facebook’ … this is a huge win-win and makes the giveaways useful for authors in growing their subscribers/followers.
• So far winners have all received books that they’ve wanted to read.
• Even when we haven’t been able to contact winners, we pray and the prizegiving has worked out.
• The giveaways are gaining a reputation among authors and so more are keen to take part.

My giveaways philosophy

• I run at least two giveaways a year in my genres.
• Must be open to international entries as far too many giveaways say ‘US only’.
• The books/authors are all hand-picked. I want my recommendations of books to be trusted by my readers. I have made a few mistakes with this and have been very sorry about it afterward.
• Multiple prizes are offered and winners get to choose their prizes – 1-2 books each. I hope readers then will review the books they won and support the author.
• I am willing to put in the extra administration work so that the things above can happen.

Link to a recent giveaway