A week or so ago I had a wonderful author and poet as my guest, Diane Lockward. She had written a couple amazing articles on her blog about the changes to GoodReads Giveaways as she was is pretty upset with GoodReads, as I am,  taking away the paperback giveaways and joining with KDP in now using e-books for promos and now charging a pretty penny for the new plans!

“Goodreads Introduces New U.S. Giveaways Program–A More Powerful Book Marketing Tool for Authors and Publishers”

The problem is, they are now charging authors to do so with “pay to giveaway” plans. You can read the details and how it works here on GoodReads New Giveaway Program.    Diane has been testing this new way and wasn’t happy with the results on GoodReads. She was going to test Facebook ads and I said I would SHARE that outcome and she has now tested FB and here is what she found in a new blog post!! I hope it helps all my author friends who may, like me, have trying to figure GoodReads new program out! Lol. ~ Catherine

“In my last post, I told you about my experience with an Amazon Giveaway. I have now completed my experimental Facebook Giveaway. Here are the details.”

I posted my Giveaway on Facebook on Friday morning, May 25. It ran until 7:00 PM EST on Wednesday, May 30. I posted it around 11:00 AM on my Timeline, the Terrapin page, and my author’s page. I also posted it in four groups I belong to. In addition, there were several Shares from most of these spaces. The ability to post in multiple areas on the site is a definite advantage to a Giveaway at Facebook. At Goodreads, you can post only on your own page, and Amazon posts it wherever they post Giveaways. I never even saw it on Amazon.

I asked people to enter the Giveaway by putting in a comment below the announcement. Most just entered their name or a note like “I’m in!” but quite a few posted lovely compliments! Unexpected bonus compliments!

Here are some of the compliments:
“I have the first book and love it.”
“Diane, your book sounds amazing!!”
“Love & use volume 1 all the time with my classes!”
“These guides are sensible, informed, clearly written, and stimulating. What more could a poet want?!”
“This looks fantastic.”
“I always recommend The Crafty Poet. It’s a great resource. Can’t wait to read Part II!”
“Your workshop books are a must for any practicing poet or teacher of poetry!”

These testimonials do not happen with Goodreads or Amazon. I felt real people out there wanting to win, not a sea of faceless strangers. This kind of response really put a smile on my face …

Here are the statistics:

The total number of entrants: 77 with the bulk of them appearing on my FB timeline, but also some in all the FB groups where I posted. I was happy with this number and suspect that it would have been higher if I hadn’t posted on a holiday weekend.

One winner: Was notified next day, book now in the mail!

Total Cost: the cost of one book which I had at home, one envelope, $3.19 postage!

The Facebook Giveaway is the least expensive. Much less expensive than Goodreads at $119.00 and less than half the Amazon one as well!

Big boost in sales? No, but that is common to all three Giveaways (and I can hope that some Facebook entrants will later hop on over to Amazon and hit the Buy button–in fact, I did have a few sales shortly after I announced the winner!).

Unexpected perks: 1) One person who saw my post on Facebook asked for a review copy so she could write a review for the paper she works for, 2) Another person asked if she could post my two earlier blog posts on her writing blog = more exposure!

My conclusion is that given the choice between a paid Giveaway at Goodreads, a low-cost one at Amazon, or a free one on Facebook, the best option is Facebook—by far.

Goodreads leads to more people entering, but on Facebook, you have the ability to reach additional people if you have a substantial list of friends. You can extend your reach by sharing to groups and pages on Facebook. You can also set your own time frame—I recommend just a few days as information goes through the feed so fast. Most of my responses came in the first two days.

And the cost is less than at Goodreads (by a lot) or at Amazon (by about $10). And you might get a few compliments!  ~Diane Lockward, Poet, and Author