This is a post by Novel Publicity President, Emlyn Chand

Ahhh, GoodReads. If there is one social media site that is most important for authors, it’s GoodReads. Not Twitter. Not Facebook. Not even my beloved Google+. It’s GoodReads, hands-down.

Why? Because that’s where the readers are!

GoodReads has many, many fun features and functions—so many in fact that the site is often overwhelming at first glance. This is the first in a series of blog posts I would like to bring you in order to explain the mysterious wonder that is GoodReads.

First, make sure you’ve read our posts on creating an author profile (part 1 is here; part 2 is here), and if you have a moment, please stop by and join our karmic fan chain on GoodReads. It’s every Wednesday; the rules are here.

Now that that’s taken care of, I’d like to jump head-long into a fresh topic. The single best thing you can do for yourself on GoodReads—other than joining the site and claiming your author profile—is to host book giveaways.

The site has a fair amount of verbiage discussing how they think you should run giveaways (that’s here). I’m going to add to that and, in some places, contradict it with my own personal experience.

My experience and my experiment

I was so excited to run my first giveaway. I set it up to span 2 1/2 months leading up to the release of my first novel, Farsighted. I made it US only and offered 10 copies with the thought, “the extra copies will definitely drum up interest.”

During that giveaway 1479 people requested my book, which wasn’t too bad, but it wasn’t too good either. Between running the giveaway and using GoodReads pay-per-click advertising program (more to come on that later) plus admittedly using my online platform, I was able to get around 600 people to mark my debut novel as to-read before it ever came out. Now I’ve cut advertising out of the picture and have only been using giveaways to drive people to add my book, in the 3-4 months since its release, 2000 people have added it to their shelves. How’s that for exposure?

I immediately saw the value in these giveaways and decided to study them for optimal results. I ran a series of 10 giveaways as something of an experiment. Each time I posted a new giveaway, I adjusted one variable:  the length of time, number of countries, etc. When the giveaway was completed, I recorded results in terms of the number of people who requested my book in the giveaway and the number who added it to their shelves. I then took averages for a consistent measure of success.

Did I mention that I have a degree in survey methodology? I really can’t help myself sometimes.

Anyhoo, the whole point of this schpiel is to let you know I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about GoodReads giveaways and how best to run them. So please look at my fancy table and then scroll down to my suggested guidelines.

Tips for running an effective GoodReads giveaway

1. You only need to offer one copy. The additional copies don’t really add to the allure, but they do add to your postage tally. If you have many copies to offer, I suggest running additional giveaways rather than offering all of them at once.

2. Let readers know you’ll be providing an autographed copy. They love that. In fact, I include the words “AUTOGRAPHED COPY” in all caps at the very top of the giveaway description box. Similarly, if your giveaway is for an ARC (Advance Readers’ Copy), say so. Readers love to have the first look at new titles.

3. End your giveaway on a non-popular date. In my lovely table, you’ll notice that the average copies added drops off steeply somewhere in the middle of my experimentation. That was because I was ending giveaways on very popular days (around Christmas time). On the giveaway list, there were several pages of giveaways ending on one specific day, which means mine never got to the top of the list and didn’t garner much attention. Scroll through the list of giveaways and find a date where you will have minimal competition and maximum exposure.

4. More countries = more exposure. I’ve made it a point to offer my giveaways for all the countries listed and not just the US. More often than not, a US user wins anyway (since they are the most populous on the site). Still, when an international person wins, I pony up the $16.95 for postage and honor my commitment. There aren’t as many giveaways for international users, and I know they appreciate being included!

5. Make your giveaway description compelling. It’s all too easy to simply copy-paste your back cover synopsis into the giveaway description box. Don’t! Through trial and error, I found that review blurbs work best here. Also note any awards you may have won. If readers want a synopsis, they can easily click over to your book listing on GoodReads to learn about it. I’ve pasted the giveaway description that works best for my book to give you an idea.

6. Reach out to winners. When your giveaway ends, GoodReads will send you a notification and a link to click to view the winner’s name and address. You can also click on the winner’s name to visit his/her GoodReads profile. I like to send a message congratulating them for the win and telling them when the copy will be mailed out.

7. Send books promptly. I can’t stress this enough. I’ve seen many GoodReads users flag a book as one-star with a review saying “never received this book that I won from a giveaway.” That’s such a shame. It’s so exciting to readers when they win. Deliver on your commitment, and send the book as quickly as you can.

8. Pulse your giveaway lengths. GoodReads recommends running giveaways for 2 weeks, I don’t. A short giveaway can be a powerful thing. GoodReads organizes their giveaway listings by those that have recently begun, those that will be ending soon, those that are most requested, and those by popular authors. If you run a giveaway for only 2 days, you’ll likely be listed on both the newly listed and ending soon pages for the duration or your giveaway. That is awesome exposure! Readers can search by genre, but it’s far easier to just browse. By alternating longer and shorter giveaways, you can balance cost with impact. Many short giveaways in a row may lose their potency.

9. Schedule your giveaways to start in the future. Don’t set-up the giveaway and click for it to start immediately. GoodReads goes through an approval process which can take a couple days. If they approve your giveaway midday, you will be lumped with the authors who also scheduled theirs to start at the beginning of the day, and you will spend less time in the recently listed section. I usually schedule mine to start 3 business days later, so that I know it will be ready. NOTE: GoodReads does not work on weekends, so listing a giveaway on Thursday or Friday could be a bad idea!

Additional points to consider

10. Book covers count. Back cover copy counts. The better each of these is, the better your giveaway will do. Seriously, go look at the giveaways that are ending soon. Compare the number of copies requested for books with beautiful covers to those with meh covers. There’s a very clear correlation between attractiveness of cover and number of copies requested (consider copies requested a proxy measure for the desirability of your book and therefore people’s likelihood to purchase).

11. How to become a “Popular Author.” I was lucky enough to befriend a member of the GoodReads staff, and now she lets me ask her all my questions. The first and most pressing thing I wanted to know was:  How does an author become “popular?” The answer is simple. More reviews = higher popularity. This is across all titles, so an author with many books out has a better chance of becoming popular. The more popular you are, the more prominently your giveaway will be listed. Right now, I’m on page 4-6 of the popular author section, which isn’t too bad. Always looking to improve! Another reason to find readers to review your book and to cross-post those reviews on GoodReads.

So there you have it. I hope this will help many of you find new readers and gain exposure on the most happenin’ book site on the web.

About this post’s author:

Emlyn Chand is the president of Novel Publicity and a YA author. She loves to hear and tell stories and emerged from the womb with a fountain pen grasped firmly in her left hand (true story). Her first novel Farsighted released in late 2011 and is of the YA genre. Learn more about Emlyn at www.emlynchand.com or by connecting with her on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or GoodReads.

Related posts:

1. Become a master of GoodReads: Groups, events, polls, much knowledge to be had!
2. Introducing Novel Publicity’s Karmic Fan Chain on GoodReads: Join us every Wednesday
3. The complete and unabridged guide to GoodReads for authors: Account set-up, customization, and widgets, lots of widgets
4. An author’s guide to online reader communities: GoodReads
5. How not to behave on social media: A run-down of our biggest pet peeves. Quit being annoying already!

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