Tag Archives for Giveaways

Post Giveaway Takeaway

Stats – StoryGraph and Goodreads were, surprisingly, neck and neck until about 3 or 4 days from the end, then Goodreads pulled away by a thousand (Since this is StoryGraph’s first giveaway, all giveaways end at the same time, so there’s no Ending Soon rush at the end). StoryGraph lists impressions with their stats (62.3k) which I assume is how many users were on the main results page. They also list pageviews (4.53k) which lets you know if they actually clicked on the link to see your specific giveaway. Then you get the entrant count (2,623) which is what matters the most. Dividing the entrant count by the pageviews gives me a click through rate of 58%. The CTR is 4% if you use the impressions instead of the pageviews. Usually, 2% is considered successful, so I’m happy with that. I’m more drawn to the pageview ratio, even though I have no idea what a good CTR is for that. 58% sounds good to me, but that also means that 42% bounced after reading the description. Either way, for StoryGraph, 2,623 more people know about my book. Goodreads stats simply include the entrant count (3,762).

Reader info – Both sites give you info on the winners, though StoryGraph gives you their emails so you can contact them directly. Goodreads gives you a link to their profile page and you can search via email on StoryGraph to get to the user’s account. You can then either add them as a friend or follow them for both sites. A great way to connect and see what other books interest them.

Takeaway – So a couple of weeks later, how many people found out they didn’t win and bought the book anyway? One. It’s slightly disconcerting that out of 6,385 total potential readers, only one decided to buy it after not winning. And I really don’t even know that the one purchase was linked to the giveaway. I don’t know what the reality is for other authors who have done this, but I expected maybe 20 or 30 sales in the aftermath. I guess the real measure will be whether I can garner any reviews out of this.

Diversity – While Goodreads allows entrants from the US and Canada only, StoryGraph allows you to offer giveaways to 163 countries (actually a little more, but we can’t ship to them, so they don’t count). It’s super cool to get my hands on such a diverse crowd of readers. I have winners from so many different countries: Germany, The United Kingdom, Switzerland, Canada, India, Netherlands, Bulgaria, New Zealand, Singapore and Florida. Yes, Florida is its own nation now. Or hopefully will be in the near future (Sorry, Florida winner). I love working with and reaching out to places I can never afford to visit because I’m a writer. Speaking of being financially challenged, I had taken the cost of shipping to other countries into account but 1) changed my giveaways from 5 to 15 at the last minute without thinking and 2) didn’t really imagine that all but one winner would be from so far away (I’m in the US). I had to fund the shipping by selling myself on the streets, a quarter at a time. During Covid. Like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, I did everything but the kissing. I have standards, you know.

StoryGraph and Goodreads Giveaways

StoryGraph and Goodreads Giveaways

So my tandem, month-long giveaways are just short of the midway point. Being the slight geek that I am, I’m mad with myself for not monitoring the numbers daily. I wanted to present a pretty line graph at the end to visually compare StoryGraph’s numbers with Goodreads, but didn’t remember until day 4. As of this writing, it’s day 13 and StoryGraph is at 2,050 while Goodreads is at 2,237. I would say that StoryGraph is holding their own very well against the behemoth that is Amazon. For Goodreads, I finally made it above the fold (15 books deep) if you select the Popular button and then filter by Horror. By default, StoryGraph’s first giveaway is a month long. You can pick your own date range from Goodreads, and I picked a month to match the StoryGraph date range, though it seems like a good many authors pick the three week range.

IngramSpark’s software (or lack thereof)

Extremely irritated with IngramSpark’s site. Turns out if you try to upload an interior only change and it fails with errors, there’s no way to navigate back to where you can try again (safely) and it returns you to square one, literally. You see all seven tabs and have to start again, then they want you to pay $50 instead of $25. A week to get that reset. Then I hired someone on Fiverr to fix the PDF and color errors and that went perfect and quick. And Ingram’s site uploaded it with no errors. Cool. Then came the payment screen. By this time I’m wise to their software and I use Screenpresso to record everything I’m doing. And sure enough, if you click on the Use Existing Card button and don’t recognize the card number (I didn’t) then once again there are no navigation buttons to take you back to the screen before. To rub salt in the wound, they actually have a banner telling you not to refresh or hit the back button. This is it, they seem to be proclaiming. If you chose wrong, you’re fucked. I went back to Pending Orders and found the order, checked the check boxes, and filled the emails in only to have it spin continuously and do nothing. I refreshed and went back and cleared my cache and screamed at them through my monitor. It finally went through. The whole process has left a very bad taste in my mouth. I’m not sure how such a large company can have such horrible software. As I found out from my local library, there are other choices out there, and I’ll be researching those, but for now Ingram seems to be preferred by the only major bookstore I’ve talked to. After catching their crappy software in the act, I couldn’t figure out how to get Screenpresso to stop recording and had to stop the process, thereby not saving anything I’d recorded. More screaming. (It’s the PrintScreen key for some strange reason).

Book Signings

I have two book signings in October. They will both be at 2nd and Charles, one in Oxford, AL on the 15th and one in Birmingham, AL on the 8th. Since I’ve had orders from Amazon that never arrived, I was stressing over whether my paperbacks would be here by the 8th (the date Amazon was originally showing). Fortunately, they seem to be scheduled to arrive today. My hardback proof won’t arrive until the 17th, which means there’s no way to get my hardback in either book signing. But I’m only making a few cents on them anyway (at signings), and I refuse to raise the price of a 170 page book to $27. I have principles, you know.

To Do List

There’s so many little things to do. Getting QR codes printed out that link to my giveaways. Organizing my file system on the laptop. Nothing is worse than not being able to find your latest file of an already published book. The nightmare scenario of editing a previous revision and publishing something with all manner of errors in it. Backing up said files to Dropbox or Google Drive so they don’t disappear into the void. Thinking about what to ship with winning entries – new writing, bookmarks, etc.

What do you think would be cool to get with a free book?

StoryGraph’s First Ever Book Giveaway

StoryGraph is a great alternative to Amazon and Goodreads. I’ll be a part of their first ever giveaway that’s kicking off on September 19th. A total of 10 paperbacks and 5 hardcovers will be given away in mid-October. There will be bonus material included for the winners of my new release – Bedtime Stories for the Criminally Insane (and poetry).