Giveaways are a popular strategy for authors to build buzz for their books. We launched Two Wins for Wiley, and have hosted two giveaways on social media. We heard some great things about the Goodreads Picture Book Giveaway and decided to give it a try. Goodreads makes it really easy for authors. Let’s start with some basics.
What is Goodreads?
Goodreads is a free website designed to help people find and share books. It is a great choice for self-published authors because it is a community of book lovers and is entirely book-focused. It’s much easier to promote a book to a group of people who are actively looking for books.
The first step is to join Goodreads. Take a good look around the website. You will see what your friends are reading. You may find personal book recommendations. Track the books your are reading, have read, and want to read. You can join their reading challenge and read reviews to see if books are a good fit for you.
Creating a Goodreads Author Program
The next step is to create a Goodreads Author page. I can tell you that it is easy to do. It only takes a few minutes. Any author, anywhere in the world, can join the Goodreads Author Program for free. All you need is a published book (or a soon-to-be published book) that can be found in their database. The Goodreads Author Program allows published authors to claim their profile page to promote their book and engage with readers. Once verified, your author profile will include the official Goodreads Author badge, which you can use to tell your fans to follow you on Goodreads. One thing I recommend is to participate as a reader first. Follow other authors and leave reviews for books you have read.
Your Author Page
On your author page readers can find your biography, picture, book listings, blog posts, events (like book signings), and any other information you want to include. From your Author page, you can also take questions from readers, write reviews, and build a group of fans who will help spread the word about your book.
Goodreads Book Giveaway
A Goodreads giveaway is exactly a book giveaway. In our case it is a picture book giveaway. Giveaways are from all genres. Each author offers to give away a certain number of copies of their book on Goodreads. Readers sign up on the Goodreads website. Winners are chosen at random.
Your Options
Authors have two cost options for the giveaway. The Standard Giveaway is $119 per giveaway, while the Premium Giveaway for Print or Kindle is $599 per giveaway. You can decide which giveaway meets your needs by comparing the two options here. We chose the standard giveaway
- Price: $119 met our budget
- Print giveaway limits had no limit. Since this is our first time we decided to give away one copy of Two Wins for Wiley.
- Countries: US and Canada. We selected US. Since we are giving away one paperback copy it would be more cost effective to limit the giveaway to US only because of extra postage costs. With a paperback copy we will have the additional expense of the mailing envelope and postage.
- Goodreads will remind the winners to write a book review. Positive reviews can help build buzz even after the giveaway is over.
- Everyone that enters a giveaway contest is required to add your book to their “Want to Read” list. This raises awareness of your book beyond the giveaway period by showing that people want to read it.
- Our timeline will be 15 days from the beginning of the giveaway. We want the winner to have the book as close to the holidays as possible for gift giving purposes.
- Goodreads does a good job of promoting your giveaway, so you don’t have to do a lot of extra work. We will be promoting the giveaway on social media as well.
Now It Is Up to You
Would you like to enter the Goodreads Picture Book Giveaway? Would you like an autographed copy of Two Wins for Wiley. All you need to do is have an account on Goodreads and use this link to enter the giveaway. Good luck!
Requests …
I am so glad you’re here and I thank you for taking the time to read this post. I am grateful that I can share my writing journey with you.
I’m looking forward to helping you as a children’s book writer in any way that I can. Speaking of helping — please leave a comment below and let me know what questions you have about picture book writing. This will help me to tailor my posts to your needs.
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I am now booking author visits for 2023. In the past few weeks we have been to 8 schools to share Two Wins for Wiley. The children were very receptive to Wiley and his decision to try acupuncture. We have had some great conversations with teachers and librarians about the importance of books like this. Please consider an author visit and book early!
One last request …
You can really help this author by leaving a book review on Amazon or Goodreads. You can leave a review for Gertie Saves the Day here or here. Two Wins for Wiley here or here. Reviews can be as easy as 2-3 sentences and should take about 30 seconds to leave and would make a huge difference for me. Need help? Click here.