Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Become a Fan

Really?  Are you serious?  Book giveaways & promotions have become so popular on the internet that it seems like consumers have their pick of what to win.  Book giveaways for new books, old books, new authors, old authors, yada, yada, throw in an ipad to juice it up and you've got a contest worth entering.  Really?  Then why do so many of these contests have trouble attracting entrants???   Could it be the hoops some of these contests expect entrants to jump?  



Today, I received a contest notification with their requirements (names removed):




>>To enter you must visit the contest page and fill out the entry form after completing at least one of the following actions (each action completed counts as an entry into the giveaway).
  • Visit the XXX Facebook page and become a fan
  • Invite at least 10 friends to become a fan of the XXX Facebook page.
  • Share a link to this contest page on your own Facebook page or on Twitter.
  • Write a blog post linking to this contest page.
Really?  Are you serious?  You want me to do your work for you?  You want me to find Facebook friends for you???  I don't think so.  I have a lot of other things to do today.



So, if you want to draw entrants to YOUR contest, keep it simple!  Have a page where entrants can fill out a quick, easy form.  Many people won't even fill out a form if the information then goes up on the page - they don't want spammers and others getting their name/emails.  So again, keep it simple! 

4 comments:

  1. A funny thing happened on the way to posting this column. I wrote it a few days ago but decided to hold it till a few other articles went up. In the meantime, I received yet another email announcing a contest that made the above referenced contest seem simple. I actually had trouble following the rules for the book giveaway. The contest was for one copy of a book I'd never heard of and the rules were so convoluted that I had to wonder who thought up the ridiculous rules. Seriously? I betcha he won't get any entries and then wonder why!!!

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  2. You know, I just held a giveaway. I made it super simple. Leave a comment on the review of the book, and that would be your entry to win a free copy of it. I didn't give an opportunity to gain more entries (which people didn't like). I kept it super simple and only got 4 entries. Now, that was either because of my way of doing it or the book... or both. But still... keeping it simple backfired.

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  3. I don't think it necessarily backfired. It's hard now to attract entrants to giveaways since there are so many. Two things might have been at play. First, what was the book? Was it a new title, best-selling author, lots of demand for it? There are so many (really, 100s if not 1000s) of book giveaways every week, it's not a big deal to come upon a book giveaway. So the book has to be a big draw. If the title was from a small press/ unknown author, it might have been a hard sell, even tho the book was free. Also, where was the giveaway advertised? If just on your blog, that's not enough. You have to get out on the net and advertise the ba-gee-bees out of it. There are a bunch of places where you can advertise your giveaway. For example, check out "Book Blogs" http://bookblogs.ning.com/ - they have forums and you can post your giveaways there. There's also Cathy Sucker's "Blogger LinkUp" - she has a page for posting giveaways.

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