Marketing and Goodreads

…here is a follow up thought on the Marketing and Goodreads blog posting. As a refresher, Goodreads http://www.goodreads.com/) is a book Web site where readers list books they have read and post ratings and/or reviews on those books. Goodreads does not sell books, but does help bring attention to works. The Web site has a giveaways function where authors can generate some buzz for their writing efforts.

Giveaways is where an author offers to send free copies of their book to a fixed number of Goodreads members who enter to win that book. When I tried it I offered 5 copies of my book and 479 people entered to get a copy. This means 479 people read over my brief copy description and took an interest in the book … all free publicity. Goodreads performed a random selection from among the 479 that entered and notified me who the winners were – all I did was mail the free copies, so the expense was minimal. The hoped-for result in giveaways is that the people who win a free copy write up a review and post it on the Goodreads site … if they do, this provides a bit of publicity for the book.

So here’s an idea, might there be some interest among MWSA members for offering a program similar to giveaways … the difference being that MWSA authors would offer to send a free copy of their book to a fixed number of MWSA members who enter to win that book. A MWSA version of giveaways would have the same hoped-for result - that the MWSA members who win free copies write up a review and post it on the Goodreads site.

Many MWSA authors’ books are listed on the Goodreads Web site, and oftentimes there are few reviews or ratings. Quite possibly running a MWSA version of giveaways could generate reviews and readers and - down the road - some book sales. Reviews on Goodreads supplement the reviews on our MWSA site.  Any interest in having a MWSA giveaways program?  Cheers.