There are many marketing methods and devices for promoting your work, whether it’s paperback or an ebook, but no other marketing device has proven as useful as a free book giveaway. Of course, this is not a new method of making sure your book reaches a wide variety and a big number of readers, but many of them will become true fans and buy your other books. However, lately, many authors will claim that there are too many free books, and that the market is getting cluttered. However, that doesn’t diminish the benefits of a book giveaway, some of which we’ve gathered below.
1. Anticipation
By giving away free copies of your book, or ebook, before the publishing date, you help to build anticipation for the upcoming release of your book. Whether this is your debut novel, or you’ve already established a fan base (through blogging, online presence, or previous published work), the principle is the same – some people will have the book in advance, and other readers won’t and will want to read it even more, especially if the winners of your giveaway leave a positive review.
2. Visibility
In the same manner as the previous point, when you’re giving away your book for free in a contest, you increase the online presence of your book – the cover, the blurb, and many readers of the genre will probably consider it interesting. And they might get it for free! So they sign up for the contest – and go on and tell their friends about it, which will make sure that many people now are aware that your book is out on the market, or will be soon. And if a reader is interested, they will certainly buy the book if they don’t win.
3. Reviews
When a reader encounters a book in the genre they like, whether on Goodreads or Amazon, another platform or website, they will always look for reviews. Here, it gets a little tricky – because there are readers who sign up for contest giveaways even when they aren’t interested in the book. They sign up simply because it’s free and then they end up not liking the book and leave negative reviews that show their displeasure. But, those readers aren’t great in numbers. In any giveaway, you can be assured that the true readers of the genre you’re writing in who will win your book in a contest will leave a (hopefully) honest and positive review.
4. Aftermath
It might feel at the beginning that giving away your book for free means you did all that work for nothing – after all, you’re not getting paid, are you? But, giveaways only last a certain amount of time, from a week, up to a month, and the number of free books varies from a few to a few dozen. But you want to sell more than that, right? Having an increased presence of your book online, and a dozen positive reviews below its name, cover and blurb will ensure that the interest of the readers hasn’t waned after the contest is over. The price tag has come back, but the rating and credibility you’ve gathered from the reviews has stayed, which will probably lead to an increase in sales, and interest for the next book you will write. Which brings us to…
5. Loyalty
Many bestselling authors give at least 5 advanced or signed copies of their forthcoming books, especially if they’re writing a series. You might say they don’t have to – their fan base has ensured their name is on the New York Times Bestseller list every time they have a new book released. So why do they do it? Because it shows the readers that they are appreciated.
Authors get fan mail all the time – they could choose that a die-hard fan gets an advanced copy of the book, but they hold the contests anyway. This way they ensure that every fan that has an interest in the new books gets an even shot, be it established fans, or new readers who are just stumbling upon the author’s work. Being loyal to your fans ensures that they will be loyal to you as a writer, and will always buy your new books as soon as they’re out.
Image credit: Grant on flickr and reproduced under Creative Commons 2.0[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]https://writingtipsoasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/photo.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]Georgina Roy wants to live in a world filled with magic.
As a 22-year-old art student, she’s moonlighting as a writer and is content to fill notebooks and sketchbooks with magical creatures and amazing new worlds. When she is not at school, or scribbling away in a notebook, you can usually find her curled up, reading a good urban fantasy novel, or writing on her laptop, trying to create her own.
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