While there seem to be many “advisors” out there telling me that Goodreads Giveaways is a path to selling books, I’ve been reading an awful lot of negatives from people who’ve actually run them. Has ANYBODY who has actually run one found it to be a route to selling books? If so, please share your real-life positive experiences and explain to us how you made the process work. Ideally, I’d like to know if this can be a good route to more sales from people who do NOT already have strong or established platforms. Thanks!
Paddy and his mom!
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Just Can't Help Writing 
GoodReads giveaways do not sell books. Not directly. They do not get you reviews, either.
What they do is make your book look “real” to people on GoodReads. Running a giveaway will result in your book being “added” by a lot of people and being put on “to-read” shelves. So when someone checks out your book page, there will appear to be a huge audience of people who want to read it. That is not going to impress anyone. But if you *don’t* do that, people will see that your book has no community interest, and you’ll lose them. So it’s a cost-of-doing-business on GoodReads to do at least one giveaway per book.
You need to do an international giveaway, because there are SO MANY US-only ones that if you restrict to US, you won’t get any entries.
If you do not plan on using GoodReads as a social marketing tool, though, there’s probably no point. GoodReads users discover what to read based on what their friends are reading and talking about. Having a page there does nothing. You need to be active within the discussion groups. You need to develop friendships. It’s a TON of work.
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Thanks for the practical take! I’ve made some good acquaintances in the groups I belong to so far. I’m glad to know that’s a good route to take.
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