Not too long ago, an author asked what readers liked about contests. Scavenger hunts? quizzes? random draw? etc. And, are contests a good idea, or are readers bored of them?
There were, as you can expect, as many different favorites as responses to the question. The common thread, though, is that readers like contests—and the prizes that go with them. From the responses, and as a reader myself, free books and gift certificates are the clear winners. A well thought out and strategically advertised contest will draw readers, and even if only one or two win something, the rest would have talked about it to friends, sent the link to the author’s blog/website, mentioned the book(s)—and created buzz.
And really, word of mouth is not only the cheapest promotion tool, but also one of the most effective ones.
A couple of very smart authors (full disclosure: they’ve both given yours truly ARCs of upcoming releases) ask winners to review the book somewhere (their own blog, a friends’, a message board, somewhere). Both of them ask specifically for an honest review—no gushing if the reader doesn’t think the book deserves it. From where I sit, that’s a very savvy way to handle it. It lets the reader off the hook in one way but, by implying trust, also ensures the reader feels honor bound to do her/his best to fulfill these requirements.
So, yeah, by and large, contests are a good idea.
Unless they backfire, of course. And here we get to the flip side, albeit in a roundabout way (I’m constitutionally incapable of brevity, in case you hadn’t noticed yet).
This February I have been really weirdly lucky, vis-à-vis blog contests. Really, a total embarrassment of riches. (No, I’m not going to tell you how many books I’m getting—suffice it to say, I’ve been rendered speechless twice. Well, mostly speechless.) After the third prize, I started saying how amazed I am about it, because hey! win nothing for a few decades, then suddenly a flood.
And then I remembered that I lied.
Yes, shocking, I know. So I’m here to publicly admit that I’ve lied *hanging head in shame*
I had won something before. Around these days last year, at Paperback Writer blog, I won a couple of Alison Kent’s books. I was amazed that one could get free books simply by reading blogs and commenting—yes, I’m that innocent—and so I started paying more attention, going around to more blogs, entering more contests. And lo and behold! within a month or so I had won two more books at two different blogs.
Yay!!! Joy!!! *happy dancing*
Right?
Well, actually, no.
‘Cause I never got those last two books. Never. I didn’t hear back from the authors at all. Zilch. Nada. Niente. Nichts. Nuthin’.
After a couple of emails, I stopped asking. It felt too much like begging for a freebie, you know? And I realize that authors—particularly midlist or newbie authors—don’t have all that much money to devote to promotion, so perhaps they ran out of author copies. I also realize that many have day jobs that actually pay the bills. And families. And hopefully a life. And things happen. So I let it go.
A brief email explaining the circumstances would have left me happy—I know that I’m not entitled to those books, they would have been gifts, and I certainly hope I would have been mature and gracious enough to accept and understand any explanation or reason given. But I have to say, the deafening silence? It left a bit of a bitter taste in my mouth.
Which is, I think, why I had pretty much forgotten that I had ever won anything, you know? Better not to think about the negative, if at all possible.
Another aspect of the contest thing that bothers me is when a contest is announced with a big fanfare. People come from all places to participate. Temporary increase in blog traffic, lots of comments, and it’s a given that some of those drive-by readers will become regulars. All good.
And then, the big day! Everybody stops by, on tenterhooks, hopeful, excited, willing to be happy for whoever wins if it’s not him/herself.
Only, no announcement.
A new post comes up. Other conversations start and die. Then days become weeks, and still, nothing.
Huh?
I mean, honestly, I do understand that bloggers really have no obligation to offer prizes to their readers, but once they have done so, it’s only good manners to follow through, wouldn’t you agree?
And it’s much better PR for both blogger and author to follow through than not to. And, if life happens and the prize can’t be delivered for whatever circumstance, transparency would be a much better choice—no matter how hard to admit to whatever it is—than silence.
The former will earn sympathy and respect, while the second will either make the reader resentful, or make sure she forgets the author’s/blogger’s name pretty much permanently.
(Yeah, don’t ask me whose authors’ books I never got, ‘cause for the life of me I can’t tell you.)
Post By: AztecLady
CJ England
February 22
6:36 pm
Hey Karen,
As an author who has contests every month on her website for my readers, I hope they enjoy them. Sometimes I give books, sometimes I give gifts. Depends on different factors.
But I will always follow through. Not sending a promised gift or prize is fraud and bottom line, bad form. Life happens, but making sure you keep your word should be paramount in any authors professional actions.
Last year the post office lost an entire shipment of print books and contest prizes. Close to 300 dollars once I added it up. But that wasn’t the readers fault. Buck stopped with me. I would deal with the PO (and boy…was THAT fun) but the readers shouldn’t suffer.
Took a month or so, but I was able to send everyone replacement books and prizes. All the readers were very understanding, and I think it was because I kept them in the loop of what was happening. Communication isn’t hard, and like you said, it can make a huge difference.
CJ England
Shelia
February 22
6:40 pm
I love doing contests and I love enterting them. I try to cater the contest prize around the theme of the book or something that one of the characters enjoy. Like in one book about a movie star, contest participants got a chance to win movie tickets and blockbuster gift cards. My current contest theme is music because the character is a singer so participants get a chance to win CDs from some of my favorite female artists.
Shelia
February 22
6:43 pm
CJ, exactly, no matter what, you have to honor it. For my entertainment site, companies donate CDs Books & DVDS as prizes and if by chance they don’t do it, I’m left having to send out alternate prizes because its my rep on the line, not theirs.
CJ England
February 22
7:01 pm
Shelia,
In November I had a book come out (Second Chances: Waiting in the Wings) about the country music industry. As a prize I gave away country music CDs. It was a lot of fun and I had quite a response to it.
I think my biggest contest was when in September I gave away a basket of Ghirardelli chocolate to celebrate my second Peacekeeper book (Gates of Life). I had close to 100 entries and wound up giving away a couple of extra prizes to people. Readers love chocolate. LOL
Honoring my word is very important to me so I make sure before I make up contests that I can follow through. And if something does happen, I still take responsibility.
CJ
Lauren Dane
February 22
7:32 pm
I always appreciate a follow up email if a winner hasn’t received something. Sometimes I’ve mailed it and it apparently got lost and other times it’s in my to do folder and um, I’ve spaced. I do try to own it, sometimes I am sucktastic about the post office. Ebooks are easy, they’re right away but yes, I think it’s really important to take responsibility and just say, “I’m a doofus and I haven’t mailed it yet!”
TMS
February 22
7:38 pm
CJ mentioned what I think is the key “and I think it was because I kept them in the loop of what was happening. Communication isn’t hard, and like you said, it can make a huge difference.” Letting people know what is up is always better than silence (which was mentioned in the post too).
This
TMS
February 22
7:40 pm
CJ mentioned what I think is the key “and I think it was because I kept them in the loop of what was happening. Communication isn’t hard, and like you said, it can make a huge difference.” Letting people know what is up is always better than silence (which was mentioned in the post too).
This used to happen at one of my jobs. I was the person that went through the overdue bills and sent people to Equifax if they had not paid in a timely manner. My boss always said that if they had just called and said, “the bill is too high for me can we do a payment plan?” she would gladly accept $5/month. But their silence and ignoring the bills caused them to be sent to collections. Communication was all that was needed.
Same here, people understand that life happens, the PO looses shipments, but letting them know what is up~that calms nerves!
azteclady
February 22
7:45 pm
TMS said,
Mostly, I believe that just an acknowledgment that life got in the way, would eliminate any negative effect for an author/blogger/other contest host(s).
Shiloh Walker
February 22
8:45 pm
Ohhhh… that’s bad.
I warn my winners that I’m terribly forgetful so if more than a few weeks pass and no prize, I tell them not to feel weird sending me a reminder. I don’t think I’ve completely and totally forgotten any. (and man, if I have, tell me!) I save all contest emails, though and check them off as I send off the prizes so I’m pretty sure I’m in the clear)
I’ve had a couple of prizes get lost in the mail, so after that happened, I started sending priority.
GC’s a current fave of mine, because I can do it via email as soon as I draw the winner, which means A)it won’t get lost in the postal system and b) it won’t get lost in my head.
I’m debating on doing a contest thru my newsletter with a sort of big prize but I can’t decide if I’m going to or not. Unfortunately I’ve got a select few that like to enter multiple, and I do mean multiple, times trying to rig it and I’d hate to give away a huge prize to a contest where some people aren’t playing by the rules.
byrdloves2read
February 22
9:33 pm
Last year I seemed to be on a roll, winning books from various sites. It was awesome. Some of them were really good and I got turned on to a new-to-me author. Thankfully the ones that were not so good hadn’t asked for a review. I would hate to negatively review a book the author had given me.
Stella Price
February 23
12:25 am
You know its funny. Audra and I do a contest for every release we have, and give away some swanky stuff, from t-shirts, to sterling silver charms and bracelets, to custom candles, bath products, sea monkies, free books… NO ONE ENTERS. In the past 6 months we have had over 400$ worth if jewelry, apparel and candles, and had one person enter ONE contest. Obviously they won, but it kills me that we dont ask for much as a contest and still don’t have people enter. We have some really good stuff to we give away so it completely baffles me.
Shelia
February 23
12:31 am
Stella, well we’ll all be entering from now on 🙂
Do we have to promote “our contests” as well as our books? I wish I knew how to get more participants. I usually send out an announcement when I first do the contest and then a reminder a week before the contest ends. Other than that, I don’t know whatelse we can do increase more entries.
Stella Price
February 23
12:38 am
Thanks Sheila, LOL. You know I promote our contests on 22 different loops, 5 bulletins a week on myspace, My blog, my myspace blog, several forums, my newsletter and on my own email list, not to mention bebo, Shelfari and goodreads. for our last contest, a goodie pack of a tshirt, silver hook bookmark, seamonkies, a custom candle and a signed print book got NO entries. and I promoted the HELL out of it.
Katie
February 23
1:27 am
I am not a contest addict but I do tend to participate now and then when I remember entering. Sometimes I browse around the internet, researching authors that picked my interest. If I discover a contest on their site, I enter. However, I am not willing to surf around for an hour to eventually find a contest where I need to sign up for a newsletter. I might be willing to do that with an author whose writing I truly enjoy and would like to know more about, but not with one I’ve never tried. Sometimes I also have the impression that contest announcements are well guarded secrets. If there’s a contest running on an author’s site I want to see it immediately, namely in the menu section named as “contest” or maybe under “newsgroup”. Homepages that welcome me with dubious music and/or cluttered pages are usually ignored. Using Mozilla as my standard browser, I sometimes come across web pages that seem to never have been cross checked with another browser than IE, leaving me with a dubious, ill functioning design (a personal pet peeve). Personally I am most interested in books, ebooks or vouchers. I would never participate in a contest that gives away jewelery for example. Also, as I am living in Europe I tend to only participate in contests where it is stated that the author is willing to post outside the USA.
Stella Price
February 23
1:34 am
Thats a good point Katie. For us, when we do contests we do offer an alternative prize, usually a e book or signed print book (if Audra has them on hand)for anything outside the US (Audra lives in Scotland). Everything you mentioned we don’t do, except i never post a contest on my webby because we used to do that, and we would get a LOT of spam that way, not sure why but We were getting OODLES of entries and it was all span and bots. I post pretty much everywhere else, and it doesn’t seem to make much difference.
Katie
February 23
1:57 am
I don’t understand your spamming problem. There are easy scripts that help prevent spamming, many authors also substitute the @ with AT or write it in spaces, that’s it …?
I mentioned it because I think a web surfer’s attention span is very short. I can invest hours upon hours to research topics I am very interested in, and sometimes I am done with an author’s website in under ten seconds. For example, I have never heard of an author named Stella Price. But seeing your posts her made me curious and I went over to your site, having a look for the contests you mentioned. Not finding any mention of them might (hypothetically) make me question why you wonder about so few participants.
Of course, having read your post I know your argument now and that you also post it on many other places. But as I don’t know you and apparently don’t frequent the places you advertise your contests, it might be a logical conclusion, no?
Stella Price
February 23
2:18 am
We used to have a page just for contests for about a year. it was called contests, and in one year there was 8 different contests posted on that page and every single entry *we ask that when you enter you put the contest name in the subject* was from someone trying to sell us viagra or cialis or some other sex aid. Not one entry came from our website so i just took the page down. I do have a feedback script on the page and that has brought us some new info on new readers though.
The most recent contest was done January 30th 2008. one entry. we have two books coming out in March and I have seriously just said Screw it and am not doing a contest for the print and the e books.
And I’m not surprised that you didn’t know who I was, though I have frequented the loops that are very active and such, but as my publishers aren’t the ones that are always in the limelight, though I’m still trying to figure out how Audra and I are winning so many awards and being nominated for so many more when we are not well known.*shrug*
Shannon C.
February 23
2:58 am
I agree with someone else up thread. I’ve only got so much time and I’m not willing to join author newsletters for authors i’m not sure I’m even going to like so I don’t do those anymore. And I don’t participate in the huge reader loops, either, because the signal to noise ratio on those things seems to be excessively high. For me, I like finding out about contests on blogs, because hey, if I like your books and you’ve got a blog, I am all about stalking you. Of course, my sight impairment makes *finding* the contests I can enter a challenge. I’d love to get signed copies of someone’s books, but then, what would I do with them? I can’t read them. And I feel bad about asking an author for an alternate prize that would be useful to me. Anyway, I am personally all about contests that give away ebooks and/or gifft certificates, and I think, provided I liked the music someone was giving away, i’d do that. But I don’t know if I’d enter a contest that was giving away jewelry, since I’d never wear it.
That’s just my $0.02 though, and everyone else’s mileage probably varies significantly from mine.
PBW
February 23
3:19 am
I’m very sorry to hear about this, Karen. Over the last year I’ve had a few problems with international shipments and have since switched shipping companies. One prize package I sent to the UK I last January never arrived, and we’re not sure what happened to it. I sent a replacement as soon as I found out along with a note explaining the problem. Unfortunately I wasn’t notified about the failed delivery for six months, so I’m sure the winner felt the same way you do.
Since that happened, I’ve started asking all my winners to e-mail me when their books arrive so I know things get to where they’re going.
I’m not sure which giveaway was involved here, but I take full responsibility for what happened. I don’t want to clog up your comments, so I’ll e-mail you with the rest of my thoughts on the subject and a possible solution. I’ll leave it up to you to decide how you want it handled.
azteclady
February 23
3:31 am
erm…
The post is mine, PBW, not Karen’s *waving* and I tried to make clear that I *did* get the books from you. The prizes I never got, and the emails that went unanswered, were from two different people at two other blogs. Not you.
PBW
February 23
3:50 am
Yikes, sorry. I was responding to an e-mail from one of Karen’s readers — apparently she thought I was the culprit here — and I confess, I only skimmed the post. This is where I should do my Emily Latella impression and say “Never mind.”
I’m still very sorry this happened to you, because it does suck when you don’t get what you’re promised. I’m glad I mentioned the problems I’ve had, too. Maybe it will motivate some other authors to assure their prizes are getting to their winners.
cecilia
February 23
6:01 am
azteclady, I also “won” a book in a blog contest, but never received it, so you’re not the only one! I didn’t want to be a big complainer about not getting anything, but there might have been a pouty lip in the privacy of my own home.
Karen Scott
February 23
9:06 am
No worries PBW, next time I’ll make sure to write Guest Blogger. You’re not the only person to assume the post was mine, lol.
That reminds me, I don’t enter contests, but I have been promised books before that never came. It was no biggie to me because had I received them, I’d have felt obliged to review them, which sometimes kills my reading enjoyment.
Angelia Sparrow
February 23
12:52 pm
This is why, although I run a contest every month, 99 times out of 100, I give away e-books.
Quick, easy, and I just respond to their entry email.
In Novemeber I gave away a print book. It took me a couple days to get to the post office. (I can only make it one day a week) So I dropped the winner a note and said “Keep watching the skies, it went out today.”
The idea of having the winner post a review is a great one.
BevQB
February 26
2:09 pm
Just want to pop in to say that, if you ever fail to receive a prize from TGTBTU, whther it’s one we gave away or one sponsored by a guest author, make sure to email Sybil.
In fact, that’s how I ended up being affiliated with TGTBTU. I had won a book and when I didn’t get it after a month or so, I emailed Syb and told her I didn’t want her to think I was a cretin for not acknowledging receipt, but I never got it. Turns out she had gotten it ready to mail and thrown it into her car so she’d remember to mail it on her next trip to the post office. She just plain got busy and forgot about it. It happens- to her and everybody else on the planet. Although usually, she tries to stay on top of things, as we all do.
Anyway, I don’t think ANYONE should hesitate to speak up if they don’t receive a prize won from any site or author. Okay, wondering the next day why you didn’t receive it may be a little much, but I’d say that, if a month goes by and you haven’t received it, speak up!
HelenKay Dimon
February 26
10:01 pm
I’m with Shiloh. I frequently forget to send out a prize and need a nudge. It always goes out, but it sometimes takes me longer than I expect it will to get to the post office. I don’t mind getting status emails as long as they aren’t the day after a prize is supposed to go out – ugh!!!. Twice I’ve sent stuff and been told the items never arrived when the priority mail confirmation I had stated otherwise, but only twice. I’ve also sent gift ceritifcates via Amazon (the easiest gift to do) and had trouble where people get the gift certificate but think it’s amazon junkmail and I have to re-send. That one is easy and I assume happens often since Amazon has a handy link to re-send.
I do wonder, however, if all the free stuff is worth it to the author if there is such a possibility of earning bad will when trying to do something nice. For exdample, I had someone get mad about my blog entry at Access Romance because it took me 5 days (including a weekend) to pick a winner. To me that’s silly. Why get angry about a few days delay. We all get busy. We all have stuff. Now, if an author has a history of NEVER actually picking winners that’s a different issue, but the complaint seems be in not choosing fast enough and I don’t get that at all. It’s free stuff!!!
There are times I think it would be easier to just blog and forget the prizes. Once I get through my March 15th deadline, I plan to sit down and figure out if it’s time to limit prizes and not have to worry about the “did it get there or not” problem and the “did I rememebr to pick a winner fast enough to make everyone happy” issue.
HelenKay Dimon
February 26
10:02 pm
And why are the marings on my comment so strange…?
HelenKay Dimon
February 26
10:03 pm
Margins – ugh!!! Need spell-check.
Amie Stuart
February 29
12:58 am
Well I’m super-late to the party. Sheila I love your idea about giving away stuff based on your book. My current hero is a hitman–any ideas? *ggg*
Seriously I do love it but I’m REAL bad about remembering to send out books/prizes. I now use Outlook to remind myself, but I actually did forget one poor girl who won a book from me in November. Luckily she DID email me (in January) and I got her book out. I felt AWFUL.