THE Group for Authors! discussion

Under terms of Giveaways, Goodreads spells out: The factors that go into our algorithm are: randomness, site activity, genre of books on your shelves, current phase of the moon, and more.

My latest Giveaway is a bust. I had 545 people enter and 5 selected. Of those 5, 2 had zero books read or reviewed, and 1 had 4 books read, no reviews. I know a giveaway does not guarantee a review, but now I feel like I'm just giving books away for others to resell or to trolls. Can you add to your algorithm that the entrant must have at least read 20 books or some minimal number?

Does anyone else know of another giveaway source other than Goodreads?

Owww..thats odd..

On my last giveaway the winner had 3 ratings, (a 1.68 average) no reviews, no friends, and over 17k (yes thousand!) books on their TBR. Something is very wrong with that picture.

Of the over 25 books I've given away, I've only netted 1 review, and most winners have similar stats. I only did the last one to get some TBR numbers on a new release, since I've had such dismal results (and the number of my books on the amazon marketplace always goes up after) but now I can't justify the cost of even one.

I too know that it is about exposure even more than reviews, but I don't have endlessly deep pockets to keep pitching money into a black hole.

No ratings is better than a 1.68 reviewer!

I have over 300 reviews and an average rating and I hardly ever win books on the giveaways. I win about once a year. I used to win more when I wasn't an author.

I just started running about one giveaway a month, at one copy each time, for very short periods - 1 or 2 days. This was based on advice from other authors, and it has had its merits. For example, there isn't any difference in how many people participate (and add the book to their to-read shelves) whether you're offering 1 or 100 free copies. And, given the dismal return on reviews as mentioned above, it's not worth the extra postage for more than one copy.

It's early, but I haven't gotten any reviews through the giveaway program. One additional disappointment to add here: all of the winners so far have opted not to add the book they won to their shelves. One was from Romania and has a very scanty profile. I'll never go broader than the U.S., Canada, U.K. and Australia again!

I did have a great experience with my one try with Library Thing's Member Giveaway program. Maybe I got super lucky but I thought it was worth mentioning. The winner not only posted a review at Library Thing, but also GR where he's active and on Amazon.

Library Thing isn't set up in the same way where people add to-read books to shelves so there's no indicators of the book gaining more of a profile. That community is much smaller overall; I believe a little over one hundred people requested to participate in the giveaway during a two week period. They do allow e-book giveaways FWIW.

If you're on Booklikes, you can do a giveaway for e-books through them. But the reach is significantly smaller than GR, so I guess it depends why you want to run a giveaway?

If you specifically want reviews, then giveaways are not the right vehicle for that. You would be better to post in the R4R groups or organise a review only blog tour.

If you just want to raise visibility and have a fun contest to run, then Booklikes are easy to run, much like GR you set it up, say how many copies are available and at the end they auto draw the winners and give you their email addresses. Or you can use Rafflecopter and run your own competition on your FB page/website/blog.

Andrew and A.W.,
Thanks for your feedback. I'm going to check out the sites you both mention. I was getting reviews from my winners - not all of them but at least some of them. When you have to mail to folks with no books on their shelves, than you know there is no hope of any review or word of mouth promotion.
I heard back from GR management who said that you only had to register for the site, not be active on it to win a giveaway - it's completely random, and they had no intention of changing that policy. My two winners with 0 books on their shelves, have over 1,000 books in their TBR which must be all the giveaways they have entered. I'll also try the 1 or 2 day giveaway for 1 book. Good suggestions!
Andrew, you're kinder than I am on countries. Once I learned it was $18 to mail to England, and $12 for Canada, I limited my giveaways to the US.

I never expect reviews from a Giveaway but an increased awareness of the book. But since I started seriously promoting and setting aside a monthly marketing budget, I realized Giveaway's are a big expense, trouble (book order, trip to post office, etc) and the exposure does not lead to sales.

So no more Giveaways for me. The marketing budget has to see some ROI on every promotion and Giveaways are not delivering. And sadly, the readers who would make terrific ROI winners are drowned out by the freebie hunters.

There are a couple of forums at GR where authors offer their work and readers decide what they want to review. Two readers took my book and one so far has delivered a thorough review that I couldn't be happier with.

I did my own Giveaway at my own discretion for my first book. Never again. I will not be doing it for my next books that's for sure. I ended up with nothing. I just got ripped off. So why would I do one here on Goodreads? I wouldn't. I'm trying to make money, a career out of my authorship, to leave something for my family to live the rest of their lives on. I want to be in history/literature books alongside my favorite legendary authors. I want to be a legend. Not a joke.

I guess I have been luckier then you folks with a few reviews. At Bouchercon (Mystery writers of America) I attended a seminar on agents and publishers and that panel mentioned Giveaways as a marketing tactic that they use and indeed you'll see some of the famous authors in the giveaway list. I noticed that Laurie R King had her recent book in the giveaway for 30 copies. I do watch what mainstream publishers do, but I evaluate my ROI and decide when to proceed. For example they mentioned Google Ads. I ran those for probably 6 months and saw no noticeable effect on sales. I think you have to experiment and each genre is different. I haven't tried a book blog tour, but a website I follow (The Kill Zone Authors) has a post about successful tours today that I'll read and evaluate.

Alec wrote: "Under terms of Giveaways, Goodreads spells out: The factors that go into our algorithm are: randomness, site activity, genre of books on your shelves, current phase of the moon, and more.

My late..."

Amazon lets you do paperback giveaways now, but you have to bring your own people to the table - they don't advertise them for you.

The Goodreads giveaway is a complete fraud, and if they don't fix it, they risk losing any author participation in the platform at all. Per the terms noted in a few of these comments, this is not what you'll be told if you complain to support.

What I've been told by support is that the selection is 100% random (obviously if true, the posted information on the site is not truthful, and the agreement for an author to send out books under these terms is unenforceable legally. In fact, it could easily result in a class action lawsuit by authors against Goodreads for harm resulting from false promotion.)

I just recently ran a giveaway having read all the information supplied by Goodreads, making sure that my bookshelves were populated EXCLUSIVELY with the genre of book (business, innovation) I was giving away, and very very clearly describing what the book was, who it was intended for, and why they'd want to read it, hoping that this would result in well-qualified entrants.

What is unforgivable about this is the false and misleading information provided by Goodreads which lures authors into giving away more books with an implied promise of reviews based on misrepresenting how the selection process works. If the process is 100% random, then that isn't an intelligent algorithm -- it's picking names from a hat, and it should be clearly disclosed that the ONLY factor is randomness. Had that been properly disclosed, I would not have run a drawing.

At the end, none of the list of winners I was given has my book on their "to read" shelf. None are in a suitable demographic. None are likely to understand the book's content or even read it. And the likelihood of any reviews resulting is next to zero.

Had Goodreads simply done a random selection from people who have my book on their "to read" shelf, I'd have done infinitely better. (I clicked on 10 at random, and got 9 excellent choices, and probably the 10th was OK too.) Had they tuned the results based on my bookshelves (as they claim they do), you'd expect at least 50% to have something in common with me and to be readers of business books, but when I checked compatibility scores and overlaps with books on my shelves, every one of the winners ranked as zero compatibility.

For example, one of the winners is a 71 year old whose profile says he is "just staring [sic] to read". What probability do you think there is that this gent will be a founder of a tech startup? Or that he will read and understand my book's content? This is only the most egregious pick, but they are all bad choices. They all appear to be people who click on every single thing that is offered free, which suggests that the real game is getting books to resell, which again, is a fraud and directly harmful to authors.

If I were to follow through on sending these books out, it will cost me several hundred dollars in books and postage, but the result would be no reviews (or bad reviews), and/or competing against myself for legitimate sales as my books end up on the resale market. As a result, I am refusing to send any books out. Though I've had several exchanges with Goodreads support, they refuse to escalate to management, or it may be that management is refusing to address it, and all I'm getting is blather such as this scripted text:

"every member who enters a giveaway has an equal chance to win, as one of our goals with the giveaway program is to allow authors to reach a wider audience. In addition, we assume that members of the site express interest in books when they enter giveaways. We have considered genre matching in the past, but we also want to ensure that all of our readers have a fair chance of winning the giveaways they choose to enter, rather than only those that match their reading history"

which they have repeated 3 times (it appears that support reps work from a script book and don't look at the ticket history before responding). But, what you can clearly see from this text is that it is contradictory to what the stated draw process is on the website (i.e. both can't be true, therefore they are either lying, incompetent, or deliberately misleading and misrepresenting their policy to authors).

At the end of the day, to be a good site for readers, it also needs to be a good site for authors. The way it works today, it is set up to scam authors, defrauding them of their books with no reciprocal exchange of value (reviews or ratings). An author should be able to directly specify what types of reader demographics are suitable (the implied benefit of "broadening readership" is ridiculous if my book is intended for a technology-oriented business audience -- teenage girls who exclusively read goth vampire romance fiction are of no value to me as readers). If it makes sense or the author doesn't care who gets selected, that's fine, but clearly some titles do not match up with some readers.

I don't know whether Goodreads surveys this thread (I hope they do, but expect that they don't), but my advice to authors if you're lucky enough to read it before running a giveaway is don't run a giveaway -- at least not here. You will not be happy with the results and you will not get any of the promised benefits. It is a sham.

My next step, barring a suitable response from Goodreads management will be to blog about this travesty and blatant mistreatment of authors, and then to notify various media outlets about the fraud being perpetrated to try to get a story written about it. Maybe with some external pressure and a bit of light cast on these deceptive practices, we can force them to change.

For absolute clarity, my advice to authors is don't do a giveaway. The chances of being unhappy with the results are about 10 times higher than the chances of getting any real benefit.

Paul,
I got the same response from Goodreads and have the same feelings towards Them. The initial giveaway audience that I complained about has indeed provided no reviews. There can be no viral marketing if readers don't write reviews. How does it open my work to new readers? I was so burned by the last Giveaway that I am done using this site. Sadly, unless the major pub houses look at their own ROI and stop using Goodreads, I doubt anything will change.

Paul wrote: "What is unforgivable about this is the false and misleading information provided by Goodreads which lures authors into giving away more books with an implied promise of reviews "

Goodreads giveaways are NOT a vehicle for obtaining reviews and I can't see anywhere under the guidelines where GR promises reviews. From the main screen to set up a giveaway it is stated:

Create buzz for an upcoming book or build interest and awareness for a previously published book!

Nowhere does it promise authors reviews. Giveaways are a fun competition, people who enter are under no obligation to mark your book as TBR and winners don't have to read or review. Authors run giveaways to promote their book on social media and hope that readers who are interested in their book will mark it TBR.

If you specifically want reviews, then you need to find R4R groups for your genre or bloggers. Maybe before you start threatening class action lawsuits you should actually take the time to understand how GR's works.

A.W. wrote: "Paul wrote: "What is unforgivable about this is the false and misleading information provided by Goodreads which lures authors into giving away more books with an implied promise of reviews "

Good..." Crystal Clary wrote: Or we could exchange our books with other authors and ask for a review. I have friends that are also Authors. Let me know what you think. Crystal

I've now done 2 Goodreads giveaways, both times I gave away 10 books. The first giveaway 5 winners rated and two of then reviewed as well. The second only finished a few weeks ago so it is too soon to tell but so far 1 person has rated and reviewed. I think all my winners have added TBR. I enjoyed my giveaways and I love knowing that my book is in distant lands. Alec - $18 to post to England, that is criminal. I am in England and it cost me £4.75 to post to US, Indonesia and Philippines - my giveaway was world-wide.

Crystal wrote: "Crystal Clary wrote: Or we could exchange our books with other authors and ask for a review. I have friends that are also Authors. Let me know what you think. Crystal "

Review exchanges should be disclosed, but unfortunately rarely are. I'm not positive but I also think GR frowns on reciprocal author reviews. I know they do if it's undisclosed.

The reader's terms and conditions when entering a giveaway state:

"You are not required to review the book if you win a copy. However, we encourage you do to so, as it's the reason the publishers are giving us free books in the first place. People who review the books are also more likely to win more advance copies in the future."

I think this is a change, it seems to me that when I ran my first giveaway, you were required to do a review.

P.D. wrote: "The reader's terms and conditions when entering a giveaway state:

"You are not required to review the book if you win a copy. However, we encourage you do to so, as it's the reason the publishers..."

I don't believe so. I don't recall readers ever being required to post a review by GR.

Additionally, it seems unenforceable, as well as unwise. What could have been done if a winner didn't post a review if it were "required"? Certainly a winner couldn't be forced to read a book they won, and it'd not really be in anyone's best interest to "require" a review even if the book was never actually read.

The verbiage may not have been as clear at one time that winners weren't required to, just very much encouraged, but I don't believe it was ever stated as a requirement.

Even Net Galley doesn't require reviews be posted for ARCs provided, although it's in the reviewer's interest to have a high percentage.

Just to enter a differing viewpoint, I recently conducted my first Goodreads giveaway on my own (previously my publisher had done one when the book was released last summer).

I just sent out the book, so have no idea if the winner will review it (so can't comment on that), but my sales on Amazon improved dramatically right after the giveaway ended.

As someone stated before, based on other author's experience I did a short one week giveaway and just one book. I plan to do this perhaps every other month.

I thought of this as a way to "remind" people who had the book on their shelves about the book. :)

Angel wrote: "I did my own Giveaway at my own discretion for my first book. Never again. I will not be doing it for my next books that's for sure. I ended up with nothing. I just got ripped off. So why would I d..."

Just curious -- what were you supposed to get from the giveaway you did? Other authors, despite your getting ripped off, might find your giveaway parameters/terms useful. Or might be able to suggest tweaks to help prevent future ripoffs.

(The goodreads ones just have book sent to winner who if reviewing on U.S. sites are to disclose book was won. No terms requiring winners to do anything for the author.)

Crystal wrote: "Or we could exchange our books with other authors and ask for a review. I have friends that are also Authors. Let me know what you think."

Like Auntie J said -- If reviewing in exchange for a review on your book, just make sure to say that in your review—and any conditions on the review. goodreads allows free-for-review and review-exchanges reviews so long as disclosed (does not allow other types of paid reviews).

(you have to disclose payment/service received for your review on U.S. sites that appear to host consumer/customer opinions [sites like goodreads, Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, etc. but not necessarily the author group run sites who likely already disclose appropriately on their site or are clearly not reader/consumer/customer reviews]).

Basically the consumer laws want anything looking as if from a fellow reader / consumer / customer not readily apparent to the general public to be disclosed. goodreads is very accepting of reviews with proper disclosures (even from authors, relatives, etc.); other sites less so (damned if I understand Amazon.om's policies on author reviews). That's partly why you'll see various disclosures from notable traditionally published authors disclosing even small things like having the same publisher (or "at my publisher's request") when they write reviews...

Paul wrote: "The Goodreads giveaway is a complete fraud, and if they don't fix it, they risk losing any author participation in the platform at all. Per the terms noted in a few of these comments, this is not w..."

I guess I just don't understand how you feel that GR misled you on the giveaway program. They've told you that the results are random, and the results are random.

If you are marketing a business book, I just can't imagine that GR is going to be the best place for you to market, since most of the members read mostly fiction. Aren't there influential bloggers who might be interested in reading/ reviewing your book for their readership? Do you run a business blog yourself? Can you do giveaways to your readership using something like rafflecopter?

If anyone wants to choose a "suitable" "demographic" (hopefully that doesn't mean certain ethnic, economic, perceived intelligence/education or gender groups only) or at least just readers who review your type of book -- look for those book clubs ("groups") here on goodreads that might welcome a free-for-review, author run giveaway (or group moderator or Rafflecopter does drawing...). Past group experiences, even just nominating or voting on book-of-the-month reading discussion, says to add to your criteria "...must have joined group at least a week before contest starts..." or some yahoo out on the blogosphere will start a campaign to have people join the group just to vote their book in (like even if it did win that would make anyone not interested in the book read it; the spam turned many groups private or disabled new members joining during the voting or other contests -- or just saw a decrease in BOTM participants ...). Cannot find a relevant group—scroll to the bottom of related books to see their discussions (often from groups you may have overlooked), start your own discussion with your contest details or do a Q&A session for your book and once there are interested participants consider a contest among the Q&A participants. If not finding "qualified" readers or there are too many "prerequisites" to prove a reader is a "suitable" recipient of your book — maybe you should consider private sales at suitable events, websites you control, etc. rather than publishing where just any customer can purchase your book. Other than beginning reader "reading levels," I'm only used to seeing textbooks and reference books have prerequisites.

goodreads book algorithms are pretty much all crowd-sourced -- and a surprising amount of the time the "crowd" cannot even agree if a book on their shelves was fiction or nonfiction. So I'm not completely sure how goodreads could have matched your book based on shelved books.

goodreads also (despite Sept. 2013 assertions) really doesn't know what everyone means by their shelf names—one person's Blah-blah-blah shelf with business books on it could mean books they have to read for a course, to borrow from library, to avoid like a bad perm, authors they admire or avoid ...

Nor does goodreads collect the type of demographics (unless running some stealth phishing-type of crud without our consent) most marketers mean by the term. Not sure how those demographics would translate into a "suitable" winner for you. Heck, a 19-year old vampire-novel fan is also potentially pursuing their MBA or interning ng somewhere where your book would be of interest.

(I actually do see why there would be some merit to at least ask for entrants to be active enough to shelve a handful of books — a temporary fix, though, because if goodreads said five books the scammers would shelve five or more, if gr said ... not really a goodreads specific issue, though, because "free" attracts 'em as quickly as a site over x members large attracts spam and commercial use attempts.)

A.W. wrote: "Paul wrote: "What is unforgivable about this is the false and misleading information provided by Goodreads which lures authors into giving away more books with an implied promise of reviews "

Good..."

While I never suggested that "goodreads promised a review" -- in fact, they say upfront, as they should, that there are no guarantees -- they very actively promote why authors should run giveaways to promote their books with the strong suggestion that it DOES result in reviews if your book is good. That is, by definition, an IMPLIED promise. However, this isn't the main point. The main point is that their process cannot possibly result in a good review or any value whatsoever to an author of a book like mine via random selection. Moreover, they strongly imply that there is a sophisticated algorithm that includes non-random factors, yet when challenged on this point after the fact, their response is "nothing we can do. It's 100% random."

In other words, as originally stated it is a misrepresentation of the facts. In a normal business, say a car dealer, such false advertising would absolutely result in legal prosecution for fraud, bait-and-switch, and deliberate misrepresentation. It's clear based on the crazy responses I've received from their tech support that they view this platform as strictly for the benefit of readers, and in that misguided sense of what is right, what authors think is irrelevant.

For absolute clarity, since you missed this point the first time -- it makes no sense whatsoever to offer a business book intended for tech-oriented startups to an audience that has zero interest in business or startups or technology or how products are designed. I did not, and will not send my books to the selected recipients because Goodreads misrepresented how those people would be selected.

In any case, it's clear you didn't actively research this before posting or before running a giveaway as I did. I was very concerned about this very issue before offering a giveaway, which is why I read the details about how selections were made (which is untruthful), and also the Goodreads provided slidedeck with talks explicitly about reviews and how to get them.

If you refer to this page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/how_to , and review the slides under the heading "Reviews", you'll see on the 4th slide it clearly says:

>Use the Author Program to Get Reviews<

>Run a Giveaway<

"The average giveaway attracts about 825 entries. Approximately 60% of giveaway winners review the books they win. Click here to run a giveaway."

If you don't consider that to be an implied promise and an enticement to giveaway books under false pretenses, then I suggest you have a look at what the law says about this.

In the very next section, under the heading "Giveaways", there is another set of slides. On slide 2 of that set, the title says "A Giveaway is a Great Way to Get Advance Reviews Which Contribute to Word-of-Mouth Buzz". Again, a very strong implied promise, especially when combined with the 60% stat from the previous deck (which is clearly a false number).

Then, on slide 4 of that same deck it says under the title "Tips for a Successful Giveaway":

>Offer as Many Books as You Can<

"We recommend offering at least 10 books. Roughly 60% of winners review the books they win. The more books you offer, the more reviews you're likely to get."

Again, a very very strong implied promise. But, with a purely random algorithm, such a statement is impossible to make truthfully.

So, I relied on these false promises and misrepresentations to offer a giveaway. Obviously I was naive -- like a first time used car buyer walking onto the lot of vulture sales reps looking for fresh carrion. Which is why, I don't intend to send any books out. I was misled, and the only way those "winners" will receive books is if Goodreads pays for them.

Crystal wrote: "A.W. wrote: "Paul wrote: "What is unforgivable about this is the false and misleading information provided by Goodreads which lures authors into giving away more books with an implied promise of re..."

Crystal: If you are in my targeted demographic, or even are simply interested in how innovation happens, then I'd be happy to provide you with a review copy, and I don't even expect you to promise a review. Just that you are honestly interested and have the background to understand and discern the quality of the material. Just as I would not expect a Ph.D. in English Lit to be a good reviewer of a book on Advanced Calculus (or vice versa), my book has an intended audience and makes a lot of assumptions about their background and intent. That's why I was very explicit in my description of the book and who it was for in the giveaway offer, yet none of the selected "winners" fit that profile. Not a single one.

I do think that given Goodreads biases in this regard, it would make more sense for authors to refuse to participate and take the matter into their own hands.

From my perspective, however, I don't agree with "pay for review" or an expectation of anything but purely honest coverage from a reviewer. I value my own integrity too highly to expect reviews to be anything but voluntary and truthful.

Alec wrote: "Paul,
I got the same response from Goodreads and have the same feelings towards Them. The initial giveaway audience that I complained about has indeed provided no reviews. There can be no viral mar..."

They can be forced to change if they don't do it on their own out of self-interest. The only reason that they can get away with it is that they haven't been challenged legally.

As I noted above, they clearly misrepresent the truth and stretch it for their benefit. Obviously having authors willing to give away books is good for the site, and good for honest readers. But lying to get authors to participate is wrong, and allowing fraudulent actors who claim to be readers but are really just booksellers grabbing free books to resell is dishonest in so many ways, and directly harmful to authors.

Linda wrote: "I've now done 2 Goodreads giveaways, both times I gave away 10 books. The first giveaway 5 winners rated and two of then reviewed as well. The second only finished a few weeks ago so it is too soon..."

If I was giving away a book of fiction that didn't require any special knowledge, none of this would be an issue. I could live with a random drawing, but I'd still prefer to specify demographics. Unfortunately my book is a business book, and it does require certain knowledge/education and is only useful to entrepreneurs building innovative tech products.

The important thing though is that Goodreads says that their algorithm takes into account the books you put on your shelves as well as readers' past behaviors and the things they read. None of this is true according to Goodreads support, as I learned after the drawing was conducted and complained about the dismal list of winners with compatibility ratings of zero when matched against me. The "algorithm" is 100% random, and does not consider any of the factors that Goodreads claims it does. (another misrepresentation)

Auntie J wrote: "P.D. wrote: "The reader's terms and conditions when entering a giveaway state:

"You are not required to review the book if you win a copy. However, we encourage you do to so, as it's the reason t..."

To both Auntie J and P.D:

I don't expect or want a review from a conscript. I'm happy to give the book to people who are in the target audience and let them decide if a) it's good enough to warrant a review, b) whether to write something positive or negative, c) or even just read it. I gave away 60 books just a couple of weeks ago at SXSW, and was happy to do so. The difference is, almost every one of the people I gave it to (and signed copies for) is likely to apply it and get benefit from it, because they are in the right audience. The SXSW giveaway was a promotion, and I accept that there are costs to running a promotion.

What I don't accept is running a promotion of million dollar houses targeted at college students, or homeless people. That makes no sense, anymore than a purely random giveaway of my book makes sense.

All those averages in the slides and what you call "implied promises" -- those are sitewide statistics. Used to give you an idea of average giveaway results based on data available at the time. The statistics aren't even broken out by fiction versus nonfiction. I would be surprised to hear that nonfiction books saw a lot of reviews, giveaways or not, compared to fiction books. (And not very current slides at that).

If you want to pick and choose who reads and reviews a book, maybe you shouldn't publish to the public. Usually only textbooks have pre-requisites.

Certainly I wouldn't advise putting it in a giveaway anyone--versus anyone you have screened for qualifications -- can enter to win.

I really don't think goodreads should somehow be sued for fraud/misrepresentation for not providing your book qualified reviewers -- or that in the case of "fraud" they'd be the defendant if you are refusing to send to the winners because they don't meet your criteria (not the giveaway's rules and certainly not a promise from goodreads that only "qualified" readers/reviewers would enter).

And, FYI, I'm pretty sure with my education and business experience I would completely understand your book and why you think posting provocative comments here could cause consumers to check it out. Unfortunately, I'm not going to check out your book. I'm hitting one too many bugs to shelve/track/review here on goodreads anyway so no matter how qualified a reader I am, I'm sure that's no disappointment to you (on sites I do review/shelve books on -- nope, your book isn't one I shelved or even looked at).

No offense, but I just don't think you meet my qualifications as someone who would write a business book of use or of interest to me. I've certainly convinced myself you don't have a handle on the business of the book industry. Yes, I am aware that insulting customers, facilitiated friction, disruption, drama marketing and all the other trend phrases have some viability in marketing -- but, I've heard/read/seen it before and there's a balance between when that improves discoverability and when it just creates consumer boycotts. Although, by publicly saying you won't send giveaway winners the book because they don't meet your criteria you may have decreased the number of consumers entering any future giveaways if that was your intention -- not sure if decreasing number of entrants will equate to narrowing it down only to readers that pass your screening.

Interesting reading the posts. I have my first giveaway which should end of April. Will see what it does for book sales. I think the giveaways generate awareness. I don't have any other expectation. Give and you shall receive..:-) (just don't become a panhandler in the process).

It would be good if the smart algorithm writers took the feedback and provided an option for authors to target by user reading preference (business, fantasy, humor etc). Right now it is only country. This could also mean GR being more proactive about asking members to specify their preferences.

Moonlight Reader wrote: "Paul wrote: "The Goodreads giveaway is a complete fraud, and if they don't fix it, they risk losing any author participation in the platform at all. Per the terms noted in a few of these comments, ..."

See reply above to A.W.

If you research the site, as I did precisely because I know that Goodreads is more oriented towards people reading fiction for entertainment, then you will eventually find the claims about how the algorithm works (e.g. uses the books on your bookshelves as a factor, as well as reading history and behaviors of the readers -- none of which is true, it turns out), which I believed I could use as a filter by including only relevant business books on my shelves that intended winners were likely to have read. I also found various claims about how many winners write reviews -- figures that are clearly at odds with most writers' actual experiences.

It is only AFTER the fact, when you complain to support, that they disclose that the draws are 100% random -- a clear contradiction of claims elsewhere on this site. That is the definition of misleading.

You are correct though -- there are other ways to market a business book, and I am doing many of them, including presentations to the correct target audiences, conference speaking engagements, etc. However, no marketing campaign uses exclusively one tactic to maximize success -- the best approach is always a mix. The claims that Goodreads made, and their representations about how the drawing was conducted convinced me that this was worth trying as part of my marketing mix. Had they been truthful, I would not have run a drawing here.

If anyone with a giveaway is suspicious of the winners, I'd suggest just contacting support @ goodreads dot com and say you suspect spam/sockpuppet accounts. Particularly if they are brand new members with 0 books and 0 reviews.

Support staff are the ones who can check into the accounts, oddities in mailing addresses provided to giveaways (like a mailing address that was used by a few hundred brand new accounts), sufficient activity (like entering a kajillion giveaways in a row) to suspect spam or gaming the system against TOS, etc.

Then staff can decide how to handle the fraudulent entries or wins and let you know. Fraudulent accounts; not just someone not meeting your criteria for education, experience, or whatever.

Goodreads reviews are just "consumer product opinions" and no member has to have any qualifications in order to review any book on this site. (Yes, I realize a reader not understanding the book is not likely to review it well -- but, hey, goodreads is not for commercial use so no one should be expecting professional reviews from qualified reviewers).

Paul wrote: "A.W. wrote: "Paul wrote: "What is unforgivable about this is the false and misleading information provided by Goodreads which lures authors into giving away more books with an implied promise of re..."

You are reading into those words what you want them to say, not what they actually say. No where in there is an implied promise of any specific kind of review, or that the giveaways are anything other than random. I have no idea why you think that your shelves are relevant to the shelves of the winners, but they are not, and it doesn't suggest that anywhere (unless it says it somewhere that you haven't identified).

Did you contact support before you offered the giveaway to clarify that the winners would be individuals who had a demonstrated interest in business/entrepreneur titles through their own shelves?

Anyway, I obviously don't care if you send out the books you promised or not, since I didn't enter your giveaway and I didn't win one. But from my perspective as a pure reader, what it looks like to me is that you are just that kind of sneaky business guy who would make promises he doesn't necessarily intend to keep if it isn't convenient and clearly in his self-interest. In my personal opinion, a more honorable person would follow through on his commitments and chalk it up to a learning experience.

D.A. wrote: "If anyone wants to choose a "suitable" "demographic" (hopefully that doesn't mean certain ethnic, economic, perceived intelligence/education or gender groups only) or at least just readers who revi..."

There is only one broad category for business books. Whether a book is a biography, a text on economics or finance, or a how-to guide to write html, or a book about innovation -- clearly there are many types of business books, but no one would mistake these for fiction, or romance, or fantasy or any of the other categories that people identify themselves as readers of when they sign up.

Although clearly it would be better to have a more fine-grained categorization within the business category, I would have been happy if any of the winners had said they read business books. None did.

Whether you agree that the books on my shelves are business books or some sub-genre is irrelevant. The fact is, all of them were specifically added to represent the types of books likely readers of my book would have read. If any of the winners had matched even a single book on my shelf (and they are some of most popular and well-known business books, so having a few overlap is not a stretch), I'd be happy to offer my book. I don't care that the 16 year old reader of vampire novels might have a genuine interest in my book -- if she says she doesn't read business books, I take her at her word, and if I miss one potential good candidate to give the book to, it's no great harm. There are hundreds of other entrants, and millions of other registered readers on Goodreads who do read business books. It's quite a simple and reasonable request, especially since Goodreads themselves represented that this is how the algorithm works.

Moonlight Reader wrote: "Paul wrote: "A.W. wrote: "Paul wrote: "What is unforgivable about this is the false and misleading information provided by Goodreads which lures authors into giving away more books with an implied ..."

Suggest you read the terms of giveaways:

Goodreads says: "The factors that go into our algorithm are: randomness, site activity, genre of books on your shelves, current phase of the moon, and more."

If the "books on your shelves" are part of the algorithm, then it isn't random. If it purely random, then it cannot be influenced by the books on your shelves. It could randomly select from people who match books on your shelves, which isn't purely random, but seems like the only way to interpret what Goodreads says. It is only when you ask tech support that they deny it is anything but 100% random.

Regarding my character, I absolutely follow through on my promises. But when I have been defrauded, the agreement ceases to be valid. It is not my responsibility to make good on promises that Goodreads makes to readers based on false pretenses and misrepresentations made to authors.

In your comments, I sense a general prejudice against and distrust of business people generally. That's unfortunate. Most are honest. Especially small business people who depend on their reputation to sustain their business. On the other hand, you seem to be willing to give Goodreads a free pass, despite all kinds of written statements that are intended to mislead, or which clearly misrepresent the truth. Not sure how you can reconcile that with their actions.

D.A. wrote: "If anyone with a giveaway is suspicious of the winners, I'd suggest just contacting support @ goodreads dot com and say you suspect spam/sockpuppet accounts. Particularly if they are brand new mem..."

I'm not even sure that this comment is worth responding to, but I'll give it a swing anyway.

You don't seem to appreciate the difference between being assured of a review -- which I don't care about and wouldn't trust if someone was required to give, versus qualified to review. As I've pointed out a few times, it is quite a simple principle. If Goodreads had truthfully represented how drawings are conducted, I would not have run a giveaway. Legally, that is the equivalent of saying that I relied on representations by Goodreads to make my decision. Because those representations were false, they effectively broke the agreement with me (and with any author who acted similarly), which means I have no obligation to uphold my side.

Let me put this in different terms: If you go to buy a car that the dealer claims is new, and has never been driven, and you agree to pay full price for it because of that representation, if you drive it off the lot and take it to a mechanic who says "the odometer has been rolled back -- this engine has at least 10,000 miles of wear on it", the sales contract has been broken, and you are entitled to your money back. It's a very simple principle of law. Any agreement made based on false representations is fraudulent, by definition, and the person who has been defrauded has no obligations under such an agreement.

Additionally, you are mixing up several points. My criteria for a qualified reader, and a fraudulently set up account for the purpose of scamming free books are not the same thing. I never said they were. However, Goodreads does not follow their published claims for how selections are made, therefore a list of qualified winners is impossible. And, clearly there are many fraudulent accounts set up to get free books which are immediately sold as "nearly new" or "unread" used books on Amazon. If I lost a couple of books to fraudulent winners, I'd be pissed, but it wouldn't stop me from sending the books out. What stops me from sending the books out is Goodreads lying about how their algorithm works, and misrepresentations about reviews.

Anno wrote: "Interesting reading the posts. I have my first giveaway which should end of April. Will see what it does for book sales. I think the giveaways generate awareness. I don't have any other expectation..."

Yes. This is exactly what I am arguing for, and argued vociferously with Goodreads about directly for several days before posting a comment here.

I think the category that is most meaningful as a dividing line is between business books and fiction. People that never read business books are not going to start because they win one in a draw. A 71 year old retiree isn't going to launch an innovative technology-based startup. Relevance is critical, and if Goodreads had only done what they said they do, then I wouldn't be complaining about the result.

I have no problem at all giving away books. I've given away a lot of them. I have a problem with companies lying to me, and then trying to force me to do something against my interest based on those lies.

Paul wrote: "Moonlight Reader wrote: "Paul wrote: "A.W. wrote: "Paul wrote: "What is unforgivable about this is the false and misleading information provided by Goodreads which lures authors into giving away m..."

I read through all of the materials you posted about giveaways and self-service ads. I didn't find anything that suggested that the giveaways were anything other than random. Perhaps you can point me to the statement about their giveaway algorithm, and I can read it for myself.

I am absolutely not opposed to business people generally. I am opposed to scammy business people. The problem is that I don't see your obligation as being to GR. I see your obligation being to the individuals who entered your contest in good faith and won. Those are the ones who are damaged by your refusal to follow through on your promise. There is no breach of contract, since they did not pay anything to enter, but there is a breach of good faith.

And the fact that you think I am willing to give GR a free pass is unintentionally hilarious, since I pulled most of my content after the great review deletion debacle of 2013. If you show me something other than your interpretations of information that appears to me to say no such thing, I will, perhaps, see your point.

Now, having said all that, I actually don't enter giveaways, although I do use netgalley. Did you try netgalley?

Paul wrote: "...
Goodreads says: "The factors that go into our algorithm are: randomness, site activity, genre of books on your shelves, current phase of the moon, and more." ..."

It makes more sense to me to interpret "your shelves" as referring to the reader's shelves, not to the author's shelves.

ETA: I've never thought GRrr's algorithm did more than check the number of books on a reader's shelves (if it did that).

night music -- bring on the clowns ♫ wrote: "Paul wrote: "...
Goodreads says: "The factors that go into our algorithm are: randomness, site activity, genre of books on your shelves, current phase of the moon, and more." ..."

It makes more se..."

I was thinking the same thing.

D.A. wrote: "All those averages in the slides and what you call "implied promises" -- those are sitewide statistics. Used to give you an idea of average giveaway results based on data available at the time. ..."

Look, if you are a fan of Goodreads and want to defend their fraudulent behavior, by all means, you're welcome to participate under those terms. But you change your position with every response, so it's not really very clear whether you consider any behaviors illegal, immoral, fraudulent, or deceptive. The law is very clear about what constitutes misrepresentation, and I think most people who were convinced to do something based on false information would agree that this is deceptive, and would not agree to honor any agreements made under those conditions.

Regarding reading my book -- you're welcome to, but I don't care either way. The great thing about choosing books is that we all have the freedom to choose based on any criteria at all. My purpose in posting here is to protect other authors, and to get the attention of Goodreads so that they will correct their behavior, not to persuade you to read it. I would love it if it was useful to you, but that's your choice, not mine. It's a little bizarre though that you believe that posting in an author's forum would attract readers.

Regarding any future giveaways -- another non sequitur. I certainly won't run any here. The Goodreads management have proven themselves not trustworthy, and this site obviously doesn't meet my needs for running a giveaway. And, had I known that up front, I wouldn't have. That is precisely the point.

OK, in spite of the fact that this is a total waste of my time, I went looking for the information that Paul is referring to.

I found the following bits and pieces:



This is at the top of the giveaways entry section. It is clear from this that, when one enters a giveaway, the chance of winning is random. There is no assertion, implied or express, that winning is anything other than random.



This is at the top of the giveaways information for authors who are setting up a giveaway. The operative words are:

"Goodreads will collect interest in the book and select winners at our discretion. Our algorithm uses member data to match interested members with each book."

There are two things going on there - first, GR is very clear that they are selecting winners at their discretion. Second, that they use member data to match interested members with books.

What I think is important here is that no where in that does it say that the interest is related to the subject matter of the books. It is not an unreasonable reading of that sentence, but, an equally possible reading of that sentence could be that they use member data in an effort to avoid having the same members win all of the books. They are matching members with books, over the whole giveaway program, not just relevant to this book.

The third place that I found language about the algorithm is here:



This is clearly aimed at the person entering the giveaway, not the person conducting the giveaway. There is zero indication anywhere that the member shelves of the person who has set up giveaway are relevant to the selection of the winner. The verbiage related to "member shelves" is pretty clearly referring to the person receiving the book. Not the author/publishing giving the book away.

In addition, I must say that this language looks fairly tongue in cheek to me, with the addition of the statement about "phases of the moon" since I think we all know that the phases of the moon have no relevance to the book selection process at hand.

Finally, the slideshow which is directed at authors contains the following statement:



Again, it says that GR chooses the winners, and provides no warranty or promise with respect to the identity of the winners or the likelihood that they will be targeted at the author's specific genre/book.

The general theme of the giveaway information is that giveaways are random. Not targeted. Random. You are reading into their website promises that are simply not there.

You've answered yourself when you copied and pasted this statement...
Goodreads says: "The factors that go into our algorithm are: randomness, site activity, genre of books on your shelves, current phase of the moon, and more."

I've highlighted that first one, because you seem to be missing it.

You keep going on about Goodreads fraudulent behaviour, yet all I'm seeing is you misinterpreting the purpose and intent behind giveaways. That's not fraud, that's a simple misunderstanding.

night music -- bring on the clowns ♫ wrote: "Paul wrote: "...
Goodreads says: "The factors that go into our algorithm are: randomness, site activity, genre of books on your shelves, current phase of the moon, and more." ..."

It makes more se..."

It doesn't matter whether you look at the reader's shelf or the author's -- either way it should generate a similar result, but since this is part of what they tell authors as part of the terms, it makes more sense that it is the author's shelf, or that authors' shelves are matched to readers. I guess you could interpret it either way, but it really shouldn't make much difference to the result.

Regardless, the point is this is a false statement. When pressed, tech support says "it is 100% random". Random doesn't require any special algorithm -- that's a standard function. The fact that they make reference to "our algorithm" suggests that it does more.

In other words, there is no algorithm. A truthful statement to authors about how the drawing process works would read like this "All entrants have an equal chance of winning. Winners are selected 100% at random." Simple, straightforward, and no room for interpretation.

Paul wrote: "night music -- bring on the clowns ♫ wrote: "Paul wrote: "...
Goodreads says: "The factors that go into our algorithm are: randomness, site activity, genre of books on your shelves, current phase o..."

Except I suspect that it isn't 100% random from the perspective of the entrant - I'm guessing that if you win a book, your likelihood of winning another book is diminished in other contests.

ETA: that also isn't part of what GR tells authors. It is part of what GR tells contest entrants, i.e., readers. It is in the reader section of the giveaways faq.

Paul wrote: "...If any of the winners had matched even a single book on my shelf ..."

Silly me. I never realized that was a criterion for the giveaways. No wonder people complain on how hard it is to win a giveaway. Next time I enter one, I will make sure to shelve the same books as the giveaway book's author. It is odd how goodreads fails to mention shelves in any of the giveaway information or ads.

Not even touching on "sales contract" versus "giveaway."

Or why Paul thinks anyone 71 years old cannot start a business or would not read or be curious about a business or tech business book. (Admittedly, based on my personal experience the oldest person I know who individually started up a tech company was 69 and the oldest who partnered to startup a tech company was 81). Maybe I need to stop mentoring the Gray Foxes Computer Club.

Moonlight Reader wrote: "Paul wrote: "Moonlight Reader wrote: "Paul wrote: "A.W. wrote: "Paul wrote: "What is unforgivable about this is the false and misleading information provided by Goodreads which lures authors into ..."

I agree with you that this is not the reader's fault, and I don't feel good about the outcome for them. However, it is Goodreads' fault, and I'm not in a position to be able to afford to make good on their misrepresentations.

In a way, both the readers who entered and I are victims of Goodreads misrepresentations, however the loss to readers who don't get a book is small, and probably insignificant. To me, it is huge.

Goodreads is welcome to pay me for the books for the random drawing and send them out, which in this case I believe is the right outcome. I would happily provide an equivalent number of books to distribute randomly to those who already have it on their "to read" shelf. That does feel like a fair outcome, but I don't believe Goodreads will allow it.

Paul wrote: "Moonlight Reader wrote: "Paul wrote: "Moonlight Reader wrote: "Paul wrote: "A.W. wrote: "Paul wrote: "What is unforgivable about this is the false and misleading information provided by Goodreads..."

I simply disagree with your position. You jumped to conclusions about giveaways that were inaccurate. You were wrong, not GR. You are now refusing to execute on an obligation because you made a mistake and involved yourself in something you neither understood nor made an effort to clarify.

Of course GR won't pay you for the books. They will simply allow you to fail to fulfill your part of the agreement. Once this is done, they will have to decide which action to take, and may ban you from other giveaways or any other sort of promotion on their site. Which is absolutely within their power to do, and which you will deserve.