THIS POST IS ARCHIVED AS AMAZON DID AWAY WITH GIVEAWAYS IN 2019 AND HAS SINCE NOT REPLACED IT WITH AN ALTERNATIVE. THANKS FOR READING!

I was always curious about the Amazon giveaways–you know the cute little button at the bottom left of your books’ (or any products’ really) page. You have to scroll down pretty far to find it–after reviews and two sets of sponsored product ad strips.

You can give away paperback or Kindle versions, and it’s obviously cheaper to give away Kindle versions. Amazon makes you pay for your book, so if you gave away paperbacks, you’d be paying the price you set in CreateSpace or KDP Print, plus shipping.  There’s no shipping with Kindle files, but there is tax. So make sure you’re looking at the correct page, and Amazon tells you which version you’re giving away–it’s in the blue to the right of your book’s cover.

Choose your number of prizes:

I’ll give away three Kindle file copies. I did five when I did my giveaway for Wherever He Goes, so I feel like I’ve already spent money on something that probably won’t do anything for me.

Add your photo. I chose a different pose of my author photo that I use everywhere else, but I still look like me.

The next part is where I royally screwed up because I had no idea giveaways ran that quickly, or that people would enter, or maybe I just didn’t understand the stats of a giveaway like this.

I did the recommend Lucky Number Instant Winner, and I chose 100 for the lucky number for the winning entry.

This is what it says if you click on LEARN MORE:

My giveaway lasted fifteen minutes. So When I chose 5 prizes along with the 100 entrants,  500 people entered my giveaway and every 100th entrant won a copy of my book. The fact that it only too 15 minutes for my giveaway to end blows my mind.  So will be going with a higher number next time.

And then, of course, I have them follow me on Amazon.

I made it public of course, because the more the merrier.

To recap, I’m doing 3 copies of Don’t Run Away. I have the number of entrants set at 200 per prize so 600 people have to enter to win three copies. They all have to follow me on Amazon.

You would think this would be a great thing. But the thing is, most people enter giveaways just to enter giveaways. That is what they do. Just for the rush of winning, I’m assuming.

I don’t think this giveaway is going to go any slower than my other one, but we’ll see.

Click on no for not offering discounts, then click next.

This is the last page, and it’s laughable. It’s probably where my high expectations came in. The giveaway will end in 7 days? Yeah right.

Then you get your shopping cart screen and you purchase your giveaway. I didn’t screenshot that because you don’t need to see my stuff. After you buy it, you get this:

And you’re all set.

You get an email when your giveaway is live, and for me, fifteen minutes later, I got an email saying my giveaway was over.

Amazon doesn’t tell you how many followers you have, but at some point, hopefully when they email your followers when you release a new book, that some of them will buy it.

Don’t turn blue holding your breath.

While I was typing this up, my giveaway went live–I got the email.

We’ll see how long it takes for the giveaway to end . . . . go get something to eat. I’ll wait.

At any rate, did the giveaway for Wherever He Goes do anything for me?

Not really that I could tell. At least with my AMS ads, even with little results, those are still measurable. These giveaways seem like a waste of time and a waste of money.

Maybe I’ll do a Goodreads giveaway when my new book comes out.

It will be something to blog about anyway.

Did you have a good experience with an Amazon Giveaway? Let me know!