Karen from For What It's Worth and Pam from Midnyte Reader are teaming up for this years Book Blogger Confessions.Book Blogger Confessions is a meme that posts the 1st and 3rd Monday of every month, where book bloggers "confess" and vent about blogging/bookish topics. Feel free to share, vent and offer solutions.
Make sure you check out this post if you are interested in participating.
Q: Giveaways. As a blogger, how do you feel about extra entries, required entries etc? Do you have a system to choose/announce winners and keep prizes organized? What method works best for you when hosting a giveaway? (Rafflecopter/Google Doc's or other)
What do you do about people who enter your giveaways but don't follow instructions exactly?
Have you ever had problems hosting a giveaway sponsored by an author or publisher who is supposed to send the prize to the winner and doesn't? How have you handled these issues?
As a prize winner - what do you do if your prize never arrives? Do you contact the blogger or just let it go?
A: Personally I am not huge on hosting giveaways. The only reason I say this is because I feel that people only follow blogs that continually have giveaways. Not that giveaways aren't fun.. of course they are but I prefer to know that my readers follow me because they actually like my content.. not because I give stuff away all the time.
I don't have required entires. If you want to follow GREAT!! if not then by all means you don't have too. I hate having to automatically follow a blog because they are hosting a giveaway. I know why people do this because they want their followship numbers up and thats understandable, but at the end of the day wouldn't you rather know that people are following you because they actually like reading what you have to say? Or do you like knowing that you have these mass amounts of followers because you made them during a giveaway?
Any time that I do have a giveaway I host it myself so I have never had any issues with Publishers/Authors not sending out prizes.
As a Prize Winner.. I realize that stuff happens and Yes there have been giveaways that I have won where a prize never made it to me.. it sucks but hey life goes on!
I get what you say about required entries and following. I go back and forth. I love having followers follow me because they like me and nothing else. However, if I'm doing it as an appreciation to followers, I'm not going to have a non-follower win. Great post!
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I feel the same way about required to follow a blog. It not always going to happen, and they are more likely following the blog for the prize. I agree with prizes it happens.
ReplyDeleteI love hosting giveaways & in the early days I required follows but you are absolutely right that people do it for the prize - not to follow your blog. I'm ok with extra entries but they are all optional on my blog now. I also make sure that several of my giveaways are a simple name & email entry. No extras. I don't want people to feel that I'm using a giveaway to make them visit my blog.
ReplyDeleteIt's a nice way to get people to visit for the first time but I want them back because of the content.
I have no problem having followers b/c I bribed them. Just kidding! Of course I want people to follow my blog b/c they like my design or style. I don't usually require a follow...it's usually optional. I guess I'm hoping that even if someone does just follow me for a prize, they'll see me in their google reader and keep coming back anyway. Don't know if that's logical orn ot. I don't have a ton of giveaways either, but I really love having them. I have them because I like to share books or bookish things, not necessarily to get popular.
ReplyDeleteI'm not huge on giveaways because a) it would be totally self-sponsored and b) I want to build up more consistency and followers first. I've heard from other bloggers it can be stressful as well.
ReplyDeleteI would love people to follow simply because they like me but after a couple years the truth isn't so sweet all the time. Plus I need to get rid of tons of books. I figure though the blog works. It is a fairly sad fact that a large portion of people are more interested in free books than an opinion of that book. Oh well.
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