Goodreads Revamps Giveaways Program

Goodreads, Amazon’s social reading and book marketing platform, has revamped its Giveaways program, adding a premium tier and it will now include Kindle Digital Publishing authors.

Goodreads Giveaways allows publishers and indie authors to offer contests that allow them to giveaway up to 100 copies of their print or Kindle e-book titles to readers.

The new program replaces and revamps the Goodreads Giveaways service launched last year. The new program offers a standard package (priced at $119) and has added a premium package tier for $599. The premier package offers the placement of the Giveaways offer on the heavily trafficked Goodreads Giveaways Homepage with attracts tens of millions of visitors each month.

To highlight the new service, Goodreads is offering an introductory discount: from January 9-January 31, 2018, Goodreads will offer the standard Giveways package for $59 and the premium package for $299.

Each Giveways package adds the Giveaway offer to the Want-to-Read lists of everyone who enters the contest, and updates the author's followers that a new contest is starting. Winners are also notified that they should review and rate the books, which helps drive book discoverability.

Kyusik Chung, v-p, Goodreads Author Services, noted that new program now includes KDP authors for the first time. He described Goodreads Giveways, as “key to all our marketing tools. Giveways, deals and paid advertising all work together to support books.”

Chung cited Goodreads 70 million members, emphasizing that the use of Giveways contests before publication, helps “generate early reviews,” on the Goodreads site, and engages readers who “share them on Goodreads and drive more attention for the book.”

“This new program is about making Giveways a more powerful tool for publishers and authors,” Chung said.