Let's talk about giveaways.

[Charlotte Garnatz]

I have avoided doing a "giveaway" on my blog just because I did not want to screw it up and tick off my readers. But I realize it is a great way to build loyalty and get rid of my pile of "Already Read, but Don't Really Need to Keep" books.

My question is this, how do you fairly determine a winner?

Any other Do's & Don't would be aprreciated, too.

[jshetrone]

Most people use random.org to pick a random number. Also, you'll want to be clear about where you are willing to ship to, because it's likely that you will have international entries.

[Charlotte Garnatz]

Oh you are right, thank you for that reminder. I am not willing to pay $20 to mail a book I got for free and am givng away.

[EllaPress]

Well that's what happens with me, being in Argentina shipping costs are a lot more expensive for me than for others. But if you host a Hachette Book Group giveaway you don't have to worry about this, they send the book directly to the winner. Of course, if you want to get rid of old books, you'll have to pay it yourself. What I've seen in some blogs is that they tell the participants that if they live abroad, they'll be able to enter, only if they can put some money themselves for shipping costs. Like 50% you, and 50% the winner.
But I think that once you start doing this giveaways you'll get more loyal followers. At some point you'll have to spend a little more.

[Charlotte Garnatz]

At this point, I am just wanting to clear out old books. If a publisher contacts me about doing a blog giveaway, then I will deal with that, then. But that would be ideal, if someone else could foot the shipping bill.

[Nely Sanchez]

I was the same until I realized that I absolutely loved winning giveaways and would basically stalk the blogs that I won at - becoming a loyal commenter. So I figured, everybody else most likely felt the same as I did. So I started about 2.5 months ago and I've been hosting a giveaway every Friday since then and I still haven't gotten it wrong. There's not much science to it. I personally use random.org... but u can basically use anything (even if it's calling a friend and asking them to give you a number from 1 to 50 (or the total number of comments on the giveaway post). Just make sure to post what limitations you have - most won't ship out of the US and Canada and no PO Boxes, that kind of thing. Make it fun for yourself and your followers - that's the point of all this isn't it?

Nely
All About {n}

[Charlotte Garnatz]

Thank you Nely, that is some great advice.

How long do you typically leave a contest open for? A day? A week?

[Kristen M.]

You need to at least leave the contest open in a variety of days (weekday versus weekend) because of the different times and places your followers read blogs. Some people just catch up on the weekends, some read when they are at work. I think a week is always a fair amount of time. If you do just a day there is a chance you won't get any entries or very few. If you are just looking for new homes for your books, though, you can always do a first-come giveaway -- the first commenter that is interested gets the book.

[EllaPress]

the longer the better, that way you give ppl more time to tell others about the giveaway.

[Renee Gardiner]

I've done it two ways..... one write each person's name on a slip of paper and have one of my children draw a winner. Another way is to assign each person's entry a number and then use an online random number generator

[Charlotte Garnatz]

Hmm,

I was kind of thinking of making it a regular weekend feature. Just because I know things slow down on the weekends, and that will entice readers to read on the weekends. Maybe I will include Friday as part of the weekend. And run it Friday, Saturday, & Sunday.

[Maria]

I use Random.org

Feel free to lift any ideas from my site.

[Darcy Wishard]

I'm going to type out their names (how many of their names is based on how many "points" they have" and just draw one out of a bowl or something (I don't really wear hats :o) that just seems like the easiest way.

EVERYBODY loves free stuff!!!