The Second Conducting: What is the Value of a Goodreads.com book giveaway? 84% had never heard of me. 34% plan on reading my books.
Does giving away your books lead to more readers, and in turn, more fans?
A few weeks ago I conducted a pretty in-depth study regarding the effectiveness of a Goodreads.com book giveaway in which I found that 93% of entrants had never heard of me and 88% planned on reading my books. Couple that with 51% of entrants signing up for my email newsletter, and the giveaway was well worth the two books I sacrificed.
Science must be repeatable, right? A couple of weeks ago I ended yet another giveaway.
The Setup
I listed a 2 copy giveaway for I Didn’t Mean to be Kevin to take place between 3/14/2012 and 3/31/2012. During this time the giveaway received a total of 378 entries. After the giveaway was closed for entries, I sent a 9 yes/no question questionnaire to 222 entrants. 156 entrants could not be sent the questionnaire, either because I know them personally or because they entered the previous giveaway. I figured sending to these 156 entrants might spoil the results. The questionnaire contained the following questions:
- Had you heard of author Caleb J. Ross before this Goodreads.com giveaway?
- Had you entered a Goodreads Giveaway for a Caleb J. Ross book before?
- Had you heard of the book I Didn’t Mean to be Kevin before this Goodreads.com giveaway?
- Do you intend to purchase I Didn’t Mean to be Kevin in the future?
- Do you intend to read I Didn’t Mean to be Kevin in the future?
- Do you intend to read any other books by author Caleb J. Ross?
- Do you plan to connect with author Caleb J. Ross on social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, and Google+?
- If Caleb J. Ross were to visit your city/town for a reading, would you consider attending?
- Did you answer these questions honestly?
The Results of my Goodreads.com Giveaway
- 84% of non-winning entrants had never heard of me before this contest. Translation: I’m speaking to an audience who might not otherwise have heard me. This is down from 93% from my initial giveaway. Am I becoming more popular among readers?
- 86% of non-winning entrants had never heard of I Didn’t Mean to be Kevin before the contest.
- 24% of non-winning entrants said they planned on purchasing the book, even though they didn’t win. This is a strange percentage when compared to the 8% of people who intend to read the book. This number is down significantly from the previous giveaway, I assume because of the addition of the “Not Sure” option into this recent questionnaire, which accounted for 67% of the entries.
- 34% of non-winning entrants intend to read other books by me. This is a strong number, especially when compared to the 86% of entrants who had never even heard of me. Also, keep in mind the “Not Sure” option which made up 65% of responses.
- 19% of non-winning respondents plan to connect with me on social networks. Not sure: 57%
- 78% of non-winning respondents would come to a reading event if I were to visit their town. Not Sure: 19%
Additional Results Not Included in the Chart Above
- 62% of non-winning respondents signed up for my Email is Dead email newsletter (not included in the chart above). This is up from 51% from the previous giveaway. I credit a couple of things to this increase: 1) the newsletter purpose was spelled out more explicitly this time around. 2) I gave the questionnaire takers the choice of receiving newsletters for readers, one for authors, or one for both (as opposed to offering just a single non-descript newsletter option). Transparency about the content of these emails I feel made people more comfortable with signing up.
- 26% of non-winning respondents left additional comments. New to this most recently giveaway, I included the option for the takers to provide feedback in a comments section. Generally speaking they were great comments, most of which I responded back to directly.
- 31% of entrants for I Didn’t Mean to be Kevin also entered the As a Machine and Parts giveaway. This could mean they really liked my book idea and was inspired for another try, or it could mean they are serial giveaway-enterers.
- The incentive to complete the questionnaire was free ebook copies of my story collections Charactered Pieces: stories and Murmurs: Gathered Stories Vol. One. 31% of entrants downloaded at least one copy of the books. Either people love filling out surveys or they’ve simply forgotten to download the books.
Why so effective?
The response-rate for the survey was an amazing 41% (compared to 29% for the previous giveaway. I wonder why). The industry open-rate for Art/Artist newsletters is 17.54% [1]. This isn’t exactly a parallel comparison, as open-rate is not the same as response-rate, but it’s a close enough comparison to provide some valuable insight. The response rate is also likely inflated because of the following factors (these are the same factors as the previous giveaway, so if you’ve read those, you’ve read these):
- The entrants were already “in the sales funnel” in that they had already reached out with an interest in my book. In other words, I’m not blindly sending the survey to readers. I’m instead sending the survey to interested readers.
- It’s possible that users may have only considered certain actions because the survey included them (connecting on social networks, for example). Would the respondents have connected with me on social networks had they not been introduced to the idea by way of the survey itself? Possibly not.
- I promised free ebook downloads to all respondents. Obviously, free books must have a lot to do with the high response rate.
- My communication was very sales averse. I approached giveaway entrants with respect. Truthfully, I am a naturally respectful guy, so I just spoke the way I would normally speak.
- The survey was incredibly simple. 11 questions with 9 of them being yes/no questions.
What are your thoughts? Have you conducted a similar survey? What did your results indicate?
Hey mate–you know I’d have to pop in here, just to, you know, bug ya.
Not going to go in to the data analysis, because as I think we’ve discussed before…I don’t think there’s a strong enough amount of data to even theorize off of, and even if there was enough for that: Polls, of course, are a tool to set ground for further investigation, not an investigation in an of themselves. That is, I would be fascinated by a further follow up, maybe done at intervals, where you see if the suggestive data collected here correlates to actual action on the part of the people, in keeping with how said people indicated they would act…but until then…there’s nothing. And, because that maybe sounds dickish, what I mean is to say a far more precise set of “definitions” of both Respondent and of the Terms of Response would be needed. A trouble with Casual Polling is that the methodology is built just as much to make respondents at ease to give simple, quick responses (you don’t want to bother them) so no particular rigor or corrective methods are being put into play (i.e. how is “intend” defined; or to the question “if Ross was to give a reading” is not balanced with “if An Author (general) were giving a reading” and this not balanced with “Would you be as likely to attend a reading at a local bookstore by an author you’ve never heard of as by an author you have” etc. etc.) The tone is a bit wonky–most glaringly, perhaps, being that it seems (maybe just to me) that this poll is presupposing further results (polls concerning future action/intent are always problematic for this reason and many others) versus a poll where a respondent is asked to give details of an action/process/consideration they already undertook. As you mention in some of your remarks, not a lot of investigation is done concerning how people came upon the Giveaway, Why/How often (generally) they enter giveaways, if there WAS a particular reason (and IF SO, TO WHAT GRAVITY) they entered this giveaway, in particular (NOTE: I set up giveaways often and know many people enter hundreds and hundreds of them, simultaneously, as Giveaways are there method of obtaining books–doesn’t so much matter which one they get, so the GRAVITY of them entering for MY book is lessened (not a bad thing, just a factual way of looking at the process)–they saw it and on impulse or brief intrigue, entered, is different than they entered with “real desire” for the book in particular–and “the book” would have to be defined as their own presuppositions about “the book” based on cover art, blurb, synopsis, etc.)
But, more importantly: I have to say I am a bit troubled by your saying “…well worth the two books I sacrificed.” “Sacrificed?” I know it may have just been an off the cuff term…but…I mean just tell me it was. Please tell me it was, or that I’m missing some irony. That frightens me. I know you tend to be particular in word choice and want always the right word to reflect things…so I am left with the unfortunate impression right now that you think that giving your book to two people is sacrifice, simply because you did not get paid for those books. It also skews the reading of the poll data, a bit, as to term the work under discussion “sacrificed if not purchased” is different than treating it as the same, purchased or no. That is, getting a book free in a Giveaway, to a Reader, is a perfectly normal, above board, allowable, reasonable method of obtaining an item they want–it is on offer, so they are not thinking they are taking something that is “at sacrifice” to any party any more than if they purchased it full price, at discount, took it from the library, were given it as a gift etc.
True, true on all fronts. A follow up poll with intentions to dive deeper into the those things you mentioned–seeing me read vs. seeing any author read; how the entrant got to the book, etc.–would all be nice to have. But the purpose of the questionnaire was only to gather some superficial insight Nothing deeper. Also, in the previous Giveaway post, I did mention more some of the qualifiers (for example, I would say many of the responses were based on the fact that the questions were asked, as in, if the question wasn’t asked, the action never would have been thought to begin with).