(Edited to include results!) What a giveaway in action looks like

One of the most recent podcasts talked about giveaways and kingsumo. For those wanting a deeper look, here’s an example from a giveaway I’m currently running.

Set-up:

  1. I’ve run giveaways in the past, and I’ve noticed much higher interest when the item is larger. So, for this giveaway, I chose a $250 Lord of the Rings copy because it fits my audience. (I was also able to purchase it on sale by paying attention to the Amazon page, making the giveaway more financially viable).

  2. I reached out to a few other fantasy authors to join me. One technique, if you don’t know many authors, is to reach out to someone who is connected and see if they have suggestions of others who might also be interested in joining the giveaway. I did this and ended up with three other authors joining me for the giveaway.

  3. I chose dates (about a two week time-frame) and put together the info on Kingsumo. The process of putting together the giveaway took around half an hour…it could have been faster but I was tinkering with the kingsumo app vs the plugin on my website. I ended up using the plugin.

  4. I also added actions each entrant could take to gain more entries, such as following the involved authors on IG or other social media.

  5. I emailed the involved authors the giveaway link, as well as expectations for each author.

During the giveaway:

  1. Each author was responsible for sharing the giveaway with their newsletter and social media following.

  2. For myself, I emailed my followers once, mentioned the giveaway in another email, and posted about it on social media with a countdown two or three times through the giveaway.

Ending the giveaway:

  1. Kingsumo makes bulk actions so easy. I started by deleting all the unconfirmed contestants because if they didn’t confirm their contest entry, they aren’t officially entered. It’s kinda like a double opt-in but for giveaways.

  2. Using kingsumo, I randomly selected a winner then emailed her for her address. Sometimes I have to send follow-up emails, but she got back to me quickly and I was able to mail out the prize.

Results:

  1. My ambitious goal was 1000 contestants, though I didn’t know how likely that was because I haven’t done a large giveaway in awhile. And we got close! 978 contestants in total.

  2. After clearing out the unconfirmed contestants, I was left with 836 email addresses (and 4175 entries. People get extra entries when they share the giveaway or get others to subscribe, so this shows the amount of actions that others took to spread the giveaway or follow the authors involved. I don’t know how high/low this number is compared to other giveaways, but it’s worth tracking to gauge activity.)

  3. Four authors were part of this giveaway. I don’t have final numbers for all of them, but this is what I have for two.

    1. Author #1: Started with 2200 subs. Gained 600 more subs.

    2. Author #2: Started with 3533 subs. Gained 482 more subs

  4. It’s worth noting that most giveaways come with an unsubscribe rate of around 10% (give or take a little) over the first few emails. So the actual numbers above, once the drip sequence is complete, might be closer to 550 and 430.

  5. Price per author was $31. Which is cheaper than AuthorXP ($38) or Booksweeps ($100). For comparison, I got around 230 subs from Author XP and 600 from Booksweeps…and that was before the unsubscribe fallout.

Conclusion:

A large prize, targeted giveaway with other authors for cross-promotion is a very financially viable way to grow a list.

I am curious to see how a second giveaway would go and what overlap there is between author audiences. Eventually (if there’s a lot of overlap) new sub rates might drop because my list already has the majority of readers in that particular circle who are interested. But that’s the case with any promo.

All in all, I’m satisfied and pleased with the results of this giveaway and will probably do another one come summer or fall.