Goodreads Leaving a Bad Taste in the Mouths of Indie Authors

I thought I was just going to write a post about my 2018 writing goals this week (don't worry, that's still on the way), but it turns out Goodreads tried to slip some news past all of us during the holidays. Starting in January, Goodreads will introduce a new U.S. Giveaways program. You can read their blog post about it, but once you do, you'll find that comments are closed for this particular post. Hmm, wonder why?

Anyway, here are the highlights:

• No more listing giveaways for free (which hurts everyone, but particular indie authors with tiny marketing budgets)
• There are two package options with the cheapest costing over $100
• Yes, you can give away up to 100 books per giveaway, but if you want to give away less, you still pay the same price

For all of this hassle, the supposed benefits you get include:

• Forcing anyone who enters your giveaway to put your book on their Want To Read shelf. (I hate this as a reader because if I don't win the book, I don't want a ton of books I'll never go out and buy clogging my virtual bookshelves).
• Anyone already following you or your books gets a notification of a new giveaway (that's already been happening before this change)
• Followup emails are sent eight weeks after someone wins a giveaway, reminding (annoying?) them into leaving a review.
• The premium package ($600? Really?!) lets you pay to be listed ahead of all the other suckers who could only shell out $119 for the privilege of giving something away for free. This is the ONLY benefit above the standard package.

To be clear, there are no specifics on how the print giveaways work. Before, you had to purchase the copies and send them directly to the winners yourself. If this is still the case, you are basically paying $119 for NOTHING. If you are giving an ebook away, however, Amazon will take care of the distribution to winners for you except, you know, you have to have your book listed on Amazon, otherwise its not clear if a giveaway is even an option. This is how the ebook giveaways have been set up since they started offering them, even keeping a similar price.

It kind of makes you feel a little sick to see how Amazon is profiting off of buying Goodreads. I think we all knew this was coming, but it's still jarring to see it in print. I'm not like some of the authors who are considering saying goodbye to Goodreads all together because it is still a useful tool (until they start charging for more things--I wouldn't put it past them at this point). And of course, none of us can boycott Amazon because they've made it impossible to have any chance of a successful career without them pulling most of the strings.

You may even be saying, "But you can run giveaways anywhere!" Sure you can. I've used Rafflecopter to run giveaways for digital copies of my books instead of Goodreads. And you know what? I get anywhere from 0-7 entries with plenty of social media promotion for it. Since one person can enter multiple times, I only average about 2 people entering these giveaways. On Goodreads, I've never seen a giveaway with less than 150 individual entries, even books that look so bad you wouldn't want to waste your time on it. This matters. And yes, Goodreads/Amazon has realized they can profit from this.

The only solution to prove to Goodreads that this is a bad idea is not to use it. And I don't mean authors--if you have the money to waste, go ahead and do it. You'll look silly doing it since we all now know how much your paying to list it. When I say don't use it, I mean the readers. They have the power here. If you stop entering the giveaways, the price for authors and publishers will no longer be worth it. I know it can be fun (and a little addicting) to win Goodreads giveaways, but don't let this good time ruin the careers of some great writers who cannot afford this pay-to-play situation.