Build Your Email List with Book Giveaways – Best Platforms for Authors
One of the quickest ways to build your email list is by doing a giveaway because thanks to it, you can add thousands of new subscribers to your list very quickly. So, how do giveaways work?
In short, during a giveaway, its entrants can win a prize in exchange for taking certain actions (i.e., subscribing to an email newsletter, sharing something on social media, answering a question, etc.). If you organize a giveaway to grow your email list, ask all entrants to provide their email addresses. You can also ask them to follow you on social media, comment on the giveaway post, answer a short poll, or do other activities. Just be aware that the more actions your potential subscriber needs to perform to enter your giveaway, the higher the possibility that they won’t.
Your prize needs to be related to your book and aimed at attracting your target audience. It doesn’t have to be huge, but it should be attractive and preferably tangible. For example, if you write about graphic design, you might offer a drawing tablet as a prize because that’s something graphic designers may want to have.
Find out how to choose the right prize and target your audience in my book Email Marketing for Authors Made Simple: the 1-page List Building Plan. It covers the exact strategy of using giveaways in email list building and much more.
The most effective way to run your giveaways is by using a platform that is designed for it. They help create well-designed giveaways in minutes. Features and pricing options vary, but the great thing about all these tools is that you have a lot more control over your campaign, and you can easily capture your audience’s precious email addresses.
5 Platforms to Organize Book Giveaways
1. Rafflecopter
A well-known and easy-to-use giveaway site that helps businesses and individuals promote their products and services. No coding is required. Set up your giveaway, set the entry rules, and integrate with Facebook, Twitter, email software, and other tools. Free and paid plans are available.
Price: Free or up to $84/month for paid plans
2. KingSumo
One more popular giveaway tool that offers all features that are necessary for creating an author giveaway. Use it to target your giveaway campaign to boost your book downloads, social media presence, website visits, video views, or any other action you need. Choose either to give away one big prize or a bunch of smaller prizes instead. You can use either the KingSumo free version or make a small one-time payment to run unlimited giveaways.
Price: $49 (lifetime)
3. Gleam
Create your giveaway and set its entry rules easily by dragging and dropping action blocks. You can require the entrants to download your book, follow you on social media and perform other actions. Once the contest is over, you can directly select winners from the Gleam dashboard, so the process is completely transparent. Start with their free plan and upgrade depending upon the features you need later.
Price: Free or $29/month for paid plans
4. Woorise
An easy way to collect entries and subscriber contacts is by running viral giveaways and contests, landing pages, engaging forms, surveys, quizzes, and much more. Simply choose from one of their templates, add your texts, visuals, and rules and you are ready to go. For better communication send follow-up personalized email notifications after a user completes your form. Start with their free version and then upgrade if you need more features or are ready to collect more than 500 email addresses a month.
Price: Free or up to $79/month for paid plans
5. EasyPromos
A multi-functional platform that lets you run giveaways on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube, or among your existing newsletter subscribers. Select the winners randomly and transparently. You can even create customized games and prize wheels and do multi-stage promotions.
Price: the basic plan starts from 29$/month
4 Platforms to Promote Your Book Giveaways
Besides promoting your giveaway on social media and to your email list, you can use paid services to promote it on platforms that are designed for reaching book readers of different genres.
1. AuthorsXP
Promote your giveaway by using the AuthorsXP giveaway booster. They promise to send notice of the giveaway to their genre-specific readers. (at least 30K+ in each genre.) Simply pick the dates, send them your graphics, and your link and they will do the rest.
Price: $60
2. FreshFiction
If you write fiction, check out FreshFiction to decide if it would work for you. They will create a personalized landing page for your giveaway with images and description of a book and buy links. You can choose what actions you want users to perform – subscribe to your email list, follow you on BookBub, or Facebook or participate in other gamification steps. FreshFiction promises to promote your giveaway on its web page, social media profiles, and newsletter.
Price: $60
3. WritersSpace
A similar platform that promotes author giveaways. Set up the contest on your website or with one of the giveaway tools I listed before and ask WritersSpace to promote it on their platform. Contact them to find out what the requirements are to accept your promo.
Price: $75 to $150
4. Goodreads
Run your book giveaway on Goodreads to reach more potential readers and increase book sales. This giveaway won’t help you grow your email list but will provide additional exposure to your writing and help you collect more book reviews. Your giveaway will be posted in the Giveaways section of Goodreads, where readers can discover new books. It will also be displayed on your book page on Goodreads and your followers. Additionally, anyone who has already added the book to their Want-to-Read list will be automatically notified about your giveaway. The maximum is up to 100 Kindle eBooks per giveaway.
Price: $119 to $599
Giving away your book to potential readers can be a great way to increase your audience. Book giveaways can also help to promote your book to people who might not normally read it. Additionally, book giveaways can help to create buzz about your book and increase its visibility.
