[Todd Russell]

Question for other authors who have done Goodreads giveaways. When you do a giveaway a good amount of readers will add your book to their TBR (To Be Read) shelves.

Do you add these readers as friends in Goodreads?

I realize that Goodreads recommends adding any book you mark as wanting in a giveaway to your TBR stack, I'm just curious if authors go a step further and add these readers as friends? If an author did this to me, I'd think this was kind of cool. Since I'm not that experienced at Goodreads, I'm unsure if this is OK or frowned upon as an author activity.

 

[Holly B]

Perhaps I'm more of a private person than other folks, but if I were a reader and put a book on my TBR list, I'd feel a little weirded out if the author then sent me a friend request. It feels a little stalker-ish to me.

Just my honest opinion.

 

[Coral Moore]

I don't see any problem with it. I'm not sure I'll do it as an author, but I wouldn't be bothered if Stephen King sent me a friend request.

 

[Ilyria Moon]

Wait for them to come to you.

 

[samanthawarren]

I wouldn't do it myself. First off, I don't want that many friends, especially if it's someone I will never talk to again. There are other ways to follow what an author is doing than to friend them. Second, if every author I marked as to-read friended me and I had no other interaction with them aside from that, I wouldn't like it. Now, if said author was on KB or some other place where we have had or may have interaction, I'm perfectly happy with the friending.

On a completely unrelated note, how long do you think it will be before Webster's lists "friend" as a verb?

 

[Romi]

Yeah...but...until you ARE at the level of a Stephen King, I don't think a reader who TBRed your book will feel the slightest tingle of excitement if you add them. More like a tinge of awkwardness, and maybe a bit of pressure to read your book, which probably won't result in them reading it any faster. I mean some people have TBR lists that are 1,000 books long! Will they ever end up reading all of those books? Who knows.

And what does it add for us as an author, to make a potential reader our "friend"? Not anything really, unless you start messaging him/her about whether they've read your book yet, which I believe is one of the no-no's on Goodreads.

It's like dating, in the end...let THEM come after you, once they've read your book and just can't get enough. Then, when they send you a private message, make sure you wait three days before calling them back.

 

[samanthawarren]

I mean some people have TBR lists that are 1,000 books long! Will they ever end up reading all of those books? Who knows.

I saw a TBR list today that was almost 20k books.

 

[Romi]

I saw a TBR list today that was almost 20k books.

 

[Kevis Hendrickson]

Wait for them to come to you.

Words of wisdom.

 

[Ilyria Moon]

Words of wisdom.

 

[Todd Russell]

Thank you for the feedback, I thought this thread was going to die with no responses. My gut reaction of "no" seems to be a good one in this case

 

[Daniel W. Koch]

Todd....I had the same question, glad you asked it.
I was also wondering, when you send a book in a giveaway on Goodreads, do you write anything to the "winner"?
What do you include in the book package?

 

[Holly B]

Todd....I had the same question, glad you asked it.
I was also wondering, when you send a book in a giveaway on Goodreads, do you write anything to the "winner"?
What do you include in the book package?

I think this falls in line with the above thinking - don't write to the winner, don't include anything in the book package. We held a Goodreads Giveaway a few months back for "My Name Is Joe" and didn't include anything and I just sent the book, didn't contact the winner beforehand. She ended up writing a really, really nice review.

 

[KOwrites]

I just did a Goodreads giveaway of five hardcopies books of my novel, Not To Us. I had a response of 1100 people which I think is pretty good. I did not reach out to them directly when sending them their books. I got the impression that this was not something an author should do. The communique came from Goodreads in a private message with just names and addresses of the five winners. I have done some checking as to who put the book on their to be read shelf. Some of these readers have 1000 books to be read.  How they will ever get to mine is anyone's guess. I'll be curious to see if any of the five winners post a review about the book after they read it, which is what I'm hoping for.  Also, I'm curious to see how many of those 1100 people who entered the giveaway read and/or review the book.

 

[stepartdesigns]

I had a positive response to my giveaway.  I gave away 5 copies of my short story collection on Goodreads, and over 600 people entered to win a copy.  When Goodreads contacted me with the winners' names and addresses, I mailed them a copy of the book and a letter thanking them for entering the contest and for being winners.  I didn't ask for a review.  So far, three of the five winners have posted reviews.

Katrina

 

[Daniel W. Koch]

Thanks....good advice!
It's gotten me on so many more TBR lists on goodreads already!