Update: Amazon has ceased offering Giveaways as of October 31st, 2019. I maintain the post below for archive purposes only.
An Update on Amazon Giveaways
In my recent post on how to set up an Amazon Giveaway, I had said that Amazon won’t allow you to give away an e-book. Well, I’m pleased to report that this is no longer the case. As Chris McMullen informed us in his excellent blog, Amazon just expanded their giveaway program so that all KDP authors (even if you’re not in Select) can run Amazon Giveaways for their Kindle e-books.
The only difference is that Ebook giveaway prizes are not eligible for refunds. If the giveaway ends with some prizes unclaimed, you will have the option to either create a new giveaway with the unclaimed prizes without additional payment or download Kindle gift codes to distribute them as gifts.
Still, removing the need to run giveaways for print books makes the giveaway process much more affordable, since e-books are less expensive and there are no shipping charges.
Chris is also sharing some fascinating statistics, which explain why this program has been a resounding success for Amazon:
- Traffic to Amazon product pages increased by over 40% during the week of an Amazon Giveaway.
- Over 300,000 new Amazon followers have been added as a direct result of Amazon Giveaways. Chris’s prediction (with which I agree) is that this number will shoot through the roof in the coming weeks, now that giveaways have expanded to include Kindle e-books.
- Over 2,800,000 Twitter followers of authors have been added as a direct result of Amazon Giveaways.
Further Update
I’ve been told that kindle giveaways on amazon.com aren’t available to authors outside the US. Amazon will let overseas authors do giveaways for physical books, but not e-books, so that’s something to keep in mind.
An Update on Vanishing Reviews
You may remember the controversy on the issue of reviews, triggered by Amazon’s decision to remove all of Christoph Fischer’s 1,700 reviews. Amazon has done it again, this time removing all reviews written by Dianne of Tome Tender fame.
It looks like there is method to Amazon’s seeming madness, though, as my author friend, Effrosyni Moschoudi, recently informed me.
Bloggers who post their reviews on both their blog and Amazon need to avoid affiliate links when linking to the book. Amazon now deletes all reviews of people who use affiliate links to link up from a book review post to that book on Amazon!
Why? Because Amazon’s Terms Of Service forbid a reviewer to receive payment for a review. Yes! The few cents you would get via your affiliate tag for any sales incurred is now considered payment. So make sure to remove your affiliate tags on your blog from all your review posts.
Further Update:
A friend kindly forwarded me a copy of the email Amazon sends people considered to be violating the ToS. I hope none of you ever sees this. Still, it’s interesting to note that the Reply-to address is review-appeals@amazon.com, so at least you’ll have a chance to appeal their decision.
Reply-To: review-appeals+A3J9UDEOM73V@amazon.com
Subject: A Message from Amazon Review Moderation
Hello,
We have determined that you may have manipulated Customer Reviews. As a result, you may no longer post reviews on Amazon.com, and your reviews have been suppressed.
Any attempt to manipulate ratings, feedback, or Customer Reviews is prohibited.
To learn more about this policy, please see our Customer Review Creation Guidelines (http://amazon.com/help/customer-reviews-guidelines).
Review Moderator Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com
The Story Reading Ape said:
Reblogged this on Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog.
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adeleulnais said:
thank you for the updates, and for wading through all the amazon small print.
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
That would be Frostie, and you’re welcome 🙂
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Zach Chopchinski said:
Reblogged this on Zachary Paul Chopchinski and commented:
More useful info for all of my author friends!
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Don Massenzio said:
Reblogged this on Don Massenzio's Blog and commented:
Check out this great blog with information about Amazon giveaways and disappearing reviews.
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PHS said:
Great news on the giveaways and good insights on the reviews. I’m not an affiliate so not worries there!
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
Yes, it sometimes feel more it’s hassle than worth it 🙂
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kimwrtr said:
Reblogged this on Kim's Author Support Blog.
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PHS said:
Just got mine setup to go – ends on 3/9!
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
Best of luck with it! Do share how it went 🙂
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PHS said:
I’m trying to check on it this morning. Is there a location to track it?
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
Yes, but it’s not easy to find. Go to https://www.amazon.com/giveaway/host/dashboard and login – you should then see all your giveaways.
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PHS said:
Found it. Apparently I had an expired payment option that’s got to be fixed first. Sigh. Waiting on that to work through the system.
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
Oh, no! Sorry to hear that. Sigh…
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PHS said:
Been finding all the places it was used for weeks…
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PHS said:
Got it going and then found that the error I had previously corrected was still in the giveaway. GRRR!!! Oh well, I was planning on doing more of these anyway. Can’t say why my change wasn’t kept though. It seems to be going well so far and I see that my author ranking is rising significantly.
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
Yay! 😀
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cleemckenzie said:
Hurray for the new Amazon policy on giveaways. This makes it so much easier for authors to promote their work. And it seems it has help out old Amazon as well, not that they need too much of that.
Thanks for the affiliate link information. I’m passing that on.
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
Another weapon in our arsenal 🙂
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Rebekkah said:
I tried the Amazon giveaway and made it good for seven days and guess what? They stopped the promotion in less than 24 hrs. of me creating it. I was so embarrassed because I had people helping me promote it and readers who tried to enter were like WTH? The giveaway already ended. Grrr! I contacted Amazon, but they never gave me an answer back to why they did that to me. I’m still annoyed by the whole thing.
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
The giveaway ends when all prizes have been claimed. It’s actually wonderful news for you, as it means you’d hit the mark ahead of schedule 🙂
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franklparker said:
I can’t access the giveaway. Amazon’s help says there’s a giveaway button to click on the product page. There isn’t one on my book’s page. Correspondence with the Kindle team is useless. They appear to not understand what I am talking about. Their most recent e-mail says: “I’m sorry, currently, KDP doesn’t offer an option like the one you are requesting.” It goes on to talk about instant previews.
Thanks for following my WordPress site.
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
Hi Frank, I’m sorry for the trouble. You should be able to access the event page on http://www.freebooksy.com/lucky-leprachaun , plus Jackie’s giveaway on http://bookpartnersincrime.blogspot.gr/2016/03/lucky-leprechaun-jackie-weger.html. The rest of the pages will become available gradually, on the day of each author’s giveaway.
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Jackie Weger said:
Nicholas! Frank is talking about an amazon Giveaway campaign. Not my my Giveaway. but thanks for the plug. FRANK: You must scroll all the way down on your book page to the bottom. If you do not see Set Up an Amazon giveaway next to your book thumbnail, then it is not yet eligible for the Giveaway. The Set Up notice is way down below the first page of reviews…Hope this helps.
Jackie
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
Oh, right! Many thanks for answering his question 🙂
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