Comments on: 2010 Trend: Giving Away Books

By: Johanna

Johanna — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 04:21:32 +0000

That’s a clever idea I should keep in mind in future.

By: Deb Aoki

Deb Aoki — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 01:16:53 +0000

Although I’ve been given the opportunity to do so, the legal issues you mention in your post have made it impossible for me to offer giveaways on my site. It’s against About.com rules, so I abide by that. What I do instead is I donate prizes to other organizations/conventions and they usually graciously offer to give me a little plug. so it goes, so it goes…

By: Thom

Thom — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 14:29:07 +0000

I had my plans…I had my plans…

By: Johanna

Johanna — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 03:30:35 +0000

Probably a good thing — who knows what some crazed fan would do with a full-size Beast?!?

By: Bully

Bully — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 17:07:23 +0000

At the end of 2010 I was going to give away the life-size stuffed and mounted Hank McCoy, but you’ve suitably warned me away from doing so because of the legal and administrative consequences. Back to the basement with you, moldy ratty stuffed Beast!

By: Johanna

Johanna — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 15:51:04 +0000

Right, how could I forget that! Thanks.

By: Paul

Paul — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 15:48:57 +0000

There is an ongoing “365 Days of Manga” contest at Suvudu.com

http://www.suvudu.com/rules/365manga_rules.html

By: Johanna

Johanna — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 20:16:07 +0000

Thanks for that link, Katherine. Great resource. And David, yes, I feel the same way about keeping entries easy.

By: david brothers

david brothers — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 19:06:01 +0000

I did a few giveaways, maybe between 6-10, last year and they were always interesting. Sometimes it was just a review copy I had no use for, other times it was stuff I had extras of, and sometimes it was at the request of PR. I always tried to keep it simple, like “Tell me about your favorite [thing with loose connection to giveaway]” because otherwise, as Kate says above, people don’t want to put in the effort.

I don’t think I ever gave a single thought to the legal ramifications. I figured since it was a literal giveaway, with all of the cost being on my side (or the publisher’s side, a couple times), it was just a one to one thing, like giving a book to a friend.

Definitely something to contemplate and research in the future, though, as blogging becomes more legitimate and (for lack of a better word) regulated.

By: Katherine Dacey

Katherine Dacey — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 18:06:54 +0000

As someone who’s been running giveaways at PCS and my own site, I can attest to the fact that they don’t always produce the intended results. I’ve run contests that garnered little to no interest because they required entrants to submit a poem or parody for consideration — and I was offering two complete sets of Black Jack! — and I’ve given away some so-so stuff that attracted considerable interest. For me, giveaways are a chance to reward regular readers, draw people into a conversation, and to share books that I’ve liked with other people. Some contestants do become regular readers, but considering the amount of time and effort contests take, a well-crafted blog entry or review can have the same effect.

For bloggers unfamiliar with the laws governing contests and sweepstakes (there is a legal distinction between the two), this page provides a helpful, clear overview without too much legalese: http://www.fredlaw.com/articles/marketing/mark_0310_srb.html.

By: Johanna

Johanna — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 17:58:45 +0000

Thanks for sharing more of your thinking, Melinda. I’m not sure people are thinking of it as a gimmick — just that, to me, it doesn’t seem to have the punch it once had.

By: Melinda Beasi

Melinda Beasi — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 16:43:35 +0000

Hi Johanna! Wow, you know, I admit I never even considered your first question here. The value of the item is so small (monetarily), I suppose I thought of it more like winning the door prize at the ice cream social than a sweepstakes. :) But that’s a really good question.

In terms of intent (I can only speak for my own contest of course), since the purpose of my Manhwa Monday column is to bring more attention to English-translated manhwa, I thought perhaps actually providing someone with a copy of a popular manhwa to read, with no financial investment on their part, might be an effective way of getting skeptical manga fans to try it out. I’m not going to get far convincing one fan at a time, I realize, but I wanted to try it anyway. Depending on response, I thought I might try subsequent giveaways as well–sort of putting my money where my mouth is, I suppose. If people are seeing it as a gimmick, though, that could hurt its effectiveness, certainly.