Analytics: Storygraph Giveaway Breakdown

StoryGraph is gaining steam as a fantastic Goodreads alternative, and recently, they’ve added giveaways to their site!

For my author friends, these giveaways are a great way to get exposure to new readers. The giveaway program is still in beta testing, but I recently participated in the January giveaway round, so I wanted to take a bit to talk about my experiences! 

My RESULTS

The best explanation is results, so let’s get into how my giveaway went. In short, it was amazing.

First, I did a standard giveaway (I’ll explain the difference later on) and I offered up 3 signed paperbacks as the prize. Due to astronomical international shipping, I only opened the giveaway to the US and Canada. 

My giveaway ran from January 18th – February 18th. In that time, I had:

• 62.1k impressions
• 5.2k giveaway page views
• 2.52k entries

Upon closure, the winners were drawn by Storygraph, and all 3 prizes were claimed within 48 hours. Once the winners confirmed, I emailed all 3 of them (using the recommendations from the Storygraph team) to congratulate them on winning and asked if they would like their books personalized. (Spoiler: they all wanted it personalized)

After signing and shipping out all 3 prizes, I then emailed the winners back with their tracking information. There’s nothing worse in my mind than winning a prize and then not knowing when you’re going to get it… 

Overall, this $49 was some of the best money I’ve ever spent on promo! Definitely worth it. The Storygraph team was with me every step of the way and their instructions answered all of my questions before I even knew I had them! 

Now, I’m sure you’re starting to get curious on how you can get in on this action too!

ENTERING THE Beta PROGRAM

To get access to the giveaway feature, you have to be signed up for Storygraph’s beta program. The giveaways are still in beta testing, so they’re not open to the public just yet. 

So, in order to join the beta program:

1. Make a Storygraph account (make your username your author name)
2. Complete your profile (they will turn it into an author profile once you sign up for a giveaway, as this is a feature they’re slowly rolling out)
3. Go to “Manage Account”
4. Check the box for “Interested in beta testing new features” and “sign up to our product newsletter”

THE GIVEAWAY Process

Now that you’ve signed up to join their beta program, let’s talk about what it was like going through this round of giveaways. As the Storygraph team opens new rounds of giveaways, they will email those on both lists asking if they want to participate.

When the giveaway beta program started back in September, Storygraph was offering new rounds every 6 weeks or so, but recently they’ve been offering new rounds once a month (usually the 18th to the 18th).

The email will have a form to fill out if you’re interested in doing a giveaway, and once you fill out that form, they will send another email with a link to purchase your giveaway (standard or featured). While it’s in beta, both types are discounted.

What’s the difference? Featured giveaways get priority, meaning they are shown on the giveaway page first, and they have an orange “Featured” tag next to them. Standard giveaways are just what they sound like, standard. For now at least, there’s not much of a difference between them. 

I did a standard giveaway because, for now, each beta round is relatively small. Being on the first page of only 5 or 6 pages wasn’t a huge concern for me personally. I still managed to get a significant amount of traffic (more than I ever expected).

STARTING THE GIVEAWAY

Once you’ve selected your giveaway type and paid the fee, Storygraph will then send an email with super detailed instructions about how to add your prize(s), select which countries you want it to be open to, add your descriptions, etc. These instructions include screenshots and step-by-step instructions.

After you submit your giveaway to go live, they will also turn your account to an author profile. For now, this is also a beta feature and they are only offering it to giveaway participants for the time being. The only thing this does is add “author” beneath your username on your profile page, though I imagine it will do more once this beta feature gets released to the public. 

While your giveaway is running, you can now go to the Giveaways page and you will see a new gray “Dashboard” button. This will take you to your giveaway page and let you see stats and entry information real time. 

CLOSING THE GIVEAWAY

When the giveaway closes, Storygraph will send another email with detailed instructions about what happens next. They will handle closing the giveaways, and they will contact the winners. As the winners confirm, they will email letting you know that you have a winner prize claim.

Once all winners have claimed their prizes, Storygraph will email you again to let you know this, and direct you to where you can find the winners’ information. After all winners have claimed, your giveaway dashboard will now have an option to export the winner info to a .csv file. 

All in all, Storygraph is seriously upping their game with this. Their support during this process was amazing, their instructions were detailed and helpful, and the giveaway went shockingly smooth for it being a beta test round. 

I personally can’t wait to participate again, and for this to go live to the public! 

If you have more questions about my Storygraph giveaway experience, please feel free to email me! I’d be happy to chat more!