Marketing Through Goodreads

Writing a novel is one thing and learning to promote it is another kettle of fish entirely. When THE BALLAD OF JESSIE PEARL was first released, there was a flurry of activity. I mailed bookmarks to everyone on my Christmas Card list, I was featured on several blogs, professional reviews rolled in, but around mid-July the summer doldrums hit. I decided to spice things up a little with a giveaway through Goodreads.

The giveaway was extremely easy to do. I picked start and stop dates, entered a description of my book, the ISBN number, and I was good to go. Goodreads advertised my book based on tags. I used Young Adult, rural North Carolina, historical fiction, tuberculosis, and romance. Over a three week period, 942 people requested my book, and 491 people added it to their “to read” shelves. 

Goodreads selected ten winners and sent me an email with their names and addresses. I mailed away books from as close to me as Florida to as faraway from me as Wisconsin. It will be interesting to see if any of the 491 people actually read the book, and if the number of Goodreads reviews increases dramatically. I’m new at this marketing thing and hopefully I’ll be more savvy next time around.