Giveaways - There is no wrong way.

Hi! I hope you're having a lovely Thursday. Today I wanted to talk a little about giveaways. Is it ever hard to decide on what you want to giveaway?

You have a new release. Should you giveaway your new book? A gift card (and hope they will buy your book)? Swag? Or something else totally random?

While there is no real answer on what you should giveaway, I do have a few thoughts. When I first release a book, I don't do an actual giveaway of the book for awhile. Yes, my hopes are people will buy the book.

But I will giveaway a book similar to it. Maybe it's part of the series. I will giveaway the book before or the first in the series. Something that might entice them to want my latest. Such as with Arranged Love, my story Wanted: Wife has a similar feel to it. So I've been giving it away.

I do the gift card thing and usually in $5 increments and give the winner 3 options: Amazon, Nook, or Starbucks. All of these you can do online. I don't know what they will buy with it. But remember, you don't know they are going to read your book either when you give it to them. It could stay on their hard drive. At least with the gift card, they've won something they'll use and if it's a super awesome day, maybe they will pick up my book...maybe they won't.

Swag. I've been published since 2011 and I've never really done the swag thing before. I don't like spending money on things I'm not sure about. I see swag (paper products mainly) and I see my money literally being put into someones trash can. Now, with that said, it doesn't mean you shouldn't give away swag. I actually just did my first swag pack giveaways. I have a conference coming up, so I ordered a bunch of stuff to bring a long. These probably won't be my best giveaways. I'm trying it, so I can't say yet how successful this is.

And on another note. If you're a brand new author and you're wanting to find new readers, then I do suggest giving away your actual book. Like I mentioned earlier, just know, not everyone you send your book to will read it. Books are given away every day and books are bought every day. I must admit, I have books I've bought with ever intention on reading, but then something else came on my kindle and that book got pushed aside 6 months ago now. However, don't let that discourage you, because some are going to read it. They are going to love it and when you're next book releases, you might have found your first few fans. And really, that's what this is all about. Finding fans who love your work. 

Giveaways are tricky, but there really is no wrong way. Readers love them. Many of them spend a lot of money on books, so getting something for free is always great.

Happy Thursday!

-Lacey

#WWoW!: Promotional Swag On A Budget

It's Wednesday once again and you know what that means. Time for Tammy's Tidbits here at Writer's Words of Wisdom. Each week the four of us post some tips, insights, or  share our experiences with writing, editing, publishing and promoting. You may have already experienced these things yourself, or find something new. 
Either way, we would love to get your comments on our posts and perhaps you will join us each week posting some of your own experiences. It's authors helping authors at its finest. We've opened up Fridays for guest authors so if you're interested, let us know!

The following is another updated post I did a while back when I was about to start a blog tour to promote the second book in my Now and Forever series. Now I'm about to release a brand new short story as one of my alter egos. It will be the first piece in the Fearless Love series by Lia Michaels. 

This one is a completely new area for me...LGBT romance, specifically M/M erotic paranormal romance. It's a tough genre to break into so I'll need some way to get Lia's name and her work out there. She's already established in the blogging world, hosting guest authors and all over social media in general.

So what else is an author to do?  Promotional swag!

As a veterinarian, I've attended many conferences over the years and was always inundated with "stuff" from vendors, exhibitors and of course my conference notes for the lectures. Back in the day when you didn't have to worry so much about how many checked pieces of luggage you were allowed to have, I could easily come home with an entire suitcase full of the freebies I picked up. Many of the items I eventually tossed into the recycle bins. 

Now that I have to watch my promotional budget like a hawk, I didn't want to create items that would immediately end up in the ole' circular file. I could pass out business cards and flyers until I'm blue in the face, but if they are tossed aside without a glance, what good are they?  Talking to my author friends who've gone down this road before me, I've found out a few good tips.


Ink pens are always a hot item. I know this one from my veterinary conference days. You have a "clicker" pen, and you have folks stopping by to pick one up. Magnets and key chains are hot items as well as lip balms and mouse pads. Some people found little mints or other candies and put them in special boxes with their websites on them. Food is a good item, but not so much if you have to ship it somewhere. Who wants to open up a box with melted chocolate smeared over your contact information?

There are many places available to order your promotional items. The most popular appears to be Vistaprint. You can have all sorts of items printed up with pre-made designs, or using your own logos and photos. I created some key chains, pens, mouse pads, book bag/totes and  coffee mugs. All of these are kept in my portfolio. Those I ordered as well as those I wish to order in the future are kept there for me to do with as I see fit. The prices are pretty reasonable and you can find specials at times. One of my author friends found a fabulous Groupon offer for Vistaprint and was able to many items for a fraction of the cost she thought she was going to have to pay.

Here is the basic logo I designed using my own picture and some of their pre-made graphics.

This wrapped around the pen nicely and on the other items. Take a look...

Something I won from another author's contest during a blog hop were trading cards. These were fantastic! They had the covers of all the books in her series with some fun facts on the back of some, and blurbs on others. In my search for where to get these, I came across Romance Trading Cards website. Here authors of multiple genres have created and uploaded cards to share and collect. They have a tutorial on how to create your own cards.

In the videos, the instructor shows you step by step how to create the cards using the free program GIMP. It looked a bit daunting at first, but using the tutorial, I was able to get through it all in no time flat.  I've created cards for two of my books using the templates provided by RTC. These templates were in fact created from the downloadable templates provided by GotPrint.com.

One more item I used last year were printed post cards. I made those myself using my portable Canon Printer. I was able to print off my covers on 4 X 6 postcards. I handed them out to people before the first book's release, signing the back of them. People loved them and are asking me to do the same for this book. 

Might as well give them what they want! LOL


Take a look at what some of these sites have to offer. Plan a portion of your promotional budget for these items and above all, have fun with it!

Until next time
~Tammy

Learn More About Tammy

Tammy Dennings Maggy is a multi-published poet and erotic romance author with Siren and Sassy Vixen Publishing. Her writing explores many facets of romance from ultimate betrayal to finding your soul mate. Her poetry serves as a companion to her novels and has inspired entire series all on their own. Tammy and her alter egos Lia Michaels and Stephanie Ryan make up the core authors at Sassy Vixen Publishing and together they've created the shared world series Temptations Resort. Look for the first books in that series to come out later this year.

Now happily married to her own Muse and soul mate, she continues to live her dream and act as secretary to all her characters demanding to have their stories told.

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