Do Goodreads E-books Giveaways Work?

Short Answer: If you own Amazon stock, then it's pure profit. If you're an author, it's an invitation for abuse.

Long Answer:
If you're not an independent author, you have no idea how hard it is to garner reviews. The rules keep changing. Amazon says that it's to stop "false" reviews. Hmm. I've found one Vine Voice reviewer who gives only five-star reviews without reading the book and others who OPENLY SOLICIT bribes: a donation to their foreign orphanage reading program or demanding I send the e-book as an Amazon gift which they cash in for something else. When I tried to turn these people in, Amazon had no interest in upholding the integrity of their system. So I think the real reason policy changed is that Amazon doesn't make money when an author gives away free copies. Note that Amazon requires Vine Voice folks to review a minimum number of books they send for free, so they've exempted themselves from the rules.

To get 50 reviews for my books "Jezebel's Ladder", I had sell 4500 copies, e-mail about 800 copies to critics, and about giveaway thousands more via Amazon giveaways. The problem with Amazon giveaways is that people download it because it's free, not because they are even interested in Science Fiction. I had one guy rate a book one-star because it didn't have bondage like he expected. But I have to find some method to stimulate reviews because every year, Amazon finds more reasons to delete old reviews, and they won't give you a justification. I worked hard for every single one of those reviews, and now I'm at 47.

What can an Indie do? Goodreads paperback giveaways traditionally got about 30 or 40 percent review rate. For $100 in paperbacks, I might get 3 reviews. If e-books do half as well, the 100 e-book giveaway program should get me 15. My latest thriller had 35 hard-won reviews, and I could finally see what happens when you reach 50! For the first year, Amazon restricted the program to only traditional publishers and its own 47 North imprint. I was so excited they finally opened the program to everyone. You pay $120 for a chance to get reviews. I decided to roll the dice. Within a week of the event ending, 4 people gave me drive-by rankings on GR, and two people gave me text reviews. I get 5-9 a month normally, so that didn't justify the money. I also garnered one review on Amazon, but this led them to delete two old ones at random. Net loss. That flagpole is greased. The new review was also the dreaded "this isn't my normal genre" type. Don't panic. I reread my terms and conditions, and two months after the event, Amazon is supposed to send out a reminder to the winners to rate the book. If 6 people responded without prompting, surely more would with the e-mail. As Ronald Reagan was fond of joking about the boy who got horse manure for Christmas, "There's got to be a pony in here somewhere."

I was wrong about the pony. Two and a half months later, not one more person out the 94 other winners so much as clicked another button. When I asked Goodreads to double-check that the reminder had been sent, I was told: "Goodreads does not require winners to post reviews.  The primary goal of running a giveaway is to build awareness for your book, while reviews are a potential bonus.    It might also help to keep in mind that not every book is a good fit for every reader.  We've all had the experience of starting a book that sounds great and then discovering it's not what we were expecting."
So basically, I'm told my product that 2/3 of reviewers rate 5 stars isn't good enough to get anything. If it sucked so bad, someone would have complained. Total silence seems statistically unlikely. I doubt they went through the trouble of sending that reminder e-mail at all. Why bother when there is no way for the customer to check? If I private-messaged even one of those winners to see if they received the book or an e-mail, I could be tossed off the site for abuse.

Shortly after that customer-service query, Goodreads deleted 30 of my old reviews with no explanation.

To recap: I paid $120 to incur a huge net loss on both Amazon and Goodreads. This reminds me of the 1987 film "The Pick Up Artist" with Robert Downey Jr. He moves heaven and earth to finally pay off someone else's $5000 gambling debt. At the end of the show, the gangster in the casino orders his men to break Downey's kneecaps anyway. To which he responds loudly "What do I get for $10,000, rape and sodomy?" That's how I feel about the recent Goodreads experience.