Visit www.amazon.com/author/brantskogrand to order “Maynard’s Memories” today!
In April I published a book of life lessons I learned from my 93-year-old grandfather, Maynard Johnson. While thinking about ways to promote the book, “Maynard’s Memories: Life Lessons from the Developer of Airlake Industrial Park in Lakeville, Minnesota,” I learned about Amazon Giveaway, an offering from the Internet giant that provides anyone the opportunity to run promotional giveaways.
If you scroll far enough down an Amazon product page, you’ll see something that says, “Set up an Amazon Giveaway.” Click on that button and you’ll see how it works:
- Choose your giveaway type: “Lucky Number” or “First-come, First-served”
- “Lucky Number,” in which every Xth entrant wins, lasts longer and has more entrants. It also works better to grow fans or followers.
- “First-come, First-served,” in which the first X entrants win, creates a sense of urgency and rewards fast reaction time.
- Select if entrants need to follow you on Twitter.
After choosing your options, Amazon then creates a page (here’s mine for “Maynard’s Memories”) that can be shared on social media. An Amazon Giveaway typically has a time period of seven days, or until all prizes are given away — whichever comes first.
For the “Maynard’s Memories” Amazon Giveaway, I chose the “Lucky Number” option, with every fifth eligible entry winning, up to 15 winners. (A good number, I thought, since 15 life lessons are shared in the book.) I also required entrants to follow my Twitter handle, @bskogrand.
I started my Amazon Giveaway the evening of April 20, a Monday. On April 21, I started promoting the giveaway using social media. I wasn’t sure how long the giveaway would last. Would it go the entire seven days without all 15 books being given away?
As it turned out, all 15 books were given away by noon on April 22!
Amazon then took care of shipping the books directly to the winners. Amazon Giveaway was a slick way to run a promotional giveaway and grow my Twitter followers.