I am an incurable contest entrant. The problem is the intermittent reinforcement. I am sure that the percentage of contests that I win is relatively low...but that occasional prize more than reinforces my addiction. My most startling prize was a trip to a NASCAR race in Brooklyn, Michigan. My husband and I joined other prize winners on a private plane that whisked us off to a place that I had never heard of and introduced me to a sport that I had only tangentially been aware of. My only explanation is that I must have been aiming for the second prize (which I assume was a television)! It was an interesting experience and I was able to get through quite a few books while watching the cars go 'round and 'round and people-watching.
I also complete surveys but have reached a saturation point. It seems that every store and fast food restaurant provides a receipt that offers a bribe for feedback and then there are the online survey companies...Toluna, Zoom Panel, e-rewards, etc. and the mystery shopping (I particularly like Mysteryguestinc. but became disenchanted with most of the others I have tried--a blog for another day). It's funny, I can write my opinion very assertively but very rarely do I initiate face-to-face confrontations.
Which leads me to book giveaways. Not only are there the blogs that I have become interested in but most of the author's mailing lists include a link back to their site and a large percentage of them offer a monthly contest. Then there are all of the sites that have multi-author offerings, e.g. Night Owl Review blogs link1 and link2 Fresh Fiction link Writerspace link and the Goodreads First Reads giveaway link to name only a few.
However can a person carve out enough time to read???
I stopped entering the contests on the really big sites like Writerspace because for months i would enter all the contest and there are a lot of them and never won a thing. not once. But some of the blogs I go to and enter to win books have less than 100 followers and I have a much better chance of winning and I do win at least one book a week by doing it this way. I also do the surveys at places like Zoompanel, e-rewards and My survey.
ReplyDeleteI do agree that blogs offer the best odds but have to admit that I have won scattered books over the years from the various larger sites. I have been fortunate enough to have received several books from Goodreads (although I am tempted to write one person who seems to have an entire bookshelf of books that he has won to ask him what his secret is). Attending chats is also a great way to get to know the authors and have pretty good odds for winning something!
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