The Divergent Nation Challenge was an eye opening experience for me. I was thrilled to have been chosen to receive an ARC of Insurgent and to take part in the Divergent Nation challenge as part of Team Abnegation. We had an awesome team who worked well together. I've come to know some wonderful new bloggers I would likely not have interacted with if it weren't for this challenge.
In the end clicks for Abnegation came up short but we gave it our all and promoted as best we could. I'm ok with coming up short. A signed copy of Insurgent (the rumored prize) & a thank you video done by Veronica mean nothing to me. I'd likely just give the book or whatever the prize is away to one of my followers.
I'm passionate about books and blogging. I find great joy and fulfillment in helping promote authors and their books. I spend a lot of time on my blog each and everyday. I'm really not into drama. I try to steer clear of it but I also don't like being told one thing and having another thing happen. Too bad following through with promises is not something HarperTeen or Veronica Roth seems to be capable of.
I could spend hours chronicling all the details of this DivergentNation click-through-challenge, including the drama and the "unfairness" of how things played out but will spare you most of the details. We were told Veronica Roth would spend one day supporting Abnegation - never happened (Dauntless and Amity were the only two factions she supported). We were told the Divergent Facebook page would be driving traffic to our Abnegation links for one day - not one post went up on the Divergent Facebook page on Abnegation's day driving clicks to our links. We brought up concerns about factions asking people to click a link dozens or even hundreds of times at once and concerns over hundreds of direct clicks occurring in abnormal patterns. The response was abnormal clicks & cheating was being monitored. Naively we assumed that meant those clicks would be discounted. You know what they say about those who assume things...
At the end of the day Amity won and congratulations to them. I have no issue with anyone from Amity. I interact with several of their team members on a regular basis. Many of them are just as passionate as I am when it comes to their love of promoting books.
I invite you to take a look at the total clicks for this challenge and where they came from:
Amity Faction https://bitly.com/
Abnegation Faction https://bitly.com/
Dauntless Faction https://bitly.com/
Erudite Faction https://bitly.com/
Candor Faction https://bitly.com/
Choose Amity https://bitly.com/choose_
Choose Abnegation https://bitly.com/choose_
Choose Dauntless https://bitly.com/choose_
Choose Erudite https://bitly.com/choose_
Choose Candor https://bitly.com/choose_
Snapshots of clicks: http://twitpic.com/photos/TeamAbnegation
Ultimately HarperTeen didn't care where clicks came from or that a few people were clicking the same link hundreds of times. My irritation is that the rules of what was and wasn't allowed were not clarified. Our team felt that asking someone to click a link multiple times was pointless, not actually promoting the book and ultimately cheating the system. If we had a clue that HarperTeen would allow such tactics we would have set our giveaways up much differently. Actually on second thought no we wouldn't have, our followers have better things to do than click a link hundreds of times. It was bad enough making them click the links each day to enter our giveaways.
In the end this is what HarperTeen's "very exciting" prize was for the participating bloggers...
Each of the 50 #DivergentNation bloggers will have their first names listed in a special acknowledgement section of the INSURGENT paperback release!!
Seriously? All 50 chosen DivergentNation bloggers didn't even participate in this challenge. Several were turned off by the challenge and opted not to participate. Maybe someone thinks this is a fabulous reward but I'm left scratching my head as to why having my first name along with 49 others would be considered an exciting prize? How many other people have the same first name as I do. Now perhaps if my name was that of some of my friends who participated (Damaris, Benji, Yara or Hafsah) it might be an ok prize... but for those with names like Kathy, Amanda, Katie, Heidi & Julie.... not really such a fabulous prize.
Honestly HarperTeen the next time you want a group of book bloggers to promote a book for you don't lie to us. Don't use us. Don't randomly assign us to teams assuming everyone wants to take part in your challenge. Make the rules and expectations clear from the start. Get our feedback and let us work together. It would have been so easy to avoid much of the irritation and frustration many bloggers felt if you had just done things a little differently and followed through with what you committed to do.
At very least, HarperTeen owes the book blogging world and more specifically all of the 50 blogs who participated in the DivergentNation challenge a public apology. They used us, lied to us and took advantage of us.
Wow, that seems pretty unfair. I saw a few of the other factions asking people to click multiple times... it sort of sucks that it happened but I guess it can't be changed. Are they even trying to explain why they are okay with what happened?
ReplyDeleteIn the end, they are a large publisher that is out to make money and they hit their 35K preorders so I'm sure they are happy now.
I hate corporate America. :(
FYI clicking on the links multiple times is not and was not ever cheating. Even the team that Kathy represents offered multiple entries to their giveaways by clicking on the links multiple times. Webster's Dictionary defines multiple as: 1. consisting of, including, or involving more than one. So, whether those multiple times were once a day, or a million times a day should not matter, and I am offended that Kathy is implying that this was cheating when she herself was involved in asking people to click more than once.
DeleteI'm greatly offended by this post, not only because it actually is accusing me and my friends of cheating, which let me make it clear - WE DID NOT CHEAT, but it also takes away from all of the hard work that everyone put into this. But, she neglects to tell the whole truth about her own actual deception.
I'm not sure why HarperTeen needs to explain why they are okay with what happened, when the object of this challenge was to get people to click on the links, which is what was done.
Also, I'd just like to say that what she claims as being proof that one or a few people clicked hundreds of time in no way is proof. There is absolutely no way that she can prove that a 40,000 individual people did not click on that link once. I'm not saying that is what happened, I know people clicked more than once, I'm just saying that it is extremely offensive that she obviously thinks it was impossible for us to rally hundreds if not thousands of people to click those links a few times. Instead she has to insinuate that we had a few random people clicking on the link 100s of times. And instead of just losing gracefully she is now posting things about cheating, and rude things about HarperTeen and Veronica Roth and then even bashing the prize. I think that speaks sore loser to me.
I'm not mad at this commenter, btw, I'm just extremely offended by this post.
I don't have proof, just logic and dozens of screen shots backing up my assumptions on my side.
DeleteMy issue truly is not with Amity. It's with HarperTeen and the way they set up this challenge and failed to clarify rules. If clicking a link 100 times was allowed I could have paid my teenager $20 to click away for several hours and won this challenge. But what purpose would that serve? My point is HarperTeen should have set this up differently and should have properly addressed concerns when they were brought up.
DeleteI've upload a few of the screen captures of "abnormal" click patterns I've shared with a member of Team Amity & HarperTeen CLICKS FROM the Challenge.
You are taking this way, way too far and it is becoming absurd. Having many direct clicks does NOT equate to cheating. Period. The only way you can tell if someone is cheating is by looking at IP Address. Since you can't see the IP Addresses, your allegations of cheating are FALSE.
DeleteYou say you aren't against Amity, congratulate us on winning, but you are still trying to "prove" that we cheated somehow. Unbelievable.
Did I just see you say that if you had known that clicking on the link 100 times was allowed you would have paid your teenager $20 to click for several hours? I could have sworn in one of your posts (probably since deleted) you said you considered this as cheating and not in the spirit of the challenge.
DeleteSo, which is it? Do you think this is cheating, or are you just mad at yourself for assuming that HarperTeen would think it was cheating, even when they told you that they had looked into it and there was no cheating going on. You assumed something that was wrong. That is your bad, not ours. I don't understand why you keep saying that you have nothing against our team and yet you still completely stand behind the fact that you say we cheated.
I don't understand how why you can't even get it into your head that even if only ONE person clicked on that link 40,000 times over the 30 days, it wasn't against the rules. Not only did that not happen, but I'm so tired of hearing you say that we broke the rules with evidence that is just conjured up in your own head and even the evidence you have still doesn't prove that anything was done against the rules.
Being upset with HarperTeen about not making it clear to you, personally, about the rules, is one thing. This is completely another. Why are you refusing to see this?
Try reading carefully... I said I "could" have paid my teenager $20 - not that I would. I do consider such actions "cheating" and not in the spirit of the challenge. That is where I have stood from day one. That's my opinion it's not going to change. Whether one person clicked a link 40,000 times or 400 people each clicked a link 100 times. I have a problem with the way the challenge was set up and run.
DeleteYou can continue to visit my blog and leave comments all day long. We'll never see eye to eye. I'll never be convinced that the way Amity won was "fair". Call me a sore loser, call me anything you want. This is my blog, I don't force anyone to come here. Not one of my followers is forced to come here. And no one has to agree with my opinion. I do however call things like I see them. If that creates the drama that I try so hard to avoid so be it. If you think what I did by putting up posts on being Divergent is deceptive call me out on it. I really truly don't care.
I agree we will never see eye to eye on what cheating is, because I absolutely do believe that your posts on being Divergent while linking to Abnegation was deceptive, and even moreso having a graphic that is for another faction that links to Abnegation, at least Divergent didn't actually have link to go to, but the other factions did. I don't understand how you do not see that this is more like cheating than what you claim we did.
DeleteI have no problem with you having a problem with how the challenge was run. I do have a problem with you continuing to call me and my friends who worked really hard "cheaters". I do not take that word lightly, and it really upsets me you continue to post your evidence about our alleged cheating, but really don't say much about your deception.
So, yes this is me calling you out, and I already read the part about how you asked Harper Collins if they minded you posting about Divergent, and they said they were ok with that. I think we can find many comments here that claim that you don't agree with Harper Collins actions regarding how this challenge was run, so why you would now use their response to whether something was ok or not as your meter for what is right or wrong is baffling.
I'd rather hear you just say why you think that what you did would not be considered deceitful and cheating.
P.S. I never said that anyone was forced to come here, because obviously no one is. I realize this is your blog and the only reason I'm commenting on what you say, is because I disagree and am offended by it. I don't think we have to agree, but I certainly have the right to defend myself, I would think. Your comments here really don't seem like someone who doesn't care, actually quite the opposite. I am here to say that I do care when anyone calls me a cheater and I will defend myself when I have the chance, so I'm sorry if you don't like that, but I think it's only fair that both sides of this opinion be told to those who willingly choose to come here.
WOW. When I saw who had won I felt the same way. I have nothing against any faction or bloggers who participated but I too felt that things should have been done differently. I was so happy that Veronica was going to wear Abnegation gray on the 30th but it never came on & I was very disappointed.=(
ReplyDeleteOh well what can we do now, its over. And yeah not very impressed with that "GRAND PRIZE" either. That's just the world we live in.
I agree that it is disappointing to the factions that were left out of the VR posts. But, I think that all of us know that life happens sometimes. I'm sure it was not done on purpose or with any malice.
DeleteI think it's sad that Kathy is calling out VR about that. She probably feels bad already and she even said so here -->
I don't know about anyone else, but I actually assumed that the prize would be something along the lines of what it is, and I personally think that having your name in a book is pretty cool. But, that's just me.
The prize is exactly what I thought it would be. Not something that appeals to me. I didn't participate in this for the prize.
DeleteI'm not saying Veronica did anything with malice or on purpose. I'm simply saying there is no excuse for her not following through. Posts & tweets can easily be scheduled far in advance. We were told we would have her support and we didn't get it. We knew a month in advance when she was supposed to be supporting the factions. There's no acceptable reason for her not doing what we were told in writing she would do. Life does happen I know that as well as anyone but waiting until the last minute and then being too busy to post is not an acceptable excuse in this case.
Wow .. are you really saying there is no acceptable excuse for VR? What a rude thing to say. You have absolutely no idea what her life is like, and once again, you just make assumptions to back up what you want them to be.
DeleteIf that is how it's done here, then I say there is absolutely no excuse for you to have posted such blasphemous lies about me and my friends.
Yes Sherry I am saying there is NO ACCEPTABLE EXCUSE for Veronica Roth to not have followed through. It was poor form on her part to not keep the commitment that was made to bloggers who were promoting her book. As bloggers we were told a month in advance. With a little planning ahead and forethought she could have easily scheduled posts or got them ready at the beginning of the month. Again that's my opinion, call it a rude thing to say if you so choose.
DeleteI;m sure this is just oil to the fire, but ummm when did Twi Sherry become God, cause last time I checked that was the only time you could invoke Blaspheme (To speak of (God or a sacred entity) in an irreverent, impious manner.) otherwise it's just 'lies'. I'm sorry I just needed to get that out, ok carry on.
DeleteDude that really blows. I would be pretty upset too! and that Grand Prize is lame.
ReplyDeleteFor a lot of recent giveaways that participating bloggers did, they required entrants to click their links to support their factions. Was that allowed, or would that have been considered a dishonest way of getting a click?
ReplyDeleteThat's awful and certainly doesn't seem quite fair :(
ReplyDeleteWho would want to spend the time clicking hundreds of times? Anyway, I feel for you.
On the upside, thank you VERY much for all your team work, I enjoyed visiting the posts & giveaways - this had to be practically a nightmare to put together. It was fun to check out all the stops, even though I had a hard time keeping up with things [old & tired these daze lol].
Again, THANK YOU for all you do! :)
"Who would want to spend the time clicking hundreds of times?"
DeleteEXACTLY .. I don't understand why Kathy just assumes that one person just sat and clicked hundreds of times. Although, there was no rule against doing that either, I think assumptions can be a very dirty thing.
Is it possible that if someone had 1000s of followers on twitter or on their blog or even thru email & perhaps they tweeted the link multiple times throughout the day even at the wee hours of the morning, there could be 100 people who clicked at around the same time or maybe 50 people that clicked twice. I just feel like, there are so many variables here and yet the assumption is to accuse people of cheating, when in fact, even if someone had sat and clicked that link a million times it still wasn't against the rules, and I take offense that it is continually being called out as cheating.
Sherry,
DeleteWe watched the click pattern for weeks. I'm not make accusations I can't back up with screenshots. True I can't actually "prove" that one person clicked the link multiple times but it's the only logical explanation. You yourself tweeted every few hours asking people to click the link a lot.
Click to view a few screen shots from this challenge
I'm not denying that I asked people to click on the link a lot, what I don't understand is how in the world you think that is cheating. That is just your opinion, and I take offense to using a word cheat which by definition means 1) to deprive of something valuable by use of deceit or fraud .. how is me or anyone asking people up front to click on the links a lot .. a million times .. once .. twice .. or once a day any different .. at least that is up front, that is not deceitful at all.
DeleteIt is my opinion and I stand by it. Again what is the point of the challenge if it's several people clicking the links "alot". Nearly half of Amity's clicks were direct and I stand by my belief that most of those came from a handful of people clicking the links repeatedly. You don't get 400 clicks in 5 minutes at 3 in the morning legitimately. I call that "cheating". I'm not saying it was an Amity faction member who did the clicking. I am saying there is nothing to support where those clicks came from and I believe they should have been disqualified if this was a "fair" competition. I can point to where our clicks came from. I had 150 blogs from outside the book blogging world post a $100 giveaway that had thousands of people enter. I have the IP addresses of all of them. I watched the traffic as it came in.
DeleteWe had 400 clicks in an hour when a promotion when out to 60,000 twilight fans via twitter. About 8-10 clicks per minute over the course of a couple of hour. A normal expected traffic pattern... Not 400 clicks in 5 minutes at 3 am. Not 45 clicks in 2 minutes in the middle of the day. Not 30 clicks one minute and then nothing for the rest of the hour. Those are abnormal click patterns and can't be substantiated by anything anyone did do draw that number of clicks. It's one person or a handful of people clicking over and over and over again. And I'm saying that is not a fair way to play. It might not be "officially" breaking any rules but it's wrong in MY opinion.
If you send an email out to thousands of people (email is one way you can account for "direct" clicks) you still don't see 400 clicks in 5 minutes. People open their email at different times, not all at the same time.
If you send out a tweet to tens of thousands of followers you don't get only "direct" clicks. They show up as having come from a t.co link that you can track back to twitter.
So yes by the rules that HarperTeen set up and never properly clarified - Amity won. Congratulations to you. I still by my opinion that this challenge was poorly set up and ultimately pointless if that is how a win can be obtained.
Kathy, I have given you many, many, many reason as to why so many of our clicks could have come from an honest, fair, and direct source. Many reasons of which have fallen on deaf ears. Once again, direct links do not equate to cheating, by far. You had your mind made up about this matter from the very first email that you sent me.
DeleteSo this comment is for everyone else. Harper did not release IP Addresses. Therefor, none of us can say if there was foul play from ANY faction. Harper said they were monitoring the click counts more then one time to us through emails. Meg (Amity's team leader) was in direct contact with Harper for the entire promotion and the subject of cheating was discussed heavily. Harper KNOWS we did not cheat. Everyone else needs to stop slandering us. It is childish and people need to grow up and start to act like adults.
This post could have been much more respected had it stuck to the real problem of this promotion: The issues regarding Harper directly in terms of not supporting all teams equally.
Wow, after all of the hard work you did. That is horrible. Your readers wouldn't cheat anyway. I don't see why people have to resort to that. We appreciate all that you do.
ReplyDeleteLet me ask you, as a reader of this blog. If someone said that they wanted to help promote all of the different factions because they were feeling Divergent and didn't want to have to choose just one faction, and then that person posted on her blog graphics for, on faction that actually linked to the another faction's tumblr page (which happens to be the team that she is actually on), would you be surprised if you clicked on that graphic or link from twitter thinking you were supporting one faction only to find out you actually supported a different faction. Not that I think that it's a bad thing to support multiple factions. I know quite a few people who did. But, they weren't deceived into doing it. I would consider that type of deception as cheating.
DeleteJen,
ReplyDeleteThere were no rules. Abnegation asked people to click our links once to enter our giveaways and then come back tomorrow and click the links again to reenter. What we thought was not right was asking people to click the link at least 5 times (or more) to enter. Or sending out tweets that said click this link 100 times. We assumed those multiple clicks in a just a couple minutes should not and would not count. I could have paid my teenager $10 to sit and click the links repeatedly for a couple hours and Abnegation would have won...
So let me get this straight. You think it's ok to ask people to click multiple times, you just want to stipulate that that click should only be once per day. Let me ask you. Did you include in your blog posts and on twitter a request to your followers NOT to click multiple times in the same day? Do you know for a fact that none of them did? I just don't understand why you think it is ok for you to ask for multiple clicks, but just because someone may have included the words "a lot" or "100 times" (which I'm not sure I ever saw a tweet that asked for 100 clicks, but whatever) makes them a cheater. Who made you the authority on this??
DeleteDid you ever think that some people were just having a lot of fun with this? Something, sadly, you did not. I was one of the people that tweeted multiple times daily asking for my followers to click on the links a lot and that every click counted. Do I think that all of my followers sat & clicked that link 100s of times? No, who has time for that, I know I don't. But, I sure hoped that there were a few hundred that saw the tweet multiple times and clicked on it once or yes even twice. It was fun. It was exciting to get people excited for Insurgent whether it was just creating a buzz about it, or actually leading people to the pre-order page or the tumblr page. I actually believed that it was a good thing to keep that buzz going for an entire month. The giveaways were cool too, and until now I thought people were having a good time. I assure you, if we had lost, I would have NEVER gone so far as to make a post basically trashing everything and everyone involved that didn't do things the way I thought they should have.
But, I'm so offended that you have not only been accusing our team of cheating since the beginning, but even after you were told that nothing anyone was doing was cheating, you still couldn't drop it and accept it.
If you are upset with Harper for the way this was run, then by all means send them a note, or fill out their questionnaire. I'm not going to say that things were done perfectly, but posting this slander about cheating and claiming that they are liars is in such poor taste in my opinion. Why can't you just admit that you understood something differently than others did? There's nothing wrong with that, but saying that it is cheating is so slanderous. That is not an accusation that should be made lightly at all.
What an eye opener. I never came across the blogs that asked for multiple clicks and I'm glad I didn't because I wouldn't do it. For some reason I never came across a couple of factions asking for any link clicking or contest either, even though I'm on twitter a lot. Now I'm not so anxious to read the books. Doesn't any faction include being honest in your dealings with your fellow men/women? Candor and Abnegation both should.
ReplyDeleteYou're here, right? This blog asked for multiple clicks, it said you could click every day for extra entries into the giveaways. That is multiple clicks.
DeleteWould you think it's wrong to post a Candor graphic to supposedly help promote Candor, but then to link to the Abnegation page? Because that is what this blogger did without thinking that was deceitful. Funny how asking people to click multiple times which is at least up front and honest is considered cheating to a person who didn't mind deceiving her followers.
If we're only talking one click a day, then you're right. Every blog said you could click once a day. But I thought the problem was some people clicking multiple times in one day. I never came across any blog that asked for that.
DeleteYes, posting a graphic for Candor that linked to Abnegation would be deceitful. But I never saw a post here or anywhere else promoting one thing that linked to another so I can't tell if it happened. I don't usually come back to see if anyone replied to my comment, but I saw Kathy's apology. I hope you make peace.
I may read Divergent if I come across it at a garage sale or if I win it(in contests I already entered). I've just lost my desire to pay for a book series when my dollars will condone bad business practices.
Linda,
ReplyDeleteWe did do a lot of hard work but I honestly don't mind losing. Like I said the rumored prize of a signed copy of Insurgent is worth nothing to me (and having my first name in the front of the book is worth even less) I'm bothered by the broken promises and unclear rules. If a challenge isn't set up fairly winning isn't really worth much.
"We did do a lot of hard work but I honestly don't mind losing." ... You have a funny way of showing that.
Delete"Like I said the rumored prize of a signed copy of Insurgent is worth nothing to me (and having my first name in the front of the book is worth even less)" ... It's a shame that you were even given this opportunity, because I know a lot of people who would be excited by this prize including myself, perhaps what HarperTeen really should have done is find people who really care about the book they were promoting
"I'm bothered by the broken promises and unclear rules. If a challenge isn't set up fairly winning isn't really worth much." ... I'm sorry that you were so disappointed, but I hope you realize that what your ridiculous allegations of cheating completely take away from any real issue that you may have had with Harper, in my opinion. You have completely given your readers a very skewed version of the events that actually took place and I feel bad for all of them who feel bad for you and who think that this was unfair.
What is really unfair is that people can just post lies about other people with no concern for how those people may feel about it. Our team worked very hard doing what we felt was in the guidelines of the challenge, and knowing that you have tainted all of your readers viewpoint on this and on us makes me very upset.
Sher,
ReplyDeleteThe books are really good and worth reading despite the way the publisher handled this contest.
This comment I can stand behind. The books are phenomenal and Insurgent was amazing.
DeleteWho in the world actually has the time to sit and hit a link for hours at a time? I know I don't. I love entering giveaways, but I think some are ridiculous in their expectations. I am thankful for your giveaways because they are easy, they are quick and they don't require so many entries that by the time you are done, your fingers feel like they are taking a nap. Anyway, sorry y'all got crapped on. I have seen several of the bloggers that truly participated in the challenge and some that didn't. The ones of you that did, like yourself, deserve more than a first name print-up after the time that you spent on this challenge. Even though you didn't get the recognition you deserve from the ones you deserve it from the most, myself and all of your other followers very much appreciate the time you put into Insurgent promotions and everything else you do with your blog for us. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteJaime
I really don't understand what amazing thing people expected. HarperTeen did not ask any of us to do the giveaways, it was something that we decided to do ourselves. There are members who gave less time and members who gave more. I feel as if this should have been done in the spirit of what I thought book blogging was about, creating a buzz about a book. HarperTeen didn't promise us the world, I didn't expect the world, and even though I will receive nothing for all of my hard work, I wouldn't have participated in this if I didn't think it was a fun thing to do. HarperTeen didn't force anyone to do anything. They asked us to get people to click on the links, that is all. What every faction team and member did from their was of their own doing.
DeleteI would not be against all of the bloggers who think their name in the book is lame to write HarperTeen and ask them to switch out my name for theirs. I think that would be a cool thing.
It is a real disappointment. I was on Erudite and I can't believe how few clicks we got, despite all our hard work. I would also say that we didn't see a whole lot of co-operation on the team and very little by way of leadership... our faction just didn't co-ordinate anything at all. A lot of our efforts were independent of the larger team because I think people just thought there was no point being in pushing the 'evil' faction. We struggled with having this thrust upon us with very little notice; we have busy lives, and not all of us have even read Divergent, so it fell to a few to do a lot of work.
ReplyDeleteWhen I see that we got something like 900 clicks from lots of places, and others got 20,000, it actually makes me feel like crying because I personally put HOURS into this contest and I might as well have just done nothing because we weren't even competitive. I'm just grateful for those few votes.
We really could have done with some support from Veronica, or the facebook page or something. People on my team each gave time, effort and money to this and we found ourselves wondering why we bothered.
The Erudite leader was me and I sent out email after email that went unanswered or tapered off and also had one day to prepare just like you guys, and spent over $100 in giveaways. I'm sorry you feel that wasn't enough.
DeleteWhatever happened to the personal email that the Team Erudite members were supposed to get from their "Team Leader", Pam? I didn't get one despite linking up, adding the button to my blog, tweeting and retweeting links, etc.
DeleteI sent them all out :) If you ask the others that linked they got them, at least no one said they didn't.
DeleteI actually didn't notice, but that's because I haven't followed this promotion thing very closely. If I lived in the US I probably would have, since I only paid attention to the International giveaways. Those ones only asked to visit that site once, so I had no idea.
ReplyDeleteThat's so, so unprofessional. From what I know (which isn't much), HarperTeen really took you guys for fools. They didn't even work with you guys on the matter, they just told you what to do and expected you to be okay with that. Then, to smooth things over a bit, your first names get mentioned in the acknowledgements? On top of the shady activity with the multiple clicks and inadvertedly tipping the scales by ignoring some factions over others... WHY?
Well. Thanks for posting this up. This could blow up in the blogosphere and maybe something will get done. Who knows?
OMG... I supported all the factions by clicking those links and then it turns out just like that?! Maybe people shouldn't really just let others do their work... I'm really disappointed with this...
ReplyDeleteThat really does seem unfair :/ I couldn't really follow the giveaways and such (being a UK blogger) but that doesn't seem fair.. I agree that it looks like HarperTeen used you and you're all better than that! Unfortunately, I can't see anything being done about it? Would be nice if it was though...
ReplyDeleteHopefully the next time you agree to something of that scale (because I'm sure you will, you're great!) hopefully things will be a lot clearer!
I'm not sure how you can feel used, when no one was forced to do anything. HarperCollins sent out the arcs for a much anticipated book without any of them doing anything. I know for a fact that more than one person did nothing and yet they still got an Arc that I would have died for. So, how is HarperCollins so bad. It's not like they took the book back. They wanted to create excitement about the Insurgent release and asked thought up a challenge to get people to click on a few links and to talk about the books.
DeleteIf you didn't want to do it, you did not have to. You could have kept your book and moved on, as some did, no harm done. But, participating and then saying you feel used, please. They used you to create buzz about their upcoming release, but you knew that's what they wanted you to do. I don't know what anyone expects to be done about it.
That's unfair. Here I am supporting people from factions and I find out it was all a joke. Just a marketing ploy that doesnt matter in the end. I ordered my copy of insurgent yesterday, but it's stupid that this happened
ReplyDeleteWow.
ReplyDeleteWow, they kind of screwed this up, didn't they? Not that I really participated since I STILL haven't read Divergent (but I will, I promise, my friend even lent me her copy!), so I really didn't understand the challenge. That said, you put a lot of work into this, and it seems grossly unfair that other bloggers had to encourage cheating and that the contest was poorly run from the publisher's side. Hopefully this has been a lesson for future contests and book promotions!
ReplyDeleteThat's an awful prize. You guys worked your booties off promoting Insurgent for them. First name in a paperback? Srsly? Not even gonna have Veronica sign it for you and thank you for your hard work? Lordy. (I don't blame her for how this went down considering it was the publisher was that ultimately responsible for this promotion, but still, I'd love to see her step up as an individual and take the time to thank all of you appropriately. This promotion was HUGE.
ReplyDeleteI know this kind of dates me, but I keep envisioning Gomer Pyle shaking his head saying “For shame, for shame, for shame!”
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to votes for blogs or books I think it happens a lot. When my book was nominated over at BookSpotCentral (a review site) for one of the best reads for 2011, I told all my followers (of course.) Other books were nominated and the voting began...But guess what? That multiple clicking thing? Uhm. Yeah. And it's not like there was a million dollar prize or anything. I can't complain because Under Witch Aura did just fine (dare I admit that it might have done well because the voting was so obscure at first that the big name authors didn't even know about it? No, that is not what happened! It cannot be!) I digress.
ReplyDeleteOf course, in my case, I was not lied to. The moderator emailed me to let me know my book made the nominations; it was up to me whether I participated.
I think as the prize they should list your blog rather than your name. And the author definitely should have stopped by on facebook to welcome and thank y'all. If the publishers are asking you for free publicity (and that is what it is) they need to make sure they do their part. There are THOUSANDS of books out there that bloggers can read and promote. Don't make people jump through hoops (clicking once a day, coming back constantly, entering the hair color of each character, etc.) Make it simple and fun--and as for prizes? How about a set of books you haven't read? A gift cert to B&N or Amazon? (It doesn't have to be 40 dollars. 10 dollars buys a book too!)
Okay, okay. Rant over. Carry on.
I'm sorry you feel this way and your honesty is refreshing. Frankly most people aren't willing to stand up to the publishers because of the repercussions of NO MORE Books. Marketing departments are always trying something new and obviously this experiment wasn't very thought out. Or maybe it was, their goal was probably just activity. Just remember it was probably directed by one department within the publisher and the author had little to do with it...maybe next time they'll handle this type of campaign with more finesse. Thanks again for your honesty and letting us know to look further into these campaigns we are asked to do.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry that the promotion didn't work out to be as fair as it should have. From the beginning I thought that the promotion was was too complicated, and while I started out intending to participate, I quickly became overwhelmed and confused. It wasn't too long before I made a conscious decision to AVOID all Divergent Nation posts.
ReplyDeleteSorry you had to deal with this Kathy. Your blog didn't and doesn't deserve to be treated that way.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHonestly? I found the whole thing rather boring and pointless. If I had been one of the bloggers chosen to participate, I would have pulled out. Just clicking links for weeks on end? It's not even a little bit fun! Maybe if it was like 5 days leading up to the release or something but this just went on and on...
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry you feel lied to and taken advantage of. Your blog is worth more than that! And that ''prize'' is so underwhelming!
I am not a blogger, just an enterer, and an international one at that. And I couldn't help noticing the disparity between the factions of what was offered as incentives for clicking. You give away an eReader, the punters will do anything. I only saw one faction do that. Coincidence that they won?
ReplyDeleteClearly the whole event was a promotional gimmick but it was extremely unfair to leave it to the blogging community to do all the organising and go to the expense of the giveaways etc. to "win" something of almost no value :-( Thank you for pointing out your thoughts.
No one said you had to spend all that money.
ReplyDeleteWow really lame move. Definitely disappointed in how this was handled (or should I say "not handled"). Sorry you got put in this position!
ReplyDeleteNo one said anyone had to spend money. That was the participating blogs choice. Personally I didn't spend anything I regret. I do giveaways all the time so shipping out a few books and giving away a few gift cards doesn't bother me at all. I have wonderful blog followers who support this site by both buying and clicking on ads and making purchases through my amazon affiliate link. I put that money back into my blog.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunate, but the industry thinks of Bloggers as 'marketing tools' to be taken advantage of. (You can verify this by checking out how bloggers are treated at conferences these days.)
ReplyDeleteAll of which results in a regrettable experience for all; even those who 'won'. (What won't some people do)
That is really unfair. Setting up a contest like that and then giving away the same 'prize' to everyone even for those who didn't participate? Considering that I helped promote Team Abnegation and spent a lot of time on the participating blogs I know for a fact that you guys put a lot of work into promoting this. I must say though despite it all I still had a lot of fun, despite the fact that it should have been clear from the start.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed the competition and had a lot of fun doing it. It is possible that I didn't take it as serious as some did. On the whole more time with our team to prepare would have been good. I wasn't able to round them all up and we had members who didn't participate at all but really, I think this was all for fun and I did have fun and I enjoyed reading Insurgent early and I would have been tweeting about the book regardless. It is a big release and one that I was looking forward too. So Veronica didn't tweet? After reading that last sentence I would rather her be working on book 3 anyway :D. I don't feel used, I didn't spend money on things I think are useless. I bought 5 signed copies of Insurgent. Which I probably would have done either way. Maybe I'm just not super competitive but I saw it as a team building, community involvement, themed month of fun.
ReplyDeleteAside from entering a few of the giveaways here or there, I did not participate in the challenge, but I did see it *everywhere* in my blogger and RSS feeds. Insurgent was going to have a great release whether or not they held the challenge but the challenge was so pervasive I really, really got sick of it. I still don't have a copy of Insurgent although I'm on the wait list at the library... I just don't care anymore.
ReplyDeleteI am sorry to see that the whole thing negatively affected you, I love this blog and don't like to see it hurt.
All I'm going to say about this is I don't appreciate being called out as a cheater. I'm sorry the promotion isn't what you wanted it to be. I guess you don't have to participate in the promotions in the future.
ReplyDeleteBetter Bad-Press than No-press, huh.
DeleteBut generally speaking, I doubt any of this would have lead back to be associated with you or your blog unless you had made sure of it by commenting here.
I'm also curious. What WOULD have been an acceptable prize for you?
ReplyDeleteIt was never about the prize for me. Early on I said it would likely be a signed copy of Insurgent. I would have offered that up to one of my followers.
ReplyDeleteThere were no official "rules" against asking people to click a link dozens or even hundreds of times but I still believe that is "cheating". Click once then come back later or tomorrow and click again. The best way to have run this competition would have been to only count unique IP addresses. 1 click per address or 1 click per address per day, nothing more. Unfortunately HarperTeen and I see things very differently.
Then put your concerns in the survey that was emailed to you, ask not to participate in any more promotions, and move on. This really isn't a constructive way to give feedback.
DeleteIt doesn't appear to me that she was giving feedback here, but rather sharing her disappointment with the experience with the readers of HER blog.
DeleteI think that if you took this post as her 'calling you out as a cheater', then...let the guilty shoe fit.
This is merely MY opinion. I, in no way, know any of the bloggers involved, other than possibly reading/being a fan of their blog.
As a person who closely follows Kathy's blog and was clicking and participating daily, I'd have to disagree that this isn't a constructive way to give feedback.
DeleteWe saw the posts countless times and we came back daily and clicked our hearts out. It's only fair for us know know how the contest that WE participated in truly worked. This contest wasn't private, and I truly appreciate Kathy's candor about what really went down behind the scenes.
I'm so glad that you're standing up for yourself because like Rachel said, people don't want to get on the bad side of publishers.
ReplyDeleteNothing against you, but I thought the whole thing was just a bit much. I'm so sick of Insurgent promotion that I'm not even excited for the book anymore and that's a shame cause I know it'll be good.
One thing that kind of bothered me is awhile back I let HT know I would love to help with promotion on the book and what I heard back was that there weren't any plans for anything. And no arcs. Then they end up recruiting people who haven't even read Divergent. I guess my feelings were hurt even though I'm sure it wasn't anything on purpose. And I never would have posted about this multiple times a day so I probably wouldn't have been good for this promotion.
The unfairness of the whole voting was ridiculous but I didn't even enter the giveaways cause I don't do extra things like clicking links.
Sorry that it turned out this way but I at least am even more glad I wasn't involved.
I honestly don't care at this point if I am on the publisher's bad side. I know people say book bloggers don't sell books. That might be true in some cases but I sell a lot of books through my Amazon affiliate links. As many as 500+ books & ebooks per month. If Harper chooses to cut ties with me for speaking out against them for using us and lying to us ultimately it's their loss. There were a lot of copies of both Divergent & Insurgent purchased through my affiliate links and I lots of people picked up and read Divergent on my recommendation. It's a great series, I'll continue to encourage people to read it. And I'll continue to promote books and authors on my site. If people have a problem with the way I operate there are thousands of book blogs out there, there is no need to visit my blog if they have a problem with me.
DeleteI have to agree with you about the over-promotion. I am so sick of seeing Insurgent Team..." plastered everywhere. This marketing campaign was more of a nuisance than a positive way for the book to be highlighted. It was waaay too much.
DeleteI agree aw well, seeing post after post about supporting factions from blog after blog...bored me. I didn't even care about factions. I thought Divergent was supposed to be a dystopian, so isn't joining factions a bad thing?
DeleteI think after the first few days, I just ignored any post that was talking about Divergent/Insurgent.
There was nothing even revolving around the book except graphics, unless you count that "Free Four" excerpt, which I didn't even care enough to read.
Lilian @ A Novel Toybox
I as well as many other bloggers emailed HarperTeen multiple times sharing our concerns and asking for clarification. They ignored almost every email sent to them.
ReplyDeleteWOW...and this is one of the many reasons why I self published.
ReplyDeleteKathy,
ReplyDeleteI was an unofficial member of Team Amity. I wasn't sent an ARC, but I acted like an official member from the beginning because I thought it would be fun. Would you mind sharing links to where you assume Team Amity was cheating? There was only one person I saw asking people to click the link a hundred times, and she wasn't an official member either. She was just someone who wanted to support Team Amity, and got a little zealous. Even if there were rules on clicking, she wouldn't have known them. That's why I'm curious to see if you saw other instances of "cheating." From what I saw, every Team Amity giveaway offered the chance to tweet once a day, as your team did.
Also, team Amity worked just as hard as every other faction to promote the links. Are you implying that there's no way they could have won without cheating? Because I think that's untrue.
DeleteEnna I sent you an email. I'm not implying they couldn't have won without cheating. They did work hard but so did other factions. I'm saying that receiving 400 direct clicks in just a couple minutes at 3 in the morning is abnormal and not logically explained but anything other than one person clicking a link multiple times. Nearly half Amity's clicks were "direct". The other 4 factions had only a fraction of their clicks being direct ones.
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ReplyDeleteAll right. Even if we take the standpoint of this post is about Harper and not Amity, which I am more than happy to do, I would still like to see the evidence of who was asking for 100+ clicks. Not because I don't believe Kathy, just because I want to see who was doing it.
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Delete*nod* agreed
DeleteWell said Anjana.
ReplyDeleteI am sorry to hear this Kathy. They did use you. I think I saw that from the beginning when I would click on the link and watched the # of books they sold. I am sorry. I can't even help you with your frustration. They also gave you a shitty prize. It's worthless for a name like Mary also. Ugghhh I feel bad...
ReplyDeleteKeep your head up Kathy. I have used your affiliate links several times but I have not gotten Insurgent. Why? I just felt that with everyone pushing so hard I wouldn't bite into it. I don't care what anyone says Bloggers do sell books and or the products they represent.
Mary
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteRemoved by the author MrsAC not by me. I've not deleted a single comment off this post.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI have to admit I was a little confused about this whole promotion in the first place. From a marketing perspective, I didn't really see the added value in promoting a book so heavily when it was clearly going to make the best seller list, anyway. I was also a little taken aback when I saw bloggers spending their own money to give away ereaders and other prizes, although I realize that was their personal choice. There has never been a peer reviewed study on whether book blogger sell books, at least one that I have been able to find, but I think that the attention that bloggers get from publishers points to the fact that there is at least some anecdotal evidence that they do. I do not have thousands of followers, so I would never be eligible for a promotion like this, but I think it's a shame that, once again, something that could turn into a constructive discussion about the publisher/blogger relationship has been reduced to factions bitching at each other. Life imitating art, anyone?
ReplyDeleteAmen!
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ReplyDeleteKathy, why do you keep deleting my comment? I would appreciate it if you would give everyone a say. Why delete my comment if you have nothing to hide?
ReplyDeleteI've not deleted anything??
DeleteDon't worry Meg I have it screen capped.
DeleteIf that's true, I will post it again and this time when I come back 2 minutes later it will still be there.
DeleteAll your comments are visible and have been. :)
DeleteMrsAC - I have not even been home until a few minutes ago. There was a prior post on my blog I ended up deleting all the comments from an "anonymous" comment-er discussing this topic. If those are the comments you have screen capped feel free to share them.
DeleteI'm not sure what to say. Each time I posted it would be there and then somehow not 2 minutes later. I deleted the previous ones that magically appeared after I left this comment, and re-posted it below. Hopefully this one sticks.
DeleteAlso, and for the record. The previous comments were left from an old account and we are not sure why the name showed up the way it did, as a series of numbers, it has a profile, name, & has been in use for years.
Screen Cap: I guess a ghost deleted your comment Meg https://twitter.com/#!/HippesBeuTBooks/status/198120585677635586/photo/1/large
DeleteThat ghost really doesn't like me. Fourth time is not the charm. Maybe the fifth is?
DeleteI just found your most recent comment in my SPAM folder and approved it. Comments that "This comment has been removed by the author" have been deleted by the person who wrote them, not be me.
DeleteI just have to say I totally see Kathy's side of things and I don't think that Enna and Emily should be offended because I don't believe that is Kathy's intention. At least Enna (who I follow and love) doesn't sound quite so upset as Emily. She seems to be open to just figuring out where Kathy is coming from. Sorry, but Emily your comments really bug me since Kathy didn't say anything personal about you or that your team should be disqualified and she is really just frustrated about the process and the publisher. She definitely didn't name anyone and I didn't know who was on what team out of the bloggers since I mostly just supported Abnegation. She isn't even saying the same team wouldn't have won, but that the playing field should be even.
ReplyDeleteI just see how little support some of the factions got from HarperTeen and the author and how crazy the whole thing was. Honestly if one or two of the teams got support from the author on your faction's day how can you say that's fair if all the factions didn't get the same thing? Still this really doesn't have anything to do with the other teams, but the publisher and author. Even the multiple clicks could have been handled by the publisher so they only counted one click per day per person. I think the publisher could have handled things better. They should have set up the promotion rules and guidelines and then asked who wanted to do what so that everyone was clear and it was all done in fairness. I don't think that is too much to ask. Plus it is very frustrating if you ask for clarification or answers about something from a publisher who has asked you to do something like this promotion and then to get no response from them or to find they don't really care. Not necessarily how you endear people to support you or encourage their followers to.
Also, I think ANYONE that was an active part of the teams should have gotten more - at least several books and swag, which is nothing cost-wise to the publisher. I think Kathy would have been happy to not even have had separate factions, but to have everyone work together. Not that I can speak for her, but that seemed to come across during the promotion when she started posting some things about all the factions. So Abnegation isn't it? :)
You haven't seen the emails from her that we have been getting all month. This post is just the icing on the cake really.
DeleteNo I haven't, but I think that you guys are still all taking it rather personally, especially considering her whole post talks about the publisher and what they did and didn't do. She mentions she feels the extra clicks were cheating to her, but that isn't the major part of her post and she mentions it once and then leaves the links (which I was happy to look at to see where everyone came out) and then says what she was told by the PUBLISHER about it. Maybe I'm seeing this differently because I'm a removed party and you're seeing something more implied?
DeleteI didn't realize that she really had any huge issues with any teams specifically until all you guys started posting, since it didn't come across that way to me. I also think specifically attacking her isn't really necessary and life is too short to be so offended. Of course, now I'm probably going to sound offended. LOL. I just feel I need to support Kathy. Too bad you can't see that I'm actually quite calm over here in front of my computer, which is why posting just isn't the same as talking face to face. (Would everyone really say what they're saying if you were looking at each other?)
I actually think she would have posted this even if she was the winning team, especially considering she posted some complaints against the publisher and the click-through process during the promotion, so she's just not complaining now because her team didn't win. It really has nothing to do with that. With all that said, I think Kathy felt she needed to have a final post to vent about the publisher who I still agree didn't handle things as they should have for everyone, not just Kathy's team.
I'm not going to say that the promotion was flawless, it wasn't. But we were given a survey to fill out asking for specific feedback on it. That is the appropriate way to give feedback. This post, tweeting it, and including the Team Amity hashtag in those tweets, is not. It's also not appropriate to use people's names in this post that want nothing to do with what she posted. Which happened.
DeleteHere's the deal. I wanted to be strong and keep quiet on this. I wanted to not respond because I've always been taught that if you have nothing nice to say, say nothing. If you were just attacking me, I could handle it. But I can't let you say the things you're saying about my team, my friends, and have others fall into your trap of lies without letting them hear the whole truth.
ReplyDeleteHere's the thing, Kathy. If you really "dislike drama" the way you claim, you wouldn't be doing what this post is doing. You wouldn't be slandering a team who worked ridiculously hard for the entire month, a team that rounded up 399 official members and countless other supporters. You wouldn't mock a prize that too many of us (some who won & and some who didn't) means a whole lot. You wouldn't have posted half the information on your blog, conveniently leaving out the fact that while, yes, people may have clicked multiple times on our links, we never deceived them, we never lied to them, and we never stole clicks from other factions. Although all of those things did happen, and I have actual proof of them, unlike what you've posted here.
It makes me sad that you feel the need to not only accuse another team of "cheating", but that after you spent a month as you said, "working incredibly hard", now you're belittling the entire click through challenge, and trying to cause an uproar. Your thoughts and opinions are obviously yours to give, and I have no problem with freedom of speech. What I do have a problem with is lying. I won't be lied about, I won't sit by while people I care about are demeaned and, and I will always, always choose to support what is right.
If you had a problem with something that my team was doing, you should have come to me. Not to anyone on your team, not even to anyone else on my team, you should have talked to me about it. When we discovered what you were doing on your site we came directly to you and what did you do? You deleted our comments and your responses from your blog. That's fine, because again it's your blog. But don't think that I didn't see it coming, and don't think that I didn't take precautions by saving screen captures of the entire exchange.
You say this isn't personal, but being accused of cheating is VERY personal. I don't need a public apology from Harper Teen, and I know many others from different factions feel the same way. What I do need is an apology from you for tarnishing something that was supposed to be fun, for dragging our team through the mud, and most importantly for not being honest that you are the only one who really cheated this month.
On Apr 17, 2012, at 6:21 PM, Kathy wrote:
ReplyDeleteI don't think it's an Amity faction leader doing the clicking, likely just a "helpful" but ignorant recruit or supporter. I know your faction leader has been contacted about it, but like you said there really isn't anything that can be done about it. It is happening a lot.... thousands of clicks over the last 2 weeks.
And yes Alison knows about it.
Kathy
I did contact a Amity Faction member to ask her about the clicks that were in question.
On Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 4:10 PM, Amity Faction member wrote:
I've seen tweets like that and I know there is a couple of "recruits" that think everyone should be clicking multiple times. One particular person I know does tweets like that, but she's not an official part of the team and I'm not sure what I can do about it. I'm not aware of anyone on team amity doing it though. Does Alison know about it. From the last email she sent it seems like everything is okay now.
Sent from my iPhone
On Apr 17, 2012, at 5:35 PM, Kathy wrote:
Someone is clicking certain links over and over again. Posts or tweets that say "click this link a lot" in theory should not matter because clicking more than once should not register a second click until a period of time has passed. Unfortunately there are ways around it. I imagine that a few people are just trying to be "helpful" by clicking a lot but clicking a link 20+ times in a minute defeats the point of the challenge and creates a "suspicious" click pattern.
Kathy
On Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 3:17 PM, Amity team member wrote:
Hey Kathy,
We were kind of wondering about that too when those emails got sent out. Our faction leader hasn't said anything about it besides just mentioning the email. I don't think any of us know who Alison was talking about but I guess there have been problems.
Has anything been said to you or any of your teammates?
Sent from my iPhone
On Apr 17, 2012, at 5:04 PM, Kathy wrote:
Curiosity has got the best of me...
Has Alison or your faction leader said anything to you about "suspicious clicks"?
Kathy
From Alison at HarperTeen:
Also, thank you for your diligence in tracking suspicious clicks. While we appreciate your dedication to making this a fair competition, please know that we are working closely alongside our online team to monitor bit.lys and have been in contact with certain faction leaders. We have everything under control here at headquarters, so get out there and fight for your faction honorably!
From: Kathy
ReplyDeleteDate: Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 5:55 PM
It happens "often". Multiple times a day. I first noticed it late at night but it happens on a regular basis.
Here are the links to track your clicks:
https://bitly.com/amityfaction+
https://bitly.com/choose_amity+
Kathy
On Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 5:16 PM, Amity Faction Member wrote:
Yeah I'm kind of upset that nobody told me about any of this. How do you watch the clicks? Sorry if I sound stupid, but things with computers and all the technical stuff I am dumb with. lol my husband does almost all of that stuff for me. So yeah, I really appreciate you letting me know about this issue. I'd like to sit and watch the clicks myself to see the pattern. You said this happens at night, or is it sporadic?
I know some people are hopping between our blogs for the giveaways and in order to enter, they will have to visit each link multiple times, but I can't see it bringing in THAT much traffic, ya know? I'm still curious if it is coming from just one IP address, because if it is, it will be easier to see who is doing it.
Sent from my iPhone
On Apr 17, 2012, at 6:55 PM, Kathy wrote:
I've emailed Alison a lot about the issue. I was up late one night watching clicks and traffic patterns. Amity had 400 clicks in just a few minutes at 3:00 in the morning. I kept wondering what in the world you guys were doing to gain that many clicks at that time of night. Cause really if something was working that well I was going to copy it!
The pattern kept repeating itself and I started asking around and found out it wasn't possible for those to be "legitimate" clicks and learned how one could "cheat" the system. I came across another blogger who had noticed the issue so I contacted my team leader who contacted your team leader and Alison. It's been like clockwork for the past 2 weeks. As soon as Abnegation pulls ahead in the click count there is a whole new batch of clicks in just a couple minutes.
The only reason I finally approached you about the subject is because we've done a lot of blogging together. If it was me I would want to know what was going on. And honestly I was curious if you were even aware of what was going on. You of all of Amity seems to have put the most into this challenge.
Kathy
On Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 4:25 PM, Amity Faction member wrote:
Alison told you that? That's crazy! Our faction leader didn't tell us that she has been contacted about it, we just figured there was problems with another team.
I'll talk to my team leader and see if maybe she will speak to the person who I think it might be. Like I said, I've seen her tweets around on twitter, but I can't say for sure if she is the person doing the clicking. Regardless, it's not really fair at all.
On Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 9:55 PM, Kathy wrote:
ReplyDeleteI figured I'd just send you my "file". Feel free to look through it or just delete it!
Kathy
On Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 6:43 PM, Amity member wrote:
I took a look through some (not all) of the referral links and they all seem pretty legit to me. What it doesn't tell you are the direct links and where they are coming from, at least from what I seen.
I was talking to my hubby who works in the IT business and asked him for possible causes in page view jumps. He told me that it is possible that some traffic sites operates at specific times (like Google Analytics) when it comes to updating their stats, but I'm not sure if that is the case here. He also said if the link was submitted to places like reddit, it would cause major jumps too, but I don't see any referral links from reddit.
I would definetely ask Alison if they can track IP addresses. Jon (hubby) told me that would be the best way to figure out of the clicks are legitimate. My worry is that I know we have all worked so hard this month to get as many clicks as we can. I don't want us to be held responsible for a mistake someone else is doing. If Harper can figure out which IP address is making all of the clicks, they can go back through and throw those 'entries' out. I totally understand that you want this to be a fair competition though, but I can see both sides. I just don't want us to loose because some idiot has too much time on their hands. You know what I mean?
On Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 8:30 PM, Kathy wrote:
Anyway... I have "files" full of snapshots from the past 2 weeks. Attached are some of results of campaigns I was "tracking" for Abnegation including the first 3 hours of my 150 blog $100 giveaway event and a Tweet Campaign that went to 175,000 Twilight fans.
If you have an desire for other snapshots from Amity let me know and I'll forward them to you.
Kathy
On Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 6:11 PM, Kathy wrote:
Attached are the click counts from when you kicked off your big group giveaway.
On Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 6:06 PM, Kathy wrote:
Sorry I hit send too soon. Attached are "normal traffic patterns".
Hey Kathy,
ReplyDeleteI asked Jon to look over everything more in depth to see what he could figure out. He just shot me an email back, so I copied it and I'm going to paste it onto this email for you to read. It's a little long, but what he said makes sense to me. He is analytical like you LOl. Here you go:
I looked over the metrics for the team Amity links like you asked.
First, it's not possible to get a true portrait of the traffic like i do for our blog. It's just not possible with the limited amount of data given. With that said I look at the traffic patterns and used various web analytic tools to make an educated guess what is happening.
I took into consideration what Kathy had mentioned to you. My only thoughts regarding that would be click farming but judging from the numbers the patterns don't match. Most click farming will occur in the middle of the night but will also be spread out over the course of a few hours. Click farming algorithms have come a long way and have very specific patterns to trick the ad engines algorithms from detection (Eg. Adsense, Adbrite, etc...). These farms are also located in other countries outside of the boundaries of jurisdiction from these sites too, so they don't get shut down. More then 80% of the traffic supposedly came from the U.S..
Again though, I can only verify that through the limited metrics. I can;t verify that without an IP log so I can track the IP range the clicks come from. When a click farm operates they tend to spoof the IP or change it through the internal server network but is limited to the overall address range given to the ISP.
It is possible to disable browser settings to spoof page views. I looked into this also and I find it doubtful this is happening. From what I researched and understand the page views authored by bit.ly are unique page views and not individual page views. Most web analytic programs will track unique page views from individual IP addresses and not tracking cookies. Tracking cookies are to unreliable for tracking analytic
Again, this can't be verified though. Bit.ly describes the "direct" links as being in the same category as email campaigns, IM tools,Adobe Air apps, and other. Unfortunately, this is to broad of a category to track true direct click through views. This algorithm would also include page crawls from spiders, trackers from meta search engines, search engine cache logs, RSS feeds, mistaken twitter referrals with certain apps, news programs (Pulse, Google Reader) etc... Most aggregation services, cache services, catalog services, etc... don't contain referral links so that would classify as a direct link.
This is where it gets interesting. I noticed what Kathy was commenting on traffic coming in in the middle of the night. I also tracked traffic patterns from the past 7 days, 14 days, and 30 days. Over each metric graph your blog has the highest amount of referral link traffic. The highest amount of traffic came in on the 31rst and the 9th.
ReplyDeleteThe 30th is when the initial post about Team Amity went live. The 8th is when the contest went live. Again, traffic spiked the day after, and some in the middle of the night.
We still use a lot of sweepstakes aggregation services, forums, websites, and other various logs to post sweepstakes and giveaways to. We also have over a 4000+ count combined aggregation subscribers the last I looked (Google Friends, Facebook, Twitter, Email news letters, Feedburner (different from our email campaigns) etc..) the last I looked. We probably have considerably more since its been a month since I've analyzed everything thoroughly.
With that said, these services would have picked up the new articles in the middle of the night and aggregated them out. Bit.ly also logs information every 30 minutes from what I understand. The traffic patterns over the past 30 days with the referral locations and referral links match when those articles posted. The dips and spikes also match our giveaway postings and spikes in traffic in our blog heavily.
It doesn't look as if anything nefarious is going on here. The traffic patterns for those links match the traffic patterns for our aggregation services and viewership. You also drive most of the traffic (behind "direct views") to those links. It looks more as if our campaigns are just doing a damn good job and our readers are clicking the links. We get a lot of traffic driven behind the various aggregation services to our blog and I've noticed without blog that page views spike heavily when these hit, especially with the higher viewed articles like the giveaways, popular reviews, and articles. The traffic in Bit,ly drives closely behind that.
Taking all that into consideration I would pat yourself on the back for doing something right.
But again, the metrics given on those sites Kathy gave are extremely limited and this is just an educated guess. I really need the full analytics to give an exact explanation to what is going on.
I looked into the direct traffic links to try and explain that. I found some rather surprising and gratifying things. I used Google's Adplanner, Google Search, Bing, Adwords, and a few other tools to try and find out what was going on.
I jumped behind the proxy server from work on a virgin computer and browser and made sure to clear the cache and cookies out so I could get a true virgin look to Google's search traffic patterns. The problem is that Google, bing, and Yahoo take heavy consideration into your browsing habits when recommending sites. Hence, when we search for something "book" related from home we get a lot of hits for our blog.
I'm glad you posted this because this SHOWS we did not cheat!
DeleteIt turns out from a virgin search your blog and Bit.ly on your blog actually rate higher in page rank then Harper Collin own link when searching for "Insurgent by Veronica Roth." When you search just for "Insurgent" both links get pushed back 5 pages. In fact, the only blog to reference "Insurgent" within the first two pages was "Books and Wine" or whatever it's called.
ReplyDeleteAlso, there is only an estimated 2600 average searches per day for the term "Insurgent by Veronica Roth." There are millions for Insurgent.
When looking at the marketing tools for those terms your blog actually comes as the highest rated for ad traffic estimation for future ad campaigns and planning for blogs.
When I added in some browsing history for book blogs, publishers weekly, various news sites, etc... you blog moves to the top page multiple times for various insurgent searches under various terms, The same is true for The Story Siren and Books and Wine along with a few other major publishers and retailers.
With that said, if a person has a lot of traffic looking at book reviews, book related retailers, news sites, etc... your website gets pushed up to the first couple of pages multiple times.
It took a bit behind the proxy at work to simulate a "readers" view of the web searches, but that's what I found.
Taking that into consideration, and the broad view that is classifies as a "direct" link through Bit.ly and the time the articles hit your site it's not a surprise that traffic hit so high in the pattern it did.
I can see where the confusion is. It took a little while to extrapolate the information and see the connection, which is what lead me to all the other search engine playing.
But, like I said, we really need to see the full metrics to get an exact idea. Until then, the best any of us can do is take good educated guesses.
I guess we'll never know...
ReplyDeleteIf we win I want to be sure we did it honorable and fairly.
We've had several times "anomalies" have occurred on our links such as the ones that just happened. I send them on to Alison as well to be sure we don't have clicks that shouldn't count towards our total.
From Amity Member:
ReplyDeleteKathy, it is okay. I try not to take anything personally and I understand that you just want to make sure this is a fair game. I thought I would send you my husband's professional opinion on the matter, since that is eventually what he does for a living. It is really hard to see the full picture with the little bit of information that is given. The best way to know for sure what is going on is by tracking IP Addresses.
I shot an email over to Meg, our team leader to let her know what is going on. I honestly do no believe, from what we seen, that there is any funny business going on.
I don't have any problems at all and I definitely do not want everyone to start arguing over this contest. We aren't bloggers looking for freebies, we are bloggers who love books. I don't particularly care for this contest in that aspect you explained. I feel like we could do much more if we could work together, but this is their promotion and I'm not the person getting paid to create these events, so what do I know?
No bad feelings. I appreciate you telling me what is on your mind!
Kathy
Apr 17
to Amity member
Totally agree with you on the fact that we could have done so much more working together instead of against each other. I've shared that with Alison.
Thanks for listening.
Kathy
On Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 10:59 PM, Amity member wrote:
Kathy, it is okay. I try not to take anything personally and I understand that you just want to make sure this is a fair game. I thought I would send you my husband's professional opinion on the matter, since that is eventually what he does for a living. It is really hard to see the full picture with the little bit of information that is given. The best way to know for sure what is going on is by tracking IP Addresses.
I shot an email over to Meg, our team leader to let her know what is going on. I honestly do no believe, from what we seen, that there is any funny business going on.
I don't have any problems at all and I definitely do not want everyone to start arguing over this contest. We aren't bloggers looking for freebies, we are bloggers who love books. I don't particularly care for this contest in that aspect you explained. I feel like we could do much more if we could work together, but this is their promotion and I'm not the person getting paid to create these events, so what do I know?
No bad feelings. I appreciate you telling me what is on your mind!
Amanda
On Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 12:25 AM, Kathy wrote:
I just want to apologize for bringing this up to you. I've debated for the past week whether or not to say anything to you about it and have always decided that it wasn't my place. I've talked with several other bloggers about click count who all came to the same conclusion I did. Today I couldn't shake the thought that if people were questioning what my team was doing I would want to know so I emailed you. You are the only one on Team Amity that I interact with on a regular basis through blog hops and I know you've done a lot to promote your Team so I brought it up to you.
One of my faction members just said this:
I do hope that this click thing doesn't taint relationships among bloggers and the factions. I can see this turning into a messy thing if people start pointing fingers and accusing factions of doing things they might think were totally fine to do.
So I'm sorry if I pointed a finger at you. I honestly never once thought you personally were doing anything wrong.
Kathy
That's the entire conversation I've had with anyone from Amity until this morning.
DeleteI found the earlier discussion on another post I had with an anonymous comment-er which has now been revealed to be a member of Amity.
ReplyDelete60676e44-90f3-11e1-910b-000bcdcb2996 (https://openid.aol.com/opaque/60676e44-90f3-11e1-910b-000bcdcb2996) has left a new comment on your post "3 Days and Counting until the release of Insurgent...":
It's too bad that you couldn't find the joy that this challenge has given others. I've personally seen it bring a lot of people together having fun clicking and tweeting and posting about how excited they are about "Insurgent", which I gather was Harper's point in doing the challenge.
I think it's sad that people have alleged cheating on a simple challenge that seems rather hard to cheat at (the link that gets clicked on more .. wins .. seems pretty simple) and blogger friends turning on each other over this, makes you wonder how good of friends they were in the first place.
I hope that your last three days can make you find the happiness and excitement that Harper Collins was hoping everyone would have. It's too bad that groups of people, even in a challenge like this, can't figure out how to play nicely, and just have fun.
Here's to "Insurgent", Veronica Roth, and funtimes for the next three days.
Inspired Kathy has left a new comment on your post "3 Days and Counting until the release of Insurgent...":
DeleteI did have a lot of fun to begin with but I just got burned out! I wish this challenge had been set up differently and that "rules" had been established from the start so everyone was clear on what was allowed and what wasn't. It's very easy to "cheat", at least what I considered to be cheating...one person clicking a team's links hundreds of times and encouraging others to do the same is not really in the spirit of this challenge.
60676e44-90f3-11e1-910b-000bcdcb2996 (https://openid.aol.com/opaque/60676e44-90f3-11e1-910b-000bcdcb2996) has left a new comment on your post "3 Days and Counting until the release of Insurgent...":
ReplyDeleteThat's very interesting that you would consider one or more people clicking on a link multiple times as cheating when, from my understanding, that was NOT against the rules at all. Something I might actually consider as cheating would be more like advertising that you are one thing - such as claiming to not feeling a part of one faction but instead feeling "Divergent" - and then asking people to click on your link if they feel "Divergent" when in reality that link is indeed linked to one factions link for the contest (which btw happens to be the faction team they are a part of).
I have had fun supporting all of the factions by clicking each factions links, but I was surprised when i clicked on the "Divergent" link only to find that it is actually a specific factions link. As I said, I'm ready to support everyone, but that I felt was definitely deception and I guess in your words cheating.
I personally didn't see any of the rules, but I'd say that since most of the factions have giveaways that promote the clicking and multiple entries into said giveaways then it seems that multiple clicking was never against the rules. Deception in and of itself might not be against the "rules" either, but I'd say deceiving people regarding the actual faction they are supporting when they click sure is more like cheating than one or more groups of people who may click more than others.
Inspired Kathy has left a new comment on your post "3 Days and Counting until the release of Insurgent...":
DeleteI've been very clear on my blog that I am Abnegation and am trying to drive clicks to Abnegation sites. I did dozens of posts about my desire to be divergent. I even linked to giveaways to support a couple factions who were really struggling with getting clicks. Yes all the divergent graphics I had created lead to the Abnegation's HarperTeen landing page. There were no rules given to us other than to get people to click the links. I even ran what I was doing by my contact at HarperTeen and she didn't object.
Clicking the link multiple times over the course of the contest is of course what we are trying to get people to do. If bit.ly was infallible it wouldn't matter because the cookie they use wouldn't count all those multiple clicks. A period of time has to pass before they count a click from the same person again (an hour, several hours, a day - I'm unsure how long the time period is). If the same person clicks a bit.ly 45 times in 1 minute bit.ly only counts it as 1 visit to the site... unless you know how to get around bit.ly's tracking system. There are several ways around their tracking system in order to get multiple clicks by one person to all be counted. That's my definition of "cheating" the clicks. There is one faction who has nearly half their clicks that have shown up in an abnormal click pattern like this. You can look at how many people have entered their giveaways and where there traffic is coming from and there is nothing to back up that number of clicks they have gotten. Again there were no "rules" given to us as to what was allowed and what wasn't allowed but when these concerns were brought up to HarperTeen 2 emails went out to all the participating blogs about cheating and abnormal clicks now being monitored by them.
60676e44-90f3-11e1-910b-000bcdcb2996 (https://openid.aol.com/opaque/60676e44-90f3-11e1-910b-000bcdcb2996) has left a new comment on your post "3 Days and Counting until the release of Insurgent...":
DeleteI have no idea who is winning, who is losing, and I posted a reply on this post because I had seen a few musings of cheating and found it sad that people would accuse people of cheating, and that bloggers turned on each other. However, I find some of your responses very interesting. You said that the "challenge turned to a frustrating one as rules were changed" and then you said "there were no rules".
You said, "It's very easy to "cheat", …one person clicking a team's links hundreds of times and encouraging others to do the same is not really in the spirit of this challenge." When I questioned how clicking on the link multiple times was cheating, you went into an explanation about how the same person can't click a link multiple times in a specific period of time and have them count "unless you know how to get around bit.ly's tracking system". This sure doesn't sound easy to me.
Unfortunately, the more I think about it, the more I believe that there were people not happy to see they were losing, and chose to assume that the team that is ahead figured a way around this tracking system, instead of that they just have more clicks. I'm certainly not going to say the possibility isn’t there, but it would be interesting to know whether there were any other teams that had a similar number of clicks.
It just irritates me when people make cheating accusations, when all they have is speculation and that’s what it seems like you have here. Perhaps you have concrete proof that shows that one person was not only making all of these clicks but that they were somehow beating the tracking system? I sure hope so, because accusing people of cheating should be a big deal and not taken lightly. Just off the top of my head, I'm wondering if anyone thought that it was possible that some of these "abnormal click patterns" coincided with tweets or blog posts going out by members of that team. That's sure a logical explanation that jumps to my mind. I wonder if maybe thinking there was a reasonable explanation would have been the kinder thing to think, than to jump to a cheating conclusion.....Food for thought.
continued...
DeleteAlso, something interesting to me is your response regarding the Divergent graphics leading to the Abnegation's HarperTeen landing page was that you contacted HarperTeen and they didn't object. That really wasn't what I had an issue with. I know that the tweets I saw that suggested clicking on a link if you are "Divergent” never said anything to imply the link was actually supporting team Abnegation. I have no idea if these tweets were yours or someone else's. I was only suggesting that if I were to consider something actually cheating, out right deceiving people sure seemed more likely to be considered cheating. Again, that is just my opinion. Obviously you had the ok from HarperTeen and that is what mattered to you, that doesn't really speak for the people who may have RTd a tweet about it. Nor does it speak for those who may have felt deceived after clicking on the link. I think that all of the people who tweeted or blogged about supporting their team and then gave their link even if asking them to click multiple times, hundreds of times, for infinity, at least they were up front about what they wanted. But, you don't need to respond to that because I get that you feel you were very up front about what faction you were supporting.
I've spent more time than I expected on this since it really has no effect on me and I don't really care. I just came across your post and it gave me a place to give my 2 cents about these cheating allegations, and blogger dissension, and then the more you responded and tried to explain, the more sort of annoyed I was by it. But, hey it'll be over soon and no harm done.
Sorry for the huge posts. I did choose to delete the previous comments which were on another post but I have nothing to hide so I just reposted the comments that as I suspected when I deleted them were actually from an amity team member debating with me...
ReplyDeleteMrsACMay 3, 2012 11:31 AM
Also, and for the record. The previous comments were left from an old account and we are not sure why the name showed up the way it did, as a series of numbers, it has a profile, name, & has been in use for years.
I never really understood the promotion. It was chaotic, unclear, and I ignored it. It's clear that a lot of work went into the promotion. The bloggers worked extremely hard. Everyone handled it better than I'm sure I would have. I don't think I could have supported a promotion that only reinforced the division of factions. I find it ironic.
ReplyDeleteWow. I want to start this response off by saying that even prior to this contest, I have been a subscriber to your blog for quite some time, and like you said, this Challenge has been an eye-opening experience for me as well. I have a serious problem with the title of your post and the accusations that you have alleged. Especially when I feel that those accusations could be extended to Team Abnegation.
ReplyDeleteLied to? I can see that. But taken advantage of and used by others? Really? You said you're not really into drama, but this post (and your subsequent tweet) show that you may be more into it than you'd care to admit.
While I totally respect that this is your blog, I hope that you aren't going to delete my comment because the allegations that you have made in this are serious and downright slanderous, and I feel that readers should hear both sides of the story.
In the very beginning of this promotion, the email sent from the Click-Through-Challenge coordinator on 3/30 to all of the participants stated, "In a few moments, I will be sending you your bit.ly links. The team to get the most clicks on their link by 4/30 will receive a very special reward." While I suppose that could be open to interpretation, the wording of "the most clicks" rather than "the most unique visitors" led my team to believe that total clicks would be counted, not unique visitors (even on a per day basis). When HC responded to the allegations of abnormal clicks & cheating, we were never instructed that only unique clicks would count. I'm assuming that you weren't advised that way either. If we had been, you can rest assured that we would have changed our campaign strategy.
Veronica Roth did not break any promises. On Day One of Five Factions, Five Days, Ms. Roth promoted the Divergent Facebook page and said, "To celebrate, I am wearing a faction-inspired outfit every day until May 1st." I realize that she did not post every day, and in fact only did on two days. And of course, if my team hadn't been one of the featured factions, I would be disappointed, but I am sure that I would not treat her the way you have. But please notice this, her link ONLY went to the Divergent Facebook page. She did not link to either of the two featured factions directly. If you question this, have a look at the numbers on the stats links that you posted and see--how many clicks did we (or any other faction) receive from Veronica Roth's site? The answer is zero. She promoted her book and the overall celebration--not the specific tumblr pages. So if anyone clicked on the link to the Divergent Facebook page on any day after the Day Two post, they would have seen the other factions featured. Contrary to what you stated, the Divergent Facebook page did in fact feature all five factions. I can provide the screencaps to you if you need to see them. (continued...)
In addition, Ms. Roth apologized: "I know I totally failed on the faction outfits for Erudite Day, Candor Day, and Abnegation Day. I got caught up in a bunch of other responsibilities, book-related and otherwise, and didn't get the photos uploaded. But I'm going to post them anyway, just not until I get back from my travels. Still, I'm sorry to the remaining factions! I didn't mean to overlook you." I can't imagine her schedule and the chaos that she's been dealing with. I'm looking forward to seeing the remaining posts from her.
ReplyDeleteThe lack of respect for Veronica Roth and the way that you have portrayed Harper Collins as cheaters and abusers makes me worry for the entire book blogging community. Though you are not happy with the outcome (or the prize, had you won), I feel that your behavior is going to directly influence HC and other publishers into not participating in this type of promotion ever again. I feel almost sure that Ms. Roth would not want to--and why should she? You were hurt by way you perceived being treated by the publisher, but your comments have hurt us all. If that was your intention, well done.
Thank you for congratulations Team Amity.
I would like to point out, on the very statistics that you posted, most of our traffic came from direct links, which are through email and social media (excluding twitter). Yes, we had a significant percentage of clicks from one our team members, who has thousands of followers, but all of the teams had similar traffic patterns, including yours.
We had 399 people who officially signed up for Team Amity. If they were the ONLY people to click on our link (not including actual team members, friends, family, or followers), then they would have to click less than four times a day to give us the numbers that we got. Not thousands.
The quote that you gave from HarperTeen's email to the participating bloggers was not the same that we received: "Each of the 50 #DivergentNation bloggers will have their first names listed in a special acknowledgement section of the INSURGENT paperback release!!" Our email (and this was confirmed with bloggers from other teams as well) stated "Each of the 50 #DivergentNation bloggers will have their names listed in a special acknowledgement section of the INSURGENT paperback release!!" Not first names. We took that to mean blog name.
Your allegations of cheating by encouraging multiple clicks from people is definitely debatable. Some people would consider that cheating, and some would not. But I am almost certain that everyone would consider displaying graphics in support of one faction but linking to another to be deceptive and outright dishonest. I'm not going to discuss that any further here, because I don't feel that it is necessary, but you know what you did, or you wouldn't have deleted it after the fact.
Kathy, I totally agree with you that HarperTeen could have handled this differently. They could have cleared up the confusion when the cheating allegations were made, and truly, I wish that you had enjoyed participating in this promotion more than you had. You said that you love promoting books, and I do, too. That's why it literally pains me for you to say that the prize for winning "means nothing to [you]." It means something to us. And it means something to all of her readers, I would think. I can only hope that the next promotion you participate in leaves you feeling more satisfied than this one did.
Best,
Kassiah from the Divergent Lexicon
What I took from "not meaning anything" is anyone can order a signed copy from one of the stops on Veronica's tour. The prize didn't feel very special for all of the work that everyone put into it.
DeleteThat was my point... a signed copy of the book is something I already have access to if I wanted it.
DeleteYes, you can get a signed book from one of the stops on Veronica's tour, and I feel sure that if you tell her you were involved with this challenge, she would show her appreciation to you and customize the inscription. But everyone can't go to a stop on the tour (myself included).
DeleteI would have liked the prize to be something amazing--like a sleepover with Veronica and the team, complete with ice cream sundaes and nail-painting and talking about how much Four makes us all swoon, but we didn't get that. I'm grateful that I got to take part in such an awesome promotion all the same, though.
Anyone can call one of the stores hosting the tour like Anderson's in IL and have the book personalized and shipped to you. Most stores will even ship international.
DeleteI really hope publishers learn from this "project". Harper really should have had an official page with all of the rules and explanation of what was going on. For those of us who follow a big chunk of the teams it felt like spam. I unfollowed a lot of people because of the constant tweets and retweets. I also don't believe this reached a large new audience. I read Insurgent before any of the Teams thing started and felt that the promotion was way too much. I was not part of any of the teams.
ReplyDeleteI think it would have been a good idea for Harper to say here is a list of task I'm going to need you to do and this is the prize. Then each blogger can say oh I can commit or no sorry it's too much. The mystery prize at the end felt like dangling a carrot in front of a horse.
Recently Penguin did a great promotion with Beth Revis where anyone who helped promote her first book was thanked in the acknowledgements and there were no hoops to jump through. I also think another great promotion is the YA Amazing Race.
I agree that for the most part this didn't reach many new people. And the "spamming" turned people off.
Delete"our followers have better things to do than click a link hundreds of times."
ReplyDeleteOk, now I love you.
But regarding everything else, I don't have much of an opinion since I wasn't really into the whole thing...though I admit the giveaway prizes tempted me. I am just not big on the series I guess? I admit to having Insurgent on my Kindle..but I haven't read more than three sentences..before realized I forgot much of what happened in Divergent. *sigh*
Lilian @ A Novel Toybox
How very short sighted of Harper Teen! Guess they don't care about the promo of future books if they're willing to tick bloggers off over one book.
ReplyDeleteCongrats to the winners and to the efforts of all!
I thought this whole event was shady from the start and that's why I didn't participate in any of the factions' activities. It seems that I was right.
ReplyDeleteKassiah,
ReplyDeleteYou make some valid points. I assure you the email we got clearly says: "That said, each of the 50 #DivergentNation bloggers will have their first names listed in a special acknowledgement section of the INSURGENT paperback release!!"
I sent dozens of emails asking Alison for clarification on clicks and this was the only clarification I got.
Hi Kathy,
Your excitement over this campaign is spectacular, but please understand that we have everything under control here. As I mentioned in my previous emails, we have access to the information in the screenshots that you have been sending as well as to other information that people outside of HarperCollins cannot see. Don't lose sight of the fact that a shared enthusiasm of the DIVERGENT trilogy is at the heart of this competition, so have fun and focus on spreading the love of a good book.
Keep up with the fantastic posts, and trust that we will handle the bit.ly tracking.
Thanks,
Alison
So I trusted that the bit.ly tracking was under control. That they had access to IP address or something that would discount the multiple clicks done in just a few minutes.
As far a claiming my divergence... I hated the way they set this challenge up. It could have been so much better if they'd let us work together.
I put up a post sharing my feelings: http://iamareadernotawriter.blogspot.com/2012/04/whats-been-going-on-in-my-head.html
And even ran it by Alison to be sure it wasn't a problem.
Hi Kathy,
Wow! Thanks so much for all of these incredible posts. I actually love that you support all the factions— very Divergent of you.
Best,
Alison
Of course I'm not going to drive traffic to the other teams links... I did however link to Erudite and Candor's giveaways since I felt those teams had not been supported either.
I can't tell you how many times I clicked on another faction's link through the course of this challenge based on a vague post on twitter. I didn't get upset that the deceived me into clicking. I understand why people could be upset with my Divergent posts.
My whole issue is that HarperTeen didn't clarify.
I understand where you are coming from as well, Kathy. I just think that Harper Collins not saying that "multiple clicks from one IP address would not count" means that they would. So, that's not cheating.
DeleteAs far as your Divergent posts go, I think they were a great idea! I even pointed them out to several of my friends. But when I clicked on the links (surely for Candor and Dauntless--I didn't check the others), they went to Team Abnegation, and I think that was deceptive. In my opinion, you shouldn't have linked those at all.
I hate that this competition has drawn the lines that it has, but mostly I hate the feeling that you have slandered an author that I love, a publisher that I enjoy getting books from, and a team full of people who worked their asses off.
Kathy, I thought your post was very diplomatic and spot on. I didn't get the impression that you were accusing the other teams of cheating. I think you were putting the blame where it belongs...on the people who organized the event in the first place. Those who are attacking you need to just stop. If they would have read your post carefully, they would have seen that it was not a post by a sore loser, but just someone who was frustrated about the way the whole thing was run. And yes, I know authors are busy and all that, but there really is no excuse for a promised 'appearance' to not be honored, especially if her support was shown for the other teams. Good for you, Kathy.
ReplyDeleteI understand that Kathy is disappointed with HarperCollins and the way they set this up, and I have no issue with her voicing that, although I still think that no one was forced to participate, but whatever.
DeleteI did read the post carefully and I still think that she is calling us cheaters. Perhaps if what she said was about you, you would feel differently. I think that all of the rest of the comments and replies support that she does in deed think we are cheaters, so saying she has nothing against us or congratulating us for winning while at the same time posting repeatedly her evidence to support her claim of our cheating seems exactly the opposite of each other.
I don't understand why we are seen as attacking, when in reality we are defending ourselves. We didn't ask for this at all, but we should have the right to defend ourselves, and believe me we talked about not responding at all, because it seemed so ludicrous for people to actually believe what was said. It was not until we started reading the comments that we decided it was time to defend ourselves and that saying nothing would probably eventually be construed as admitting guilt. Which we are not!
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you're speaking out and standing up for yourself, Kathy. It's ironic Candor means honesty above all else. And it is fishy they got a huge majority of clicks directly and not via bloggers. It's tremendous you led your team. I'll give you a $50 gift card for that many clicks on my next release! lol. But seriously, I thought you all were getting a trip or something of value from the endless promotion, not your name listed in the acknowledgments. I've done that for my street team regardless and no one ever did as much as this. hugs!
ReplyDeleteAre you implying that Candor cheated? I was a part of Candor Faction and I can assure you we did not cheat. I mean look at our clicks total; if we cheated then we were really bad at it ;)
DeleteNo one is implying Candor is cheating.
DeleteOops. No, Aeicha. I got the wrong faction. lol.
DeleteSo as a Candor, I value honesty so let's talk about my feelings about this post :)
ReplyDelete1) I think the prize in and of itself was being able to participate in a huge campaign like this. You got to meet new bloggers and if you didn't, you got to work with friends to do something amazing and YOU GOT TO READ INSURGENT EARLY. That was enough for me. So the fact you're grumbling about the prize makes you sound pretty ungrateful.
2) I find it very hypocritical to write that you don't like drama and then write a post like this accusing another team of cheating.
3) And yes, you were accusing the team of having people click links hundreds of times.
4) In the end, it's silly to point fingers on who won and who got the most clicks because all that matters is that we had fun and helped out. So i'm very sorry if you don't feel the same way.
Personally I believe getting your name in the acknowledgements is pretty awesome! Especially for a book with such a huge fan base! I mean, it's not fair that HarperTeen didn't do what they promised, but that's a pretty awesome prize! Especially, if you say you aren't after the prize, what does it matter then? And like Harmony said above, you had the opportunity to read a sequel that MANY people were dying to read EARLY ON!
ReplyDeleteI'm going to have to agree with the others above, not liking drama, but then writing a post about this...it does seem a little ungrateful...
Wow, as a fan of yours I can not believe you are being a sore loser like this. I agree with Amanda when she says you can not see the Ip address of where the clicks are coming from so your cheating claim is just wrong. If your faction had won and someone brought up these claims, I bet you would denying it all the way to the bank.
ReplyDeleteSince when is doing multiple clicks cheating? Over the past few weeks you clogged your blog with giveaways to get clicks and pleads to get clicks just like everyone else. You have your name put in the acknowledgement section of a book and you think that is not cool. That really seems ungrateful. If you don't care about the prize then why say your disappointed with it. It is coming across that because your such a big blogger you feel entitled to win. How can you congratulate someone and then accuse them of cheating. you say you don't want drama but how can you not think this would start drama?
If you were as upset with the publishing company as opposed to the bloggers as you said you are you would have emailed them personally instead of writing a post that you KNEW would start drama.
This is not that big of deal and it is sad that you are calling people cheaters because you didn't win. If you had won you would have been jumping up and down not pointing out the "faults" in other peoples team. This is disappointing to see a talented blogger sink low like this.
FYI - I have comment moderation in effect on my blog for posts older than 1 day old. If your comment doesn't show up right away it will once I approve it. I've allowed any and every one to comment on this post and have not deleted any comments. Since this post is now nearly a day old comments will likely start getting stopped for approval prior to being posted.
ReplyDeleteI'm almost scared to leave a comment on this post, LOL! - people obviously feel very passionately about the contest, the author, and the books. I can only hope my books arouse 1/10th of the support and dedication Ms. Roth's work has! :-)
ReplyDeleteAs an author, I did find this post helpful in thinking about how to ensure my promotions and contests are fun, fair, and leave people feeling good about their participation. This is an important reminder (to authors and publishers) that promotions and contests shouldn't just be about selling books or about what the author and/publisher get out of it, but about what the fans/readers get out of it. Thank you for that!
I agree with some of the other people who commented. I honestly didn't take this challenge that seriously. I did a few Insurgent-related posts and linked to our bit.ly on my blog and Twitter a couple times (plus the banner on my sidebar). A team member asked for some prizes in a contest and I offered some books up. So maybe that's why I don't feel as "lied to" or "used" or whatever.
ReplyDeleteI was happy just to be chosen and be one of 50 bloggers who got to read Insurgent early (though I thought we were the only 50 bloggers, but I see someone commented earlier as having read it early but didn't take part in the competition so I guess I'm wrong). And yes, my name is generic- James, but I'm pleased as punch that my name will be in the acknowledgments. No one aside from my friends will know it's me, but who cares?
As for the clicking, what's the difference between clicking twice in one day and clicking once one day, then again the next? It's still two clicks either way. The point was to get the most clicks, which to me means people can click as much as they want whenever they want. YOUR followers may not want to click on a link multiple times in a day, but perhaps MY followers do.
With Veronica, she's a busy woman, though I do wish she had taken the photos perhaps earlier in the month so that they would all show up on the date of each faction's day. But what can you do now? Nothing. I was part of Team Erudite so I was sad that a post didn't go up for us, but I got over it. I also didn't pay any attention to Facebook so can't complain about the non-postage.
Anyway, I just think this post is really just being silly. It was a fun campaign (surprised that some people thought the prize would be a trip or something) and no one was forced to do anything they didn't want to do. I made my contributions with what I had; I know they were small, but I'm broke and also not creative when it comes to book-related campaigns (I could never do character interviews). It just seems very petty and immature. Plus, why the heck were you monitoring the bit.ly's this whole time anyway? It just seems like you did really unnecessary, paranoid work.
I agree very much with your comments, this does sound petty and tracking links the whole does seem like paranoid and time wasting activity. Is this really something that needed to be posted and bring more drama to the blogger world on the heels of something that was REALLY WRONG...no!
DeleteI normally don't leave comments but really everyone needs to take a deep breath here.
ReplyDeleteIt's a just a book and contest.
Add just an ounce of perspective here and move on. There are things going on in the world that are far more tragic than speculating on clicks. ..
Wow, talk about a dividing rift between people! I'm going to honestly admit I'm half ignorant when it comes to the whole contest and what it was all about. What I do know is that I saw waaay too many posts about Team This and Team That to make me feel like I was being spammed. I love to read as much as the next person but it seems like an awful lot of hard work for a signed book. I have a blog myself that does several reviews and giveaways. I know that book review blogs are a little different than general product review and giveaway blogs, but I can almost guarantee that a lot of bloggers I know wouldn't have went through having to post, tweet, click, run giveaways, stand on their head as much as this was done.
ReplyDeleteDon't get me wrong, I know a lot of people did this for fun and everyone did it on their own free will. But it seems the only ones who actually received any real gain from it was the author and HarperTeen.
Kathy - I'm sorry the experience was unhappy for you. I agree that I don't like being lied to, misled or used. The campaign seemed a little over the top to me and I know that I wouldn't spend much time beyond an entry or two. It was a lot of work for you though. I've had publicists for whom I am promoting one book promise to send me another book but then never do. I've learned to let it slide. We will still do what we do for the love of books and sharing good reading with one another. Thanks for all of your hard work to share books with others.
ReplyDeleteI find this whole thing petty. What did this post accomplish? There was a particular tournament that I competed in and was promised by the author to do a character Q&A to help out with that tournament. Even though I took the time to type up the Q&A, the Q&A never happened. I will admit that I was irritated by it, but I also understood that this author is busy. I knew she was in the middle of writing another book, going to signings, and whatever else. Being angry about this is fine. Being irritated is understandable. But to be outright rude??? In my opinion, this is ridiculous! Get-over-it! Couldn't you have just addressed this to the publisher directly? Wouldn't that have been more constructive? In my opinion, I'm surprised that being offered to participate in the tournament should have been enough! I was actually sad that I couldn’t participate or get the chance to read Insurgent early, and I have no doubt that there is a ton of bloggers that were sad as well! Now, I think you have totally ruined this for the rest us bloggers! Why would a publisher want to do this again?
ReplyDeleteAnd to complain that your name is too common? That no one would know that is you? In my opinion I think that is totally awesome! We are talking about Insurgent here!!! I was totally ecstatic to have my first name in the acknowledgements of an Indie book! Even if your name was Mary, the thought that HarperCollins told you that they are talking about you directly…is totally awesome! I would be jumping up and down, dancing and twirling. To think that I could share pull out that copy of Insurgent and show to my grandchildren and say, "that is me!!!" would have me thrilled. Divergent and Insurgent are AWESOME books! You are not required to fork out your precious dollars or spend countless hours promoting this. I saw several bloggers not participating much at all!!! I could go on and on...but this is no longer worth my time!
When it comes to contests where it amounts to who clicks a link the most, it's going to come down to the fanatical ones who will stay at their computers day and night clicking, clicking, clicking. It isn't about the biggest fan or the person who does the most promoting or gets the most people to help. It's about the ones who can do nothing but "vote" or click a link.
ReplyDeleteI actually skipped over this whole thing when I saw it on any blog and didn't really pay a lot of attention to it because I'm just not into these types of contests (I agree with what Leah said before me).
ReplyDeleteI won a book from HarperTeen on Goodreads and never received it (no one who won it did) and at least three of us and Goodreads contacted them with no response. After my experience with them and seeing what went on with this contest, I think it's obvious that they're only interested in promoting their books and could care less about anything else.
I'm aware of other times when authors haven't done something they've promised and everyone says they're so busy, they have so much going on and they've apologized for whatever it was they didn't do. Yes, their main job is to write, but part of their job is also to do all of the other stuff, like visit bloggers' sites, contests, etc. I know that if I were to not do parts of my job after I've promised my coworkers and bosses something would get done, it would be viewed as unprofessional. If you're spread too thin, don't agree to do so much.
Regardless of the whole click scandal, I found this to be one of the most annoying promotions I've ever seen. I was excited the first day or two, until I realized that all the links being posted led to a page that wasn't great to begin with and was just about selling the book. And by the time the book actually came out, I was just relieved to be done with seeing the Team ____ posts on EVERY SINGLE BLOG. If I weren't already a fan of the series, it would have completely turned me off from the series and the author.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry that turned into such a big deal & I'm sooooo glad I wasn't participating. I clicked all over the place when I ran into opportunities, but the entire campaign was excessively pushy and divisive. And it's a great point you made that clicking to the page went nowhere... it was just an ad and I got tired of lookin' at it. Something with more content and less pointless clicking would be more effective, I think. 'Cause this whole thing was a turn-off.
ReplyDelete