Ask Me Anything - Cutting Costs on Giveaways

Today's Question comes from Natalie @ Literary Rambles

Do your ads cover your postage and book hop giveaway costs? I give away a lot of books and don't want to stop but wonder if there's a way to cut costs.

At this point yes my ad revenue does cover the cost of postage and the gift cards I giveaway.  However that has not always been the case.  The first 2 years I had this blog I spent a lot of money on shipping and giveaways.  It wasn't uncommon for me to shell out $50-$75 a month sometime more.  Reading & blogging are my hobbies. People pour a lot of money into their hobbies be it exercise, scrapbooking, movies, skiing, going out with friends, shopping, etc.  As I don't spend money on most of those I'm willing to invest both time and money into reading and blogging.

Yes giveaways can be expensive however there are ways to cut costs.  I wrote a post last year about some of the things that can be done to offset the cost: The Price of Blogging.

The ideas in that post are still valid.  The only thing I have added is accepting ads through blogads.  For your blog to show up on blogads' sales page you need to have at least 3,000 page views a week.  It is kind of hit and miss.  Some months I sell ads and get a check others I don't.

Don't forget to always use media mail if you are shipping in the US.  I couldn't afford to do many giveaways if I had to ship first class or priority.  Nothing says you have to give away brand new books.  Some of my first giveaways were books from my own shelf or books I had found at garage sales or library sales.

Blogging doesn't have to cost any money. Giveaways are not a requirement. The library has free books and there are tons of free ebooks to download. The market is so saturated with new books that there are tons of authors desperate for reviews.  Many of them are willing to offer a giveaway or send you a review copy that you could then use for a giveaway.

The world of books & blogging is changing quickly.  I never would have guessed how quickly ebooks would become the norm instead of the exception.  I imagine within the next year we'll see a huge decline in printed ARCs and see we'll more and more books that are available only as ebooks.  More and more giveaways will be for ebooks only and that will remove a lot of the current cost of giveaways.


Now that I have rambled and gone off on a tangent I ask you - 

Do you have any other ideas on how to keep costs under control?  

What is your opinion on giveaways?  

What do you think of the prominence of ebooks? 

Do you think the blogging and book markets are saturated?

Where do you see the future of book blogging and reviewing headed?



Do you have a question for me? Send me an email toobusyreading(at)gmail(dot)com or fill out the form below.