Update: If you publish through KDP, you can now run giveaways for Kindle ebooks.
Complete the welcome page. If you used the Twitter option, the image will automatically be your Twitter photo. Otherwise, you’ll be able to add your photo on the welcome page.
Proceed to checkout. You pay for the books plus estimated shipping charges. Read the terms carefully.
The giveaway will expire one week later. Only residents in the 50 US states and DC can enter the contest.
Amazon ships the products directly to the winners via standard shipping (3-5 days).
You’ll receive a link to your giveaway by email, separate from your payment confirmation email.
Use the words, “Enter for a chance to win.” Don’t say, “Enter to win.” The word “chance” is important. You don’t want to get into legal trouble because your contest was misleading.
Include an abbreviated version of the official rules and a link to the official rules. This is required in some states. Amazon suggests including the text, “NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Ends the earlier of DATE / TIME, or when all prizes are claimed. See Official Rules.” Then link to the official rules at http://amzn.to/GArules.
Of course, you also want to mention the product that you’re giving away (your book, for example, if you’re an author) and link to your Amazon giveaway.
When you tweet about your promotion, include the hashtag #AmazonGiveaway.
Promote your giveaway through your blog, your Facebook author page, Twitter, your website, an email newsletter, getting bloggers to promote your contest, or finding sites that promote contests, giveaways, or free products. There will probably be new sites and blogs growing to promote Amazon giveaways, with some specific to books.
I have two books in Amazon giveaways.
The giveaways on the US site are only available to US customers. But I haven’t checked the UK site to see if you can a giveaway from there.
I can’t find a reference to it yet. Hopefully they will roll it out eventually.
Chris, your blog posts are the best!