You can run a legally compliant book giveaway in a single afternoon, and the platform you pick matters less than the two things most authors skip: written official rules and a plan for what happens to entrants who do not win.
In this guide, you will learn:
- Which giveaway platform fits your budget, from free to $599
- The exact entry, shipping, and winner-selection mechanics for each one
- The sweepstakes rules that turn a harmless giveaway into a legal problem
- How to convert non-winners into buyers instead of losing them
Here is the process, start to finish.
What Is a Book Giveaway?
Book giveaway — A promotion where an author distributes free copies of a book to randomly selected or algorithmically matched entrants, usually in exchange for an email address, a review, or platform visibility.
The point is almost never the copies themselves. A Goodreads giveaway with 800 entrants generates 800 Want to Read shelf adds whether you ship one copy or a hundred, and those shelf adds surface your book in eight hundred friend feeds.
That distinction drives every decision below. You are buying attention and contact data, not distributing product.
Step 1: Decide What the Giveaway Is Actually For
Pick one goal before you pick a platform. Giveaways optimized for email addresses look nothing like giveaways optimized for reviews.
Email list growth. You need entrants to hand over an address you control. BookSweeps, KingSumo, and your own landing page do this. Goodreads does not — you never see entrant emails.
Reviews. You need copies in the hands of people who habitually review. LibraryThing Early Reviewers and a managed ARC team do this far better than a random-draw sweepstakes.
Visibility and shelf adds. You need volume and platform-native distribution. This is the one job Goodreads does genuinely well.
Launch buzz. You need concentrated activity in a short window, which usually means Instagram plus your existing list, timed against your book launch checklist.
Trying to hit all four with one giveaway produces a promotion that does none of them. Our book giveaway strategy guide goes deeper on matching goals to formats.
Step 2: Choose Your Giveaway Platform
Five platforms cover nearly every author use case. Prices below were checked in August 2026, but every one of these companies changes pricing without notice — confirm on the vendor page before you commit.
Our Pick — Chapter
Chapter is not a giveaway platform, and we will not pretend otherwise. It is what most authors actually need first: the thing you give away has to exist and has to be good. Chapter turns an outline into a finished, formatted nonfiction manuscript you can hand to a giveaway platform the same week.
Best for: Authors who need a second book, a lead-magnet novella, or a companion guide to use as the giveaway prize Pricing: $97 one time, 2 books included (fiction or nonfiction), 30-day money-back guarantee Why we built it: 10,000+ authors have used Chapter to write books, and the single most common giveaway mistake we see is authors burning promotion budget on the only book they have instead of writing a purpose-built giveaway title.
If you already have the book, here are the giveaway platforms themselves.
1. Goodreads Giveaways — Best for shelf adds
Goodreads runs two paid tiers: $119 Standard and $599 Premium. Standard covers up to 100 copies of one book in one format. Premium adds featured placement on the Giveaways page and nothing else material.
Entry is US and Canada only, which is the hard limit for international authors. Kindle giveaways require the ebook to be live on KDP for automatic delivery. Print giveaways mean you buy and ship the copies yourself on top of the $119.
Every entrant auto-adds your book to Want to Read. That is the product you are buying. Our Goodreads Author Program guide breaks down the pricing tiers, timing rules, and eligibility in full detail.
Pricing: $119 Standard, $599 Premium, plus print and shipping costs
2. BookSweeps — Best for email list growth
BookSweeps runs genre-matched group giveaways where a dozen or more authors pool prizes and split the resulting signups. Standard promotions run around $50, dropping to roughly $25–$35 for repeat authors. A newer viral list builder runs about $250 and can produce thousands rather than hundreds of signups.
There is a free Premium Follower Promotion tier with an optional $25 visibility upgrade, and an Everlasting List Builders subscription at roughly $100 per month per genre.
The tradeoff is entrant intent. Group giveaway signups are colder than direct subscribers because entrants opted into a prize, not into you. Expect higher unsubscribe rates on the first two emails.
Pricing: Free tier available; $50 standard; ~$250 viral builder; ~$100/mo ELB
3. LibraryThing Early Reviewers — Best for honest reviews, free
LibraryThing Early Reviewers costs nothing to offer books through. You supply the copies, LibraryThing matches them to members using an algorithm rather than a random draw, and batches go out monthly.
Recent batches have run 250 to 270 titles and roughly 3,100 to 3,400 total copies, promoted to close to 100,000 participating Early Reviewer members and a newsletter list of over a million.
Reviews are honest, not guaranteed positive, and the review rate is imperfect. But algorithmic matching to readers who already collect your genre beats a lottery every time. Pair it with a broader Amazon review strategy.
Pricing: Free to offer; you cover copies and shipping
4. KingSumo — Best for self-hosted viral giveaways
KingSumo is a giveaway engine you run on your own site, sold as a one-time $49 lifetime deal through AppSumo with a free tier that already includes unlimited giveaways and website embedding.
The $49 tier unlocks custom branding, conversion tracking, custom form fields, and integrations with Mailchimp, ConvertKit, and Klaviyo. The signature mechanic is bonus entries for referrals, which is where the viral loop comes from.
You own every email address, and you control the entry mechanics entirely. You also supply all the traffic — KingSumo has no reader audience of its own.
Pricing: Free tier; $49 one-time for Pro
5. Instagram — Best for launch-week visibility
Instagram giveaways cost nothing but carry the most compliance risk. Meta’s promotion guidelines require you to state that the promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed, administered by, or associated with Instagram, and that entrants release Meta from liability.
Meta’s current published guidelines also say promotions must not require or incentivize participants to share, repost, or tag others — the exact mechanic most author giveaways use. Older archived versions of the policy omit that line, which is why enforcement feels arbitrary.
Run it if launch buzz is the goal, keep entry to comment-and-follow, and pair it with the tactics in our BookTok and social promotion guide.
Pricing: Free
Quick Comparison Table
| Platform | Best For | Price | Own the Emails? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chapter (our product) | Writing the giveaway book itself | $97 one-time | N/A |
| Goodreads Giveaways | Shelf adds and visibility | $119 / $599 | No |
| BookSweeps | Email list growth | Free–$250 | Yes |
| LibraryThing Early Reviewers | Honest reviews | Free | No |
| KingSumo | Self-hosted viral loops | Free / $49 | Yes |
| Launch-week buzz | Free | No |
If none of these fit, our roundup of book promotion sites covers the wider paid-promo landscape.
Step 3: Understand the Sweepstakes Legal Basics
This section is general information, not legal advice. Consult a qualified attorney before running any promotion, especially one with a prize pool over $500.
Most authors assume “it is just a free book” puts them outside the law. It does not. In the United States a promotion is legally a sweepstakes the moment you award a prize by chance.
The three-element test
Regulators look for three elements. A promotion with all three is an illegal lottery unless you are a licensed operator.
- Prize — something of value is awarded
- Chance — winners are selected randomly rather than on merit
- Consideration — entrants give up money or significant effort to enter
Remove any one element and you are legal. Sweepstakes remove consideration (“no purchase necessary”). Contests remove chance (winners judged on skill). Book giveaways are almost always sweepstakes.
No purchase necessary
This is the element authors break most often. If entry requires buying the book, buying anything, or paying shipping, you have introduced consideration and created a lottery.
Requiring an email address is generally fine. Requiring a purchase, a donation, or a fee is not. If you want to run a “buy the book, get entered” mechanic, you must offer a free alternate method of entry with equal odds.
Official rules
Write them before the giveaway opens and link them from every entry page. At minimum, cover:
- Who is eligible (age minimum, countries or states)
- Start and end dates with time zone
- How to enter, and any free alternate method of entry
- Prize description and approximate retail value
- How and when winners are selected and notified
- Sponsor name and contact address
- “No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited.”
The Federal Trade Commission’s guidance on prizes and sweepstakes sets the baseline expectation: material terms must be clear, conspicuous, and not misleading.
State registration and bonding
Three states impose extra requirements once a prize pool crosses a threshold.
| State | Threshold | Requirement |
|---|---|---|
| New York | Over $5,000 total prize value | Register and post a surety bond; file 30 days before launch; winners list due 90 days after |
| Florida | Over $5,000 total prize value | Register and bond with the Dept. of Agriculture and Consumer Services at least 7 days before start |
| Rhode Island | Over $500 | Register with the Secretary of State — only for promotions run at a physical retail location in the state |
A typical author giveaway of ten paperbacks has a prize value under $200 and triggers none of this. But a multi-author group giveaway with a Kindle, a signed set, and a critique package can cross $5,000 faster than you expect. That is the moment to call a lawyer, not to guess.
Rhode Island’s rule is narrower than it looks: a purely online sweepstakes with no brick-and-mortar entry point does not trigger it, even if Rhode Islanders enter.
The 1099 threshold
If a single winner’s prize is valued at $600 or more, US tax rules generally require you to collect a W-9 and issue a Form 1099-MISC. Book prizes rarely reach this. Bundled prizes with electronics or coaching sometimes do.
Platform rules stack on top
Meta, Goodreads, and every other platform impose their own terms in addition to the law. Complying with one does not excuse the other. Read the platform’s promotion policy before you build the entry mechanic, not after.
Step 4: Set Up the Giveaway
The mechanics are the same everywhere, only the interface changes.
Set the window. Seven to fourteen days is the sweet spot. Shorter and you miss the weekend browsers; longer and urgency evaporates. Goodreads permits anywhere from one week to 30 days and requires at least a three-day lead time before the start date.
Choose the copy count deliberately. More copies do not mean more entrants — the entry count is driven by placement and promotion, not by odds. Five to ten print copies is plenty for most authors. Ebooks cost you nothing per copy, so give away as many as the platform allows.
Write the entry page like a book blurb. Entrants skim. Lead with the hook, name the genre and comparable titles, and keep it under 100 words.
Set up the email capture. If you own the entrant data, the confirmation email is the most valuable message you will ever send this reader. Have it written before the giveaway opens.
Test the delivery path. Send yourself the ebook through whatever mechanism you have chosen. BookFunnel exists specifically because manually emailing EPUB files to a hundred strangers goes wrong in a dozen ways.
Step 5: Promote the Giveaway
A giveaway nobody sees is just an expense. Budget as much promotion effort as the platform fee.
- Email your existing list first. Your subscribers should hear about it before strangers do. It rewards them and it seeds early entry volume, which most platforms use as a ranking signal.
- Post the entry link three times, not once. Announce at open, remind at the halfway mark, and post a final-24-hours warning. The last one reliably outperforms the first.
- Ask your launch team. If you have built a book launch team, a coordinated share on day one costs nothing and multiplies reach.
- Pair it with a price promotion. Running a 99-cent promotion on book one while giving away book two converts entrants who cannot wait for the draw.
Step 6: Ship the Prizes and Follow Up
Winner fulfillment is where goodwill is won or lost.
Ship within a week. Goodreads gives you six weeks for print copies. Take one. Padded mailers and media mail keep US shipping to a few dollars per copy.
Never share winner addresses. You received personal data to fulfill a prize. Use it for that, delete it after, and say so in your official rules.
Ask for a review once, gently. Include a printed card with the book: a thank-you, a link to your review page, and an explicit note that an honest review of any rating is welcome. Never condition the prize on a positive review — that violates both Amazon’s policies and FTC endorsement guidance.
Email the non-winners. This is the step almost everyone skips, and it is where the return lives. Ninety-something percent of your entrants lost. Send them a genuinely useful consolation: the first three chapters free, a companion worksheet, or a discount code. They raised their hand for your book — treat them as warm leads, not as losers.
That consolation email is the bridge between a giveaway and a business. Our guide to email list building for authors covers what to send them next.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Requiring a purchase to enter. This converts a legal sweepstakes into an illegal lottery. There is no small-scale exemption.
- Running with no written official rules. Rules protect you from disputes and are required by most platforms regardless of prize size.
- Giving away your only book. If a reader wins your sole title, you have nothing left to sell them. Write the second one first.
- Ignoring non-winners. The 95% who lost are the actual asset. Losing them is losing the entire ROI.
- Measuring success by sales during the giveaway. Giveaways build shelf adds, addresses, and reviews. Sales come later, if at all, and judging on same-week revenue will make you quit a working tactic.
- Stacking prizes past $5,000 without checking registration. Group giveaways cross state thresholds easily and the penalties are not trivial.
How Much Does It Cost to Run a Book Giveaway?
Running a book giveaway costs between $0 and roughly $700 depending on platform. LibraryThing Early Reviewers and Instagram are free. KingSumo is $49 once. BookSweeps standard promotions run about $50. Goodreads charges $119 or $599. Add print copies and shipping on top of any of them.
For most self-published authors, the realistic first-giveaway budget is $50 to $170: one platform fee plus ten paperbacks and media mail postage.
How Many Entries Should You Expect?
Entry counts vary enormously by platform and genre, but the pattern is consistent: platform-native giveaways with existing reader traffic out-draw self-hosted ones by an order of magnitude. Goodreads giveaways routinely draw several hundred to a few thousand entries. A KingSumo giveaway on a new author site may draw dozens unless you drive the traffic yourself.
Judge the result on cost per entrant and cost per email address, not on raw count.
How Long Should a Book Giveaway Run?
A book giveaway should run seven to fourteen days. That window is long enough to catch two weekends of browsing traffic and short enough to preserve urgency. Goodreads allows one week to 30 days. Instagram giveaways work best at three to seven days, because feed content moves fast and a long window kills momentum.
Do You Need a Lawyer to Run a Book Giveaway?
You do not need a lawyer for a small, low-value book giveaway with clear official rules, no purchase requirement, and a prize pool well under $500. You should consult one when the prize pool exceeds $5,000, when you run a multi-author group promotion, or when you offer entry outside the United States, where consumer promotion law differs by country.
FAQ
Is it legal to run a book giveaway?
Yes, running a book giveaway is legal in the United States as long as it is structured as a sweepstakes: no purchase necessary, clear written official rules, and random winner selection. Requiring a purchase to enter introduces consideration, which makes the promotion an illegal lottery.
Do you need official rules for a small book giveaway?
Yes, you need official rules even for a small book giveaway. Rules must state eligibility, entry period, prize value, winner selection method, sponsor identity, and the phrase “no purchase necessary, void where prohibited.” Most platforms require them regardless of prize size, and they protect you in disputes.
Are Goodreads giveaways worth $119?
Goodreads giveaways are worth $119 if your goal is Want to Read shelf adds and platform visibility, not direct sales. Every entrant automatically shelves your book, exposing it to their friend feed. Authors expecting immediate sales are consistently disappointed — treat it as a visibility purchase.
Can you ask giveaway winners for a review?
You can ask giveaway winners for an honest review, but you cannot require or condition the prize on one, and you cannot request a positive review specifically. Doing so violates Amazon’s review policies and FTC endorsement guidance. Include a polite request card and leave it there.
Can international authors run book giveaways?
International authors can run giveaways on LibraryThing, BookSweeps, KingSumo, and Instagram, but Goodreads Giveaways are limited to entrants residing in the US and Canada. Non-US authors should also check their own country’s promotion laws, which are often stricter than US sweepstakes rules.
What do you do with giveaway entrants who did not win?
Send non-winners a consolation offer within 48 hours of announcing the winner: free sample chapters, a companion resource, or a discount code. These entrants already signaled interest in your book, and this email is where most of a giveaway’s actual return on investment is realized.
Where to Go From Here
Pick one goal, pick the platform that serves it, write the official rules, and run it for two weeks. Then email the people who did not win.
If the giveaway exposed a bigger gap — you only have one book to give away — that is the real problem to solve. Chapter turns an outline into a finished nonfiction manuscript for $97 one-time, which is less than a single Goodreads Standard giveaway costs.
For more formats and prize ideas, see our list of book giveaway ideas, and for the broader campaign context, our book marketing guide.
