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A few points about the service:
- Products must be selected from the Amazon catalog. This excludes eBooks, but can include anything from paperbacks, jewelry, music, household items, clothing, etc. Eligible products will have a giveaway option on the footer of their Amazon product page.
- There are two options for setting up your Amazon giveaway. Awarding the first winners who enter in order to initiate a rush to secure the prize or picking a random entrant number as the winner. For instance, if you are giving out two books, you can choose the winner to be every 100 person who clicks to enter. Giveaways run for a week or until the prizes are claimed.
- You can choose one of two ways for participants to enter. You can just have them click the entry button on the giveaway link or you can have them follow you on Twitter. No other entry options are currently available.
- Checkout is done before the giveaway goes live. Once you enter your payment details, Amazon will take care of the rest. They'll charge your card once winners are selected and mail out the prize directly to the winners. The only downfall of this option for authors is that you won't be able to send signed books.
- Amazon sets up the Giveaway link and shares the link with you via email. You can share the link via email, Facebook and Twitter. An Amazon Giveaway hashtag is included in the tweet to help others find your giveaway.
- The Amazon Giveaways seem to have a substantial reach. Besides sharing the link on Twitter and Facebook, I haven't done major promotion, but I have still seen a dramatic jump in my number of Twitter followers since the giveaway launched.
- One bummer about the service is you can't use your Prime membership for shipping. You must pay the standard rate for each item. Giveaways are open to US residents only.
