The Storygraph ~ the Good and the Bad

I've been sitting on The Storygraph's next giveaway round for a while, ambivalent about whether I wanted to give it a go. A giveaway (the cheapest one) costs $69.00, which is a bit more expensive than FreeBooksy, but the site dangles reviews in front of us, and for sure I've never gotten a book review from my FreeBooksy promos.

I'll say at the outset that The Storygraph's website is clunky and non-intuitive. It may work well for readers, but I'm on the other side of the equation. I'd already added my novel when I first learned about the site, so at least I was able to skip that step when I tried to set up my giveaway. And The Storygraph does supply a handbook with setup instructions. Really important! Because some fields are vague.

Before I could even prepare my giveaway, I needed to pay. Fine. I'd made the commitment, so I forked over my $69.00. Then it took me to the field for adding my book ID. Where was that? I went to my profile, I tried searching my book, I tried any logical place where that ID might be. Finally, I realized that when I clicked on my book, the web address included by book ID. 

But now I was no longer on the giveaway screen. I found my way back to it and started filling in the fields. Then it wanted to know what my novel's moods and pace are. Pace is kind of nebulous in my mind. Doesn't it depend on the individual reader? I hedged my bets and chose "medium". For moods, I could pick three. I believe I went with emotional, reflective, and hopeful. In order to do that, I had to edit my book details, which once again took me away from the giveaway screen. 

I chose to award 100 digital copies (I'll never get that many entries), and those copies will be sent in-app, because I uploaded the PDF. 

Great. All ready to go, except...

The tutorial says:

 

 

 

Nope! Mine is in "draft". There is no "ready to be published?" box. Well, I don't know what could be missing and I received no email, so I had to contact them. No response. To be fair, they're located in the UK and it was Friday (morning, but still), so maybe they'll respond on Monday, but no one should have to go through this hassle.

Luckily, I have my emailed receipt, so whether transferring away from the giveaway page to try to find all the required info screwed the whole thing up or not, I did pay! So, they won't be able to pull out that excuse.

This is all extremely frustrating. If The Storygraph's staff turns out to be unhelpful, I'll demand a refund. And, of course, only later did I do a Google search for author reviews of the site's giveaways, and they were not promising. Most authors note that there were no resultant reviews posted. Many are suspicious that their books were even read by the winners. 

Right now I'm kicking myself. Considering my finances, $69.00 is a big deal for me. I'd love to know why so many people are touting the site. Is it just me? Am I the loser? No kidding; every author or "expert" I read before doing a deep dive said the site is a revelation. I've gotta stop believing hype. Damn it, April!

Oops, I just realized that I titled this post, "The Good and the Bad", so I need to come up with "the good". 

Well, I like the layout. Is that something? A reader can filter books by genre and mood, so hypothetically I could get the "right" readers. It does carry over reviews from Goodreads, which I discovered when I noticed my novel had one review (yes, one) that sounded awfully familiar and realized I'd already seen it on Goodreads. (My book does have more than one Goodreads review, so I have no explanation for why only one shows up.)

That's pretty much it. If I get my issue resolved and the giveaway goes live, I'll provide an update as to how it went. 

Let's just say I'm not feeling optimistic.