Hi!  I'm Cerys.

My friends know me as something of a quirky and fun author, but I love telling romance stories, whether serious or more light-hearted, and I've been at it for years now.

It's nice to meet you.  I'll be your question answerer for the day.

I have years of experience in publishing, specifically with romance.  I know the genre intimately and I have helped many authors with their marketing strategies in the past.  I am also passionate about romance novels!

I think that's a good start, but obviously you need a little more than that.

What I offer is my expertise in marketing and the various romance genres to bring something custom made and cherry picked that I know your readers will love.  I'll have giveaways for the top genres, either currently trending or evergreen, and each one will be a little different from the last.

While this is mainly a promotional experience, I want it to be more of an active and collaborative one, too.

Mainly, this is brought to you by a romance author and reader who understands the genre very well.  Wouldn't you rather join someone who actually knows what your readers want instead of going somewhere generic that doesn't care?

The short answer is that I don't know!

The long answer is that instead of being shortsighted and allowing every author who fills out a form and pays for the privilege of being involved in one of my giveaways, I'm taking a more curated approach.

Instead of a guaranteed spot, every author who shows interest will go through a vetting process.  This isn't going to be too complicated, but I want to make sure that I've got a good mix of authors that fit for the giveaway, and I'm going to do my due diligence there.

This means, for example, if I think you'd be a good fit for a future giveaway, I'll let you know.  This does not mean that I won't allow any newer or blossoming authors, though.  I want to have a mix of higher profile authors along with up-and-comers, and anywhere in between, so as to provide everyone's readers with the best experience possible.

Bookfunnel or Instafreebie are the easiest ways.  I'm slightly partial to Bookfunnel, but Instafreebie works just as well in most cases.

You can also gift people the book directly from Amazon, which might be the best option for authors in Kindle Unlimited (for exclusivity reasons).

Pick one and go with it!

Short answer: On average, I expect you'll gain 500 – 1000 new readers.

Longer answer: It's going to depend on the giveaway you join.  My goal is to make sure that every giveaway has the best chance, but some will be slightly more niche than others.  Please know that even if you get less new readers from a giveaway, they're going to be GOOD readers.

Example: Contemporary romance is a broader genre than, say, Small Town romance, but that latter may have much more dedicated readers that are interested in your specific book.

Great question!  It's also probably one that only you can answer.

I reserve the right to gently recommend you join a different giveaway or join with a different book, but generally speaking you're the one who is going to know your book best.

It may not be a great idea to join a Sports Romance giveaway when your hero only spends a short part of one scene in the entire book playing basketball with a friend.  If the book is based around a basketball player, have at it, though!

Some genres are more open than others, like Contemporary Romance or Romantic Comedy, so those would be a good start.

Like I said, you know your book best, so generally I'm going to defer to you at first.  If I think something seems off, I'll contact you about it so we can discuss more.  If you're not sure about your book, you can always email me in advance or mention something in the notes section of the application form.

There's always a catch, isn't there?

Thankfully mine is a simple one!  For the benefit of everyone involved, you'll be expected to share the giveaway on Facebook and to your current newsletter subscribers.  This is a mandatory requirement for everyone.  Authors who refuse will be denied entry from future giveaways and may not receive a list of new readers to contact.

I will also partner with a few blogs and romance websites to share the giveaway with their fans.

Honestly, it's not that hard.  The Golden Rule, you know?  If you want other authors to let their readers know about you through the giveaway, then let your readers know about them.

Sharing is caring and friendship is magic and all of that.  Let's just be nice to each other.  It's a lot more fun!

Shhhh!

Maybe…?

I'm working on getting everything running smoothly first, but in the future I plan to do special giveaways for the authors who put in the most effort in making sure each giveaway they're in succeeds gloriously.

There's a lot that I'll be taking into consideration.  The easiest way to have your name considered would be to join multiple giveaways with multiple different books.

Depending on the giveaway, I'll contact all of the readers, do a little scrubbing if I find out they aren't interested learning more about your books, and then I'll let them know you'll be contacting them soon and pass their emails on to you.

I will also provide you with a list of the winners so you can send them your prize book.  Please email them as soon as you can.

Along with that, I'll be working on a fun method of introducing yourself to your new prospective readers so that they'll know what they're getting into.  This part is optional, but it comes from experience and working through it myself, so I recommend at least putting some of it into action.

Mainly, I'll make everything as simple as possible for you.

Whoa whoa whoa, calm down for a second!

Yes, you can probably participate.  These giveaways are open to traditionally published authors, indie authors, and anything in between.  As long as you can legally put your book up on Bookfunnel or Instafreebie so that you can share it with the giveaway winners, you should be good to go.

If you're traditionally published, you may wish to contact your agent or publisher first to make sure everything's all set, but I imagine most of them would be happy you're taking the initiative to build up your platform and reach new readers.

I can't personally police everything and I don't know your situation, so I'm just going to take it on good faith that you can participate if you tell me you can.  You're going to know better than I do.

No, I'm sorry.  I have enough cats.

What you can do is enter one of my giveaways, though!  Some of the proceeds will go towards buying my cats food, and maybe toys.  I like to get them stuff.  They're kind of spoiled.  They even have an automatic food dispenser, but that's mostly so I don't get woken up with a paw to the face when they get hungry in the middle of the night.  It's quite handy!

They're cute cats.  I'll send you pictures if you want.  Just let me know!

I'm still here!  Don't worry!

If you have a question that I haven't answered, please feel free to email me at cerys@cherrylily.com and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.  It usually won't take long unless I'm on a mini-vacation because I like to take those sometimes.  Even then, I'll probably answer because I like checking my emails.  It's like treasure and you never know what you'll find sometimes.

But yes, definitely contact me if you have any questions!  I'll try to add it to the FAQ for other authors if it's a general one, or else I'm sure I can answer your specific questions, too.  I would be happy to do so! 🙂