Give Aways - Ack

So, I finally ran my first give away/contest on my blog. It started on the 9th and I closed it with a drawing on the 13th. It was an interesting experience and not one I'm sure I'll repeat. It's not that it was "difficult" to do. The thing itself was simple. I'm given some thing to give away, I post the info on my blog. I then let the readers take over. I used random.org to pick a comment number and thus the winner. I let the winner know. Give away over as far as the blog side is concerned.

What bothers me is the detail. The rules that need to be lain out ahead of time. It's easy to get lost in the rules and keep wanting to add to them to make sure all the bases are covered. As a mom, I don't have time to evaluate all the rules. So, I think the next time, if there is one, I'll make sure whoever is giving me a prize gives me the rules too. That way, if it's not done to spec, they can't complain. (Not that they did this time, but still..)

Then there's the coordination of getting the prize to the winner. In theory, this can be easy. In reality, nothing ever is. Of course, timing is everything. If people have a time line to get the prize to folks, they need to make sure that they're on top of it as well. Of course, as the person running the give away, I have to make sure *I* have time to stay on top of it. Me? Time? REALLY?

At any rate, it was an interesting experience. I'll have to think harder about it before I do it again.