Discussion Post #1 - Contest "hoops"

I’ve been scanning the contests around the book blogging community lately and I’ve got got a question/rant. What’s the deal with all the “hoops” you have to jump through to win a contest? Personally, for me it’s kind of a turn off to have to jump through various and assorted hoops to have a shot at winning a book. I can see having different rules if your giving away something like a Nook or some other “large ticket” item(s) but it just seems a little bit extreme for a book(s).

I even touched on this subject a little bit earlier this week in my “What You Will and Won’t See On My Blog in 2010″ post. I’ll admit that I’ve done a giveaway with all the “hoops” once but I found that it wasn’t near as fun for me as the two giveaways that I’ve got going on right now (see Contests/Giveaways page). I’m not trying to ruffle any feathers or upset anyone with this post…I guess I’m just trying to get a better understanding of how others conduct their giveaways and contests.

So in closing, I guess my random question for everyone is how do you run your giveaways/contests and why? I guess that’s more like 2 questions but I really am curious.