Disclaimer: This post is just about sharing my thoughts rather than giving any explanation or blaming anyone about what happened during my May FabBag giveaway.

Hi everyone! I just finished hosting a giveaway a day before and declared the results yesterday. Immediately afterwards, a participant started sending me tweets that the winner had copied some of her tweets and hence didn’t deserve to win. I was not online so probably a couple of hours later when I logged in I found both of the ladies being a bit nasty to each other about the whole ordeal.
Somewhere in between, the participant started saying things to me. It was not something nice to deal with, considering that I am spending my money on this giveaway and I did not say anything to her.
I still looked into her accusations about the tweet copy thing and did find a few of them quite similar. I told her that I did see the resemblance in a few tweets but also that the winner had participated on the blog, facebook, Instagram in addition to Twitter. I urged both of them to deal with the issue gracefully.
Now this participant started saying a few more things to me but I did not reply. She later blocked me. I have no problems with any of that. The only thing is that people make a big deal out of such little things. People can have their opinions, I have no problem with that but I have zero tolerance for disrespectful behavior.
Here’s the deal, giveaways are time-consuming and unless a company is sponsoring, they cost money but I don’t know about others, I like to do them to reward my readers and also get a chance to get a new audience. And there is nothing wrong with that in my dictionary.
It would be easy for me to do a Rafflecopter giveaway and pick a random winner based on a number but it is so random (I have done that 3 times for my International giveaways) and I always felt that the reward went to someone who might have just followed the steps and not spent a minute on the blog or be even remotely interested in the blog.
So I decided to do it manually and see participation – how many tweets, facebook shares, interaction with me etc. a subscriber has done and picking up a winner based on that. I am not into boot-licking so I never ask for people to butter me up, infact I hate that. I like honest and open interaction, anyone who has interacted with me might already know that. This giveaway technique worked well last time and I got two lovely Internet friends – Farhana and Ritu Rawat – from that.
I expected the same this time.
Anyhow, I cannot control what others think but all I can say is that whether it is a review, a giveaway or anything in life – I am as honest as anyone can be. This is my blog and I work hard every single day for it, I am going to make decisions my way. If anyone has any problem with how I handle things, they can exit my internet world and remove me from theirs. I am ok with people not liking me or not agreeing with me. I like to be fair but I am not here to please anyone.
I hope I am not blowing this issue ridiculously out of proportion. I am not looking for approval or anything from this post, please so not feel the need to do anything for this particular issue.
I just wanted to share the story behind what happened yesterday as I am not the one to bite my tongue. And yes, the winner of that giveaway is still going to get her prize.
Now that I have dealt with the little negative side of the giveaway, let me take this opportunity to also thank everyone who has participated in this giveaway and made it a success. All of you have been so gracious about the results the whole giveaway thing and also being supportive of the blog. Thank you!