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I just had this come through my email and felt the need to share. I love things like this. 🙂 Author Ashley March has started a new company called Book Giveaways Today. Website says it starts up in April 2011. From her blog post, she says:
To those of you who are my readers: Don’t worry. I’m still writing books. This is just another passion of mine.
One night a while ago when I was up in the middle of the night with the baby, I had an idea. That idea has evolved into a project of mine called Book Giveaways Today (www.bookgiveawaystoday.com). Book Giveaways Today is the parent company/site, with 10 different subsidiary sites:
Romance Giveaways (www.romancegiveaways.com)
eRomance Giveaway (www.eromancegiveaways.com)
YA Giveaways (www.yagiveaways.com)
Fiction Giveaways (www.fictiongiveaways.com)
eFiction Giveaways (www.efictiongiveaways.com)
Non-Fiction Giveaways (www.nonfictiongiveaways.com)
Kids’ Book Giveaways (www.kidsbookgiveaways.com)
Christian Book Giveaways (www.christianbookgiveaways.com)
Christian Fiction Giveaways (www.christianfictiongiveaways.com)
Christian eFiction Giveaways (www.christianefictiongiveaways.com)
At each of the sites listed above, you will be able to enter every single day for a chance to win 9 books. That’s a total of 90 books! The best part is that there’s no registration, no logging in, etc. All you have to do is enter your email address for the book that you are interested in winning. Another great thing? All of the giveaways are open to international residents.
If you prefer to read e-books, there are three sites dedicated just to e-books: eRomance Giveaways, eFiction Giveaways, and ChristianeFictionGiveaways. In addition, print books and e-books will be offered on the other seven sites. Self-published books can be found on the three dedication e-book sites, and also in their own separate category on the other seven sites.
And another very important thing, which I feel really strongly about: 10% of any proceeds received by Book Giveaways Today through author promotions or advertisements goes to ProLiteracy to help the fight against illiteracy.
So why did I want to create Book Giveaways Today? When the idea first came to me, my first thought was that it would simply be awesome. 90 books a day? Yes, my name is Ashley, and I’m an overachiever. I ran the idea past a few of my readers, and received some very excited, enthusiastic feedback. That’s when I knew that others would think it was just as awesome as I did.
But when I continued thinking about the idea (meaning, when I finally got a full five hours asleep after I put the baby back to bed), I came up with three reasons why I wanted to do this.
1) Supporting Authors
As an author, I know how difficult it is to get our names and books out there in front of readers who are actually interested in the types of books we read. I wanted to create a platform where readers would come to the authors. If I created only one website, that didn’t give all types of authors a chance to interact with readers. By creating ten different websites with various sub-genres/categories on each site, people who like to read specific books can easily find the authors who write them. In addition, because I’m an author and know what our budgets look like, I wanted to create a promotional avenue that wasn’t cost-prohibitive.
2) Growing the Reading Community
If you’re a reader like me, you love free books. Who wouldn’t? And a chance to win the type of books you like to read every single day…? As I said above, that’s just plain awesome. But beyond the great opportunities readers have to win free books, my dream is for readers to tell others about what they’re reading, to write reviews, to spread information about the books they win through word of mouth. I want Book Giveaways Today to spark a reading community throughout the world, larger than the one we already have.
To that end, each site will include online book clubs for each category inside that site. (For example, in Romance Giveaways, there will be book clubs for historical romance, paranormal romance, contemporary romance, etc.) This way, people who don’t have an opportunity or the time to join a book club in their city can come together and discuss books with other fellow readers. The books chosen each month for the book clubs are chosen by you–when you enter to win a book each day, after you read about that book (including an excerpt), you’ll be able to nominate that book for the next month’s book club. The book in that category that has the most nominations becomes the next month’s book club. This way, the book isn’t just a random title selected by Book Giveaways Today; it’s a book that most of the readers thought looked interesting and decided they wanted to invest their time and money (if they didn’t win it!) to discuss it online.
And because I love giving things away (as those of you who follow me on Facebook already know), each site will feature a readers rewards program: the more you interact in the online book clubs and the other future programs we’re planning, the more points you receive. And when you get a certain number of points, you can earn a prize. Think of it like your grocery store club card–only a lot, lot better.
3) Fighting Illiteracy
As I mentioned above, 10% of all proceeds through author promotions and advertising will go toward fighting illiteracy by donations to ProLiteracy. This simply makes sense to me. If one of the goals of Book Giveaways Today is to grow the reading community, then the best way we can do this is by helping others learn how to read. I know some people choose not to read, but I think everyone wants to read should be able to.
And that’s about it: Supporting Authors. Growing the Reading Community. Fighting Illiteracy.
The first site to be launched will be Romance Giveaways, coming in April 2011. If you’re a romance reader, be sure to sign up for the launch notification on www.romancegiveaways.com. Also, you can follow Romance Giveaways on Facebook and have a chance to win one book every day (soon it will be 9 books each day in April!).
If you’re an author, publisher, or advertiser interested in learning how you can promote with Book Giveaways Today, you can email me at: ashley@bookgiveawaystoday.com.
Thanks for reading about my new project!
How cool does this sound? I wish I had thought of something like this but am very happy to help get the word out for Ashley. So go! Go sign up for the newsletter. Sign up for whatever genre grabs your attention. Have fun & Good Luck! 🙂 You can also find them at Twitter and on Facebook.
This is very cool, indeed. Plus, it’s a great way to discover new authors. Thanks for sharing!