Blog Tour de Troops

We were in the thick of author Cage Match, the hugely successful tour of Blog Tour de Force. The next Bestseller For a Day was only two weeks away. Known for her brilliant ideas, Carolyn McCray warned the Indie Book Collective volunteer staff to buckle in.

She had another gem.

Blog Tour de Troops! Memorial Day weekend, four days of a blog hop style tour where every single commenter got a free ebook from every participating author.

Yes. Every single commenter.

AND, for every commenter, one for a troop, too!

Plus a Kindle given away to a commenter and (hopefully) multiple Kindles to the troops.

Whoa. Wow! Everyone on the call got chills.

We only had a few weeks to put word out, coordinate the authors, create a theme, collect a $15 buy-in from each author to go toward the Kindles and cross all fingers.

In essentially two weeks time, we rallied 33 authors, focused on gratitude and rode a wild wave of support for four amazing days.

Just under 5000 comments came in. That means just under 5000 free ebooks went out plus one for a troop.

Comments ranging from high-five’s for the cause to heartfelt, heart wrenching stories about our troops filled each author’s blog. Words can’t encompass the gratitude felt by the authors over the reader response. But one author hoped we could all show it with a number.

10,000.

Augusto Pinaud suggested we collectively contribute enough of our ebooks to the troops, about a 3:1 troops to comment ratio, until we could give 10,000 ebooks of the 40 or so titles to our troops!

I still get chills typing that number.

Not only that, but thanks to outside donations along with the author buy-ins, we got 7 Kindles to the troops!

And we are doing it again. 

Bigger and better, on November 11th weekend for Veteran’s Day! Our new goal is to gather 100 authors and to double that 10,000 number. Maybe more. And we're getting veteran's in on the giveaways, too. Because the men and women who safeguard our freedom deserve our thanks.

To get involved, feel free to contact Elena Gray, the BlogTour de Troops Coordinator at elena@elenagray.com

Finn, The Enchanted Cat

In my mental waiting room, the chairs have metal legs and the burgundy fabric is natty and rough. Most who wait don't sit. Depending on personality and how anxious they are to get the heck out of there, each character will pace a bit, shift and stand and stare at the little number tag in their hand.

Finn, the enchanted cat in Irish Moon, skipped the line with a hiss and a snide remark.

No one held it against him.

Perhaps because Finn, a cat who talks, who is
tired of waiting for Breanne O'Donnell to finally master her talents, is just one of those characters we love to hate. Finn tells it like it is. He's a reluctant companion who'd rather be his own cat than beholden and dependent on Breanne.