Mission Recap: FOTA Giveaway

Last year, during our annual Children/Grandchildren water park excursion, we managed to give away 1,234 free kindle copies.

This year, we thought, “Hey, we need something to do while ignoring all the children screaming,  swimming around in chemicals, and generally disregarding all posted safety regulations. Let’s try giving away a few more copies!”

We figured, since we must have swept our immediate circle of friends, enemies, and distant acquaintances with the last giveaway, we would be lucky and blessed to see another, say, 500 downloads this year.

Man, were we wrong!

The first day of the five-day promotion beat that goal. We needed a new one.

“Okay,” we reasoned, “That was a blip on the radar. But we’re ahead of last year.  Maybe, if everything goes well, we’ll manage to equal the 5-day total from our last giveaway.”

At first, that’s how it looked. The next three days yielded modest downloads, adding to the total and creeping ever closer to the elusive 1,234 number.

We woke up Tuesday morning knowing that we needed about 138 more downloads to reach our goal. But it was the last day. How many potential readers could be left out there? By about 8:00 a.m. we had seen a modest 18 copies added–120 to go. We posted that on Facebook as our goal, asking for your help, and that’s when all craziness broke out.

After a few minutes we refreshed the total screen and said, “That can’t be right. We couldn’t have given away 100 copies in just a few minutes.” We hit it again, and more downloads appeared. The total kept growing throughout the day, hundreds per hour. It was fun. One of us (Allan) nearly wore a hole in his iPad screen where the refresh button was.

By the end of the day, we had downloaded over 1,700 copies, bringing the five-day total to 2,818.

We have no explanation for the substantial uptick on the final day, other than:

1. God is good.

2. The Christian Sci-Fi community are the nicest, most helpful, awesome people in the world! There is no way the word got out to readers without your participation.

So with that in mind, Medals for Everyone!

 

 

 

 

Total Reach Medal of Awesomeness: Proudly awarded to Anthony Wessel and the fine folks at Digital Book Today. FOTA was on their list of Top 100 Free Reads all five days. If you are promoting a book or giveaway, check these guys out!

 

 

 

 

The 714th Squadron  Medal of Podcast/Website Excellence, proudly awarded to the following:

The Sci-Fi Christian, Matt Anderson and Ben De Bono, for outstanding service in interviewing, reviewing, contest holding, and general friendship.

Strangers and Aliens, Ben Avery, for outstanding service in interviewing, re-mentioning, and tirelessly promoting the entire Christian Geek community, including Christian Sci-Fi.

Speculative Faith, E. Stephen Burnett, for a guest column opportunity, news posting, and encouragement.

The Crossover Alliance, David Alderman and the editorial panel, for posting FOTA right on their front page, plus providing a new opportunity. (to be announced soon)

 

 

 

The International Medal of Valor: Proudly awarded to Mark Adams @marksmess for superb prognostication in deciphering Matt Anderson’s reading pace, and for effectively spreading the giveaway message overseas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Band-o-Brothers Medal, for Christian Authors sticking together, cross promoting, and internet friendship, proudly award to:

Robert Mullin, Tony Breeden, Ethan Erway

(Click on their names. Read their books!)

 

 

 

 

 

The “Blue” Angels Medal of Facebook and Twitter, for excellence in sharing and forwarding, proudly awarded to:

Paul Lewis, Zach McNeil, Lauren Voeltz, Tina Carlson, Larry Clair

Books and Books @BooksandBooks1,  I Speak Machine @TaraBusch, Reddit Sci-FI @R_SciFi

And finally, a special thank you to everyone who downloaded and to all those who shared about FOTA via word of mouth. And to anyone else we may have overlooked. With no internet trail, you are the unsung heroes of this mission.

Salute!