I am excited to a sponsor of the 2010 Brenda Novak Online Auction for Diabetes Research. Brenda holds the auction every May at her Web site (http://brendanovak.com/). There, she offers trips, book collections, mentoring sessions, critiques, and more to an ever-expanding shopper base.
The auction has raised over $770,000 in five years. In 2009, the auction raised $270,611. Nora Roberts, Debbie Macomber, Lisa Jackson, Michael Connelly and Sherrilyn Kenyon are all involved, as well as hundreds of others. Corporate donors already signed on include Publishers Weekly, Writers Digest, Harlequin and Kensington publishers.
Diabetes runs rampant in both of my parents’ family lines. I don’t have it and and have taken steps not to get it, but I have aunts, uncles and cousins with it and it’s a horrible disease. It’s an issue that’s close to my heart.
Not only am I supporting Brenda’s auction by posting about it BUT I’ll have my own LDS Publisher category, featuring books and other items for and/or by LDS authors.
And YOU, dear readers, may participate too by donating items for the auction!
Donation ideas:
- Gift baskets themed around your book(s)
- Handmade quilts, jewelry or other items
- A stay in your vacation home
- Lunch with you, your publisher and/or agent
- A bunch of books and/or book-related items
- Other cool but easy to ship items.
If you want to get an idea of what others are doing, CLICK HERE.
Reasons to donate to the 2010 auction include:
- High traffic. The 2009 auction site had over 450,000 page hits, double 2008’s total, from over 20,000 unique users.
- National media plan supporting the auction. Media plan includes Writer’s Digest, Publisher’s Weekly, RT Book Reviews magazine and many other print and online venues.
- Highly efficient program. Your only expense is the donation item and the cost of shipping it to the auction winner (within the U.S.) by June 25, 2010 and you’ll receive months of national exposure. (The sooner your items are posted, the better your exposure.)
- Dedicated web page to promote your organization and drive traffic to your website. One 2009 sponsor saw a 80% spike in website traffic.
- Donations are tax deductible. All proceeds go directly to accelerate progress in diabetes research.
For each donation item, please send to me:
- Item Title and picture of your book cover/item (you can attach a file or give me a URL to pull the photo from).
- Item Description: The copy from the jacket flap or back of your book(s) or a description of the item. Each donation item or grouping has its own page on Brenda’s auction website, so you have plenty of room for descriptions. You can find examples of items and descriptions at the auction site: http://brendanovak.auctionanything.com/
- More about You: An author bio and a link to your web site or blog. You may included a photo of yourself, if you want.
More details:
- Your item(s) will be posted to the auction under the category “LDS Publisher”.
- All items have a starting bid of $2.00.
- Info submission deadline: April 10, 2010, but the sooner you send me your info, the more exposure you get on the auction site.
- The auction goes from May 1-31, 2010. Remember to go bid on items. Lots of really cool stuff!
- I will be notified of the auction winners by June 9, 2010.
- I will forward the winner’s shipping information on to you by June 12th.
- You will need to ship the items to the winner by June 25, 2010.
- By choosing to donate, you agree to ship the item(s) at your expense within the U.S. (Winners outside the U.S. will pay their own shipping costs.)
- This is a binding agreement. If you agree to donate, I expect you to follow up and follow through. (If you flake, I will find some way to publicly humiliate you in front of your peers.)
Spread the Word:
- I’d love for you to blog, twitter, facebook, whatever about this auction. For banners, CLICK HERE.
- I’ve made a sidebar button for those who donate to the auction. Copy the code below and paste it into an html widget on your sidebar. (Don’t copy the quote marks.)
- If someone clicks on the button, it will take them to the entire LDS Publisher category. If desired, you may replace the current URL in the code with the URL specific to your donation page.
Small Button (125px)
<div align=”center”>
<a href=”http://brendanovak.auctionanything.com/auctionhelp.taf?S=N&R=2&C=2&m=3&sort=1&st=1&days=&category_id=11479&skipkw=1&_start=1″><img src=”http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff111/LDSPublisher/NovakAuction_125.gif” /></a>
<br/><a href=”http://ldspublisher.blogspot.com/2010/01/brenda-novak-online-auction-for.html “>Click HERE to donate!</a>
</div>
Large Button (220px)
<div align=”center”>
<a href=”http://brendanovak.auctionanything.com/auctionhelp.taf?S=N&R=2&C=2&m=3&sort=1&st=1&days=&category_id=11479&skipkw=1&_start=1″><img src=”http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff111/LDSPublisher/NovakAuction_220.gif” /></a>
<br/><a href=”http://ldspublisher.blogspot.com/2010/01/brenda-novak-online-auction-for.html “>Click HERE to donate!</a>
</div>
P.S. — No, I’m not going to tell you who I am to get you to donate. This is totally legit and since YOU send the prize straight to the winner, you don’t need to know anything about me to participate.
Do we have to donate something "big", like a gift basket, or can we donate individual books, or say, a set of three books (like my two medieval romances plus a copy of Stolen Christmas with my short story)?
Not that I won't donate a gift basket if I can think something up. Just wondering if there's a "too small" limit. (My dad and his mother both had diabetes.)
Single book donations are just fine.
Thanks so much for letting us know about this, and giving us the opportunity to donate!