Day 7 - End of the First Giveaway

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Congratulations Cyndi Butler for winning a $10 Starbucks gift card. You rule!

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My first giveaway ended today and although it wasn’t the massive influx in potentials I’d hoped (dreamed about), I’d call it a success. It ran for three days and I picked up 33 new future fans for the Readers Collective, learned how to run a contest and boost a post on Facebook. I don’t know what percentage of people will STAY ON or READ the mailing list, but I’ve scheduled my first email to go out on Sunday. 

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not in this for the money. If I make a couple of bucks or break even, I’m happy. As of today, I’ve spent about $50 total for this experiment. 

The weekends are proving to be difficult to get much done. I have LESS time to work on this than during the week. With my husband being home and our families wanting to go out, I’m having to squeeze in a little time here and a little time there. Still, I managed to get a lot done today. 

  • Played around on Twitter, met some cool people. I’m falling in love with the writing community there. 

  • Purchased an adorable gift for the mega big giveaway that will coincide with the launch day. It’s a surprise. Stay tuned. 

  • Ended first giveaway - temporarily disabled website pages that refer to it

  • Chose and contacted winner

  • Heard back from winner with their address and permission to use their name on this site. See Winner’s Circle on the Giveaways page. 

  • Unpinned all the pinned giveaway posts on social media

  • Wrote and tested first email to Readers Collective. Time: About an hour

  • Wrote and scheduled 2nd giveaway to start Sunday

  • Updated giveaways page and links

  • Wrote and schedule Facebook post about 2nd giveaway

  • And then it was bedtime for all hardworking babies. 

 I still need to do a final edit on Lessons in Love - I’m hoping to outsource this. I also need to design the cover and format the book pages. I imagine these will all take time. I’m fairly skilled at Photoshop and Word, so I don’t expect too much trouble here. We’ll see. All in all, this experiment is going well and I’m feeling extremely positive about it. 

 My second giveaway should be running now, so go enter! It’s fun and if you really hate being on the mailing list (which I hope you won’t) you can unsubscribe very easily. My hope is to cultivate a group of people who want to be on the list and I’ll do everything in my power not to annoy you.