Unleash Your Story: Make a Difference » Announcement

Watch for book give-aways

Teresa Bodwell — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 19:56:50 +0000

We will have a book give-away at least once a month, so be sure to stop by regularly. Our next scheduled event is next week, Tuesday December 8. Our guest will be Caroline Linden, author of , For Your Arms Only.

Caroline writes terrific Regency set, sensual romances. For Your Arms Only is a RT Book Reviews Top Pick!

Read an excerpt at Caroline’s website, here.

Come back in on the 12th of January when I’ll be giving away a Trade Paperback copy of the anthology, My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys. The anthology will be released in mass market paperback in February 2010.

In March 2010 we’ll be featuring Paula Reed, author of Hester. Paula’s novel follows the life of Hester Prynne following the end of Nathanial Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter.

Read an excerpt of Hester.

We’re looking forward to more great book talk and book give-aways throughout 2010 as we gear up for our next Read/Write-a-thon in September. Best of all, each guest author is giving away 2 copies of her book. One copy will go to a random commenter. The second copy will be added to our $100 books for the 2010 event.

Final total

Teresa Bodwell — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 20:02:25 +0000

The money has been rolling and in and we are finished counting. Our grand total for the 2009 UYS event is $7,535. It’s a bit disappointing that we weren’t able to top last year’s numbers, but we gave it a good effort. Thanks so much to everyone who participated and donated prizes.

In our first two years we’ve raised close to $19,000. That’s a lot of money for a great cause. We’ll be back next year with a bigger and better event.

We’re in the process of awarding our final prizes. Watch here for an announcement soon.

Racing for the finish line

Teresa Bodwell — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 17:09:04 +0000

Tomorrow is the last official day of the event. As of yesterday we were at $6451. There’s still time to add to that total!

Just click here to donate.

Kick to the end

Teresa Bodwell — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 00:08:47 +0000

We’re entering the last week of Unleash Your Storywith a total raised to date of $4,268. Let’s see if we can’t hit $10,000. You can help by making a donation in honor of your favorite participant or team. Click on the list of teams, participating authors, readers and bloggers.

Congratulations to these winners from Week Two:

Top Writer—words written week 2 Maisy Yates 11573

Top Reader—words written week 2 Suzanne Gochenouer 4005

Donation leader week 2 ($25 Starbucks card and $25 BN Card) PJ Ausdenmore $245

Wk 2 donation leader (not cumulative) $25 BN card Mary O’Malley with $100 new dollars

Highest # donors wk 2 BN Gift card

$100 Books—Mary O’Malley

$25 books We’ve given out several. If you or one of your donors has made a donation of $25 or more, please let us know so that we can send you a book.

Week 3

Teresa Bodwell — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 00:59:16 +0000

We are entering the second-half of our event. I’ll get an official report from CFF tomorrow to see how we’re doing with the money.

What I can tell you is we have a lot of terrific prizes yet to give away. So–Week 3 Bonus prizes.

Top Money earner in Week 3 (most donations from Sept 14-20) will receive a choice of:

Medallion Necklace donated by Lori Devoti.

Or the set of Naked Books by bestselling author, Sally MacKenzie.

Or a critique by agent Kate McKean or author Sandy Blair.

The top total money earner as of September 21 will win a choice of:

The book cover pin by Diane Plumley

The 60th Anniversary Harlequin Bag full of Harlequin Books

A critique by agent Alexandra Machinist

Top reader (most pages read) and Top writer (most words written) for Week 3 will receive an Unleash Your Story tote bag.

See Prize page for details on these great prizes.

2d Saturday

Teresa Bodwell — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 15:09:49 +0000

We are reaching the half-way point to our event.

How are you doing on your goals? Have you surprised yourself with how much you can read or write when you set a goal?

We’ve racked up some great numbers in the reading and writing category. Keep it up!

If you had a slow start, that’s okay. You can still get a lot done with over two weeks left. Figure out some times and places where you can squeeze a bit more time in with your story (whether reading or writing).

Don’t forget to also take some time to send out those e-mails to friends, family, co-workers, neighbors, etc. Don’t think of it as asking for money. Think of it as giving them an opportunity to donate for this great cause. If you’re having trouble getting those invitations out, check out our FAQ and Tips page. Remember you can always send any questions to info@unleashyourstory.com. Also, any questions about CFF or the CFF website can be directed to: madison-wi@cff.org

Thanks so much for your support! This event is only possible because of your efforts.

Week 1 results & New incentives!

Teresa Bodwell — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 14:49:44 +0000

Total money raised: $1,780 + $202 from our July Moonlight Madness sale = $1982.

Top teams:

Bon Bon Chocolate Mafia in the lead with $330

The Cystic Gal team close behind with $260 and Team RBTB in third place with $230

Total reported words written: 82,355

Total reported pages read: 30,759

(Did you forget to report? Did you report and we missed you somehow? E-mail info@unleashyourstory.com if you don’t see your words or pages listed on our website).

Prizes awarded

Top reader and Top Writer in Week 1 win a $5 Amazon.com gift certificate.

Because of the holiday I’m going to wait until tomorrow to give everyone a chance to report their week 1 reading and writing totals. Watch the website for an announcement.

$100 Books

Remember you will receive a book from the $100 book list for each $100 you raise up to $500. Winners this week are:

PJ Ausdenmore with $245 raised wins 2 books and has $55 to go for book 3.

Mary Elizabeth Peters with $235 wins 2 books and has $65 to go for book 3.

Rebecca Davis with $150 raised wins 1 book and has $50 to go for book 2.

The free book for each $100 raised continues through the event, or until we run out of books. Get yours this week!

Added prizes and incentives:

The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation has informed us that all Unleash Your Story participants who raise between $100 and $10,000 will be eligible for prizes from the CFF in addition to the Unleash Your Story prizes we are offering. Prizes include digital cameras, Blue-Ray disc players and more. Check out the list on our Prizes page.

Hit the ground running $25 B&N Gift Card

We did not have any participants qualify for the B&N gift cards by bringing in 15 donors in Week 1. We have to do something with all those gift cards and we are working on several ideas so keep watching for announcements of more ways to win those gift cards!

We will use one of the cards as an added incentive for the top fundraiser through September 14. The top fundraiser (cumulatively) as of September 14 will receive a $25 Starbucks card, plus a $25 B&N Gift Card.

We’ve also added a prize of $25 B&N Gift Card for the participant who brings in the most new donors this week (Sept 7-13).

Special incentive! From September 9-21

We need to hit the accelerator to get moving toward our goal. This special incentive should help make it easier for you to ask your friends, relatives, neighbors, etc. to donate.

Each participant who donates $25 between September 9 and 21 will receive a free book.

Plus! Each donor who donates $25 or more during this period will also receive a free book. (Remember participants get a free book for each $100 raised, so this incentive should help participants rake in the free books). Let your donors know that they will receive a free book if they donate $25 or more by September 21.

A few tips:

1. If you don’t ask they can’t say yes. Take a look at your contact list and consider giving a few more people the opportunity to make a difference by donating.

2. Remember to mention in your invitation that all donors who give $25 or more by September 21 will receive a free book.

3. It helps to personalize the e-mail message rather than sending the form letter created by the CFF website. We have created a sample personalized message you can copy or edit as you like. View the sample message and more tips at:

http://unleashyourstory.com/about/faq-and-tips/

As always, if you have questions, please e-mail us at: info@unleashyourstory.com

Heading for weekend #1

Teresa Bodwell — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 20:33:27 +0000

We are approaching the end of week 1 and the Labor Day holiday in the U.S. Tuesday we will get an official report from the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, but I know from looking at some of our donation pages that we have brought in hundreds of dollars at least.

Over the weekend you can add to our totals by sending out a few e-mails to friends and asking them to sponsor you by making a donation to the CFF. Make it a point to send out 5 e-mails every weekend and you’ll have sent 20 by the end of the event. If 10 of those folks donate only $10 each, you will have raised $100! (And don’t forget $100 = 1 free book).

Weekends are also great writing and reading time. Find yourself a little “me” time to catch up on your word or page count. Personally, I love Saturday mornings for this. My family usually sleeps in and if I get up at my usual 7 a.m. I can almost always sneak in an hour to myself. A cup of coffee and my laptop. Ah–that is the life!

What do you do on lazy weekend mornings? Or is there such a thing at your house?

Featured Prizes

Teresa Bodwell — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 15:14:29 +0000

Thanks to Michelle Buonfiglio for a great guest blog yesterday. Don’t forget to tune in tomorrow for a special message from Jessica Scott, an Army officer and aspiring author presently serving in Iraq. You think you have a hard time finding writing time–try living in a combat zone.

If you haven’t been to our prize page lately, you may have missed some of the great stuff that has been added there. We’re updating the page frequently as new prize donations come in–so be sure to check it out.

Don’t forget our special incentive running throughout the event–for every $100 you raise (up to $500) you will receive a free book from the list of $100 books on the prize page. Here’s how this prize works. You raise $100 and you choose the book you want from the list. As books are taken, we will mark them with **. We have multiple copies of many of the books, but there are a few that are one of a kind. So–the sooner you hit that $100 mark, the more choices you will have. Most of these books are donated by the author and autographed.

Another cool prize to shoot for is the $25 Starbucks card donated by Kate Rothwell. This gift card will go to the top money earner as of September 14. Kate wants our top dollar earner to have enough caffeine to get her or him through the second half of the event.

As always, if you have questions about anything UYS related, please contact us at: info@unleashyourstory.com

We appreciate your support!