It's That Time Again...Calling All Authors!

Last May I had the opportunity to participate in my city's annual Children's Festival of Reading.  I was an unpublished author who wanted to show my gratitude to the fabulous writing community I had become a part of.  I decided the best way to give back to the community would be to create a wonderful giveaway of books and in the process, promote the lovely authors I had come to respect.  I sent out my first author calling...you can read last year's post here (http://donasdays.blogspot.com/2012/03/calling-all-authors.html) and I was hoping for maybe a dozen people who might want to participate.  I never in my wildest dreams expected the floodgates to open.  I received 350 autographed items (books and swag items) to give away to the children which made my booth a very popular spot for the more than 15,000 people who attended the festival.  I was even able to help Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen get in contact with the people in charge and she recently let me know she will be attending this year as one of the celebrity authors!

The festival committee has asked me to participate again this year and I would love to be able to promote even more authors!  Everything I do to promote the books is FREE as my way of saying thanks for all the support, and friendship I've received over the past year.  Here is my post of the event itself after the big day last year (http://donasdays.blogspot.com/2012/05/festival-time-in-tennessee.html).

I know there are many of you who have books coming out this year.  There were others of you who expressed a wish to participate last year but the timing was off.  And I had parents of the children visiting my booth wondering if there would ever be a chance for them to win autographed copies of books for themselves?  So I am putting out a call for ALL authors to be able to participate in this year's festival.  I put out flyers, send articles to the local papers, create posters, post on all my platforms, and generally let the world know about your wonderful books!  

Anyone interested in donating an autographed book or finding out more about the biggest family festival held in the southeast and how they might be able to participate...even if you are self-published...please drop me an email at donasdays (at) gmail (dot) com or leave a comment here.  Why even I have a book now I can donate to this wonderful event!  Wouldn't it be wonderful to break last year's record?

Here are just some of the books you donated to the FREE giveaway last year: