Every year in December I host what I call the ‘Giftmas Blog Tour’ (called that because my family and I celebrate a secular version of Christmas that I like to call Giftmas). In 2014 the theme was holiday traditions, in 2015 it was open to any holiday-themed posts, and last year the focus was on food. Connected to that theme we also raised money for the Edmonton food bank — $521 to be exact.
This year has been difficult in so many ways for so many people that I’ve decided to make the theme “Shining a Light”. In addition to attempting to raise money to support the food bank again this year, we’ll be trying to focus on good things — to shine a light into the darkness as it were. There will also be a giveaway, because who doesn’t love a giveaway?
This year’s tour will run from December 4th – December 11th and I hope you’ll be able to participate 🙂
About Participating:
As with previous years I will be asking each participant to write at least one post to be hosted by someone else and to host at least one post on their own platform. The preferred platform is a blog, however for those people who don’t have one, social media accounts that allow for blog-length posts (like Facebook or Goodreads) will also work.
In addition to the ‘swapped’ posts, three of the days of this tour will have a theme I’ll ask people to write about. Ideally, in order to maximize this tour’s exposure and effectiveness, I would like for each participant to share full-length blog posts for each theme on their own website as well as provide me with a one paragraph response (to be shared in a collaborative post sort of like this one) however, only the paragraph length responses are required.
The themes are:
- Why I Give
- This can be talking about why you give of your time, money, experience or whatever else you do. Bonus points if you can tie it to this blog tour/the food bank specifically. Because your participation in this blog tour is a gift — do not doubt it.
- My Winter Holiday
- What holiday do you celebrate in the wintertime? I celebrate a secular version of Christmas we call Giftmas. Maybe you celebrate a religious Christmas. Or Hanukkah. Or Kwanzaa. Or Festivus. Tell us all about it.
- No Capes!
- Share a true story about a time someone did something that made a positive difference to your holiday. Because not all heroes wear capes.
Last year we raised $521 to help the food bank, so in the spirit of continual improvement, this year I set the goal at $522. We’ll be running it through CanadaHelps same as last year because that allows for super easy processing and people can donate and feel secure their money is going where it’s supposed to and not into my pocket.
The fundraiser page is here –> https://www.canadahelps.
Rewarding donors:
Like last year I want to have a Rafflecopter that encourages people to share, comment and especially donate to support the fundraiser. I’m also going to offer specific rewards for people who donate.
It’ll work like this — the Rafflecopter will be there, offering entries into a draw to win *stuff*, as Rafflecopters do. People will earn one entry every day just for stopping by and clicking the link, and earn additional entries by tweeting about the blog tour, visiting Facebook pages and donating to the food bank.
There will also be tiers of prizes specifically for donors. For example*:
Everyone who donates will receive a personalized holiday card from Rhonda, an electronic copy of BOOK TITLE #1.
Everyone who donates over $10 will receive a personalized holiday card from Rhonda, an electronic copy of BOOK TITLE #1 and SOMETHING ELSE.
Everyone who donates over $50 will receive a personalized holiday card from Rhonda, an electronic copy of BOOK TITLE #1 and SOMETHING TOTALLY AWESOME! (This tier level that will depend on my finding something totally awesome LOL)
I need prizes to include in both the Rafflecopter and the rewards for donation, can you help me out?
If you can donate something (books, bookmarks, swag, critiques, cards, Tuckerizations, whatever) I would really appreciate it.
Donations to the Rafflecopter can be single items where as those for the reward tiers would need to be multiples, and I can’t specifically say how many. For what it’s worth, last year we had 19 donors, 12 of which donated $20 or less. I don’t have any way of knowing for sure if this year will be similar, but probably?
If you can help–by participating in the blog tour, donating something to the prize pile or both–please email me at rhonda.l.parrish@gmail.com or fill out the form below.
Whichever way you contact me, please include how you’d like to participate (ie: as a blogger and/or by donating a prize) and if you’re donating a prize please tell me what it is — if you ask me “Do you think I should donate A or B?” I’m probably going to say “Yes!” 😉
If you’ve any questions or concerns hit me up via email or the form and I’ll respond as soon as possible.
I will be welcoming sign-ups and donations until Halloween (that’s October 31st :-p) at which time I’ll need to close them down to set everything up.
I hope to hear from you! 🙂
[Form removed because sign-ups are closed. Thank you!](I know the message field looks kinda invisible because it’s the same colour as my background for some reason, but it still works if you type in it, honest. And clicking on the word ‘Submit’ works the same as if you could see the outline of the button which is also apparently invisible. Because–?)
*These are only examples, nothing is final yet.
We’re creeping ever closer to the release date for Sirens so I’m turning my mind toward spreading the news about it once that happens. To that end, I would like to set up a blog tour. Myself and several contributors are willing to commit to providing tour hosts with whatever kind of material we can–guest blogs, interviews, review copies, excerpts or a copy/paste announcement post. The only thing missing from that equation is hosts.
