Dedicated To Our Defenders

I wanted to share a site that I joined last year. Sure, it's marketing, but it really does have a more altruistic motive. The site is Dedicated To Our Defenders. DtoD (as they refer to their organization) is a non profit group that provides books to our soldiers serving overseas.

To be a member, all you have to do is fill out a contact form and donate a couple of books. They have three types of memberships:

1. Authors
2. Publishers
3. Everyone Else

According to their website, the mission of DtoD "is to enrich the lives of the men and women fighting for freedom abroad by providing books to help them pass their downtime."

Lynn Hardy, founder of Dedicated To Our Defenders, explains on her site how the idea for DtoD came about. As an author, she had a practice of buying drinks for soldiers during layovers while traveling for her book signings. As she listened to their stories, she picked up on a theme. It seemed that their "downtime" was one of the toughest things for them to handle. There was little to do and few books to pass the time away with. What books were available were passed around until everyone had read it.

The seed was planted. Lynn created DtoD as a way to get these soldiers copies of books to read during their downtime. The idea picked up traction in the media and soon authors were signing up to send in their books. I joined last year by sending in a couple of my books, The Samson Effect. Other authors, with more name recognition than I have, also joined. Among them were R.A. Salvatore, Margaret Weis, Terry Goodkind and Eldon Thompson.

From a marketing standpoint, joining an organization like Dedicated To Our Defenders is a great way to get your book out to hungry readers while contributing to a noble cause. It gets your name and your website on the organizations web page as well. And you can read a previous blog entry of mine, Have Readers Loan Your Book Out For More Sales, to see how the power of a loaned book can actually increase your book sales.

Take a look at their website and if it looks like something you can get involved with, pay your dues of two books (or more) and help out soldiers by giving them some great books to read. (And if you are not an author, that's ok. You can send them a couple of copies of The Samson Effect as your dues payment).

Seriously, check them out and read their story. And keep your eyes open for other charitable ways you can use your book to help others. And here's another free tip: write up a short story about Dedicated To Our Defenders and contact your local media about them. You never know... it just may help you get your name into print.

Tony Eldridge