It began when author Edward Patterson met a US soldier stationed in Iraq who was unable to download ebooks to his Kindle. Ed offered to email the soldier his books (all 13 of them) at no cost. The soldier accepted with gratitude. This started Ed thinking and he asked other authors on the Kindleboard forums if they too would like to offer free books to our troops overseas.
The idea snowballed. With Ed at the helm, ebooks started on their way to our troops. Authors used Smashwords to distribute the books, creating 100%-off coupons which let the troops download the books free.
When Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords, found out about it, he and Bill Kendrick brainstormed on how they could help with the campaign. They began Operation Ebook drop, which allowed troops to download not only to Kindle, but to multiple ebook formats.
I think we have about 46 authors involved now and I’m excited to number among them. This morning I received a thank-you email from one of the troops to whom I sent the free coupon and a link to Along Came a Demon on Smashwords. It made my day!
If you have family in the armed forces anywhere overseas and they’d like to receive free ebooks, check out the Smashwords blog for instructions. If you’re an author who would like to participate, do likewise. Here is the link:
And check out Ed’s books on Smashwords!
http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/EdwardCPatterson
