Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Introducing Bloom Selection #2


Introducing Bloom Selection #2 from angie smith on Vimeo.

Summary:

1. The book will be on sale for $7.99 from midnight on 12/15 through midnight on 12/17 on christianbook.com (click link to order): Same Kind of Different As Me 
2. We will start on Sunday, January 24th. Please read the first 100 pages (chapters 1-20) by then.
3. If you are financially unable to purchase a book or get it from the library, please fill out this form. We will do our best to get books to as many people as possible. (Update: the 125 books we guaranteed have all been requested. We will now be working to pair people up - people who can give books with people who need them).
4. If you are able to give a book to someone in need, please fill out this form and we will pair you with a person who could use your help. Thank you for your kindness.

Merry Christmas!

Request for a Book

You will receive an email confirmation after your request has been processed. It may take us a few days, so please be patient.

Can You Help?

If you would be willing and able to send a book/books to someone who is not able to purchase one themselves, we would be so grateful! Please fill out the below form and we will be in touch with the name and address of the recipient(s) of your gracious gift. Thank you for sharing the love of Jesus.

Monday, December 14, 2009

Survey Results and Book Preview!

Tomorrow we will be announcing the next Bloom Book Club selection. We are working with CBD.com and they are going to be offering the book at a super low price for just three days. (YAY!) This price will not be available again, so please be sure to come back tomorrow morning for the announcement. We will be kicking off the discussion of the book on Sunday, January 25! We hope this gives each of you enough time to purchase the book and get started. Today we wanted to recap some of the survey results and address some comments. 


Demographics Everyone who answered the survey was a woman. Big surprise, right? Most were between the ages of 25-45. (And for Katie who asked, I’m 27 and Angie is 33.) You live everywhere in the US and even from a few places as far away as Europe and Australia! 


How You Read The majority of you preferred reading a chapter a week, but several recognized that this may have been the style of the book. (A hint about the next book – the style of the book will be different.) Most of you also read the entire book – way to go! 


Videos The majority of you, for some reason, love the videos of Angie and me. So, as long as you can put up with us saying um, we will continue to make them. (If you have missed us, come back tomorrow. There will be a video!) 


Ning Oh Ning. Some of you love it it. Some of you hate it. Some of you know nothing about it because you never visit it. We will continue to use Ning for the next book and here is why. We cannot create community on a blog like we can on Ning. You can’t create individual profiles on the blog like you can on Ning. You can’t chat on the blog like you can on Ning. The blog just doesn’t offer the cool features that Ning does. :) Those that used Ning liked the forums the best. We will continue to do one forum for each book that we read so that you can go back and easily find discussions for previous books/chapters. We recommend that you bookmark Ning so you remember to visit it at least a few times a week. And please comment and start conversations. We know from the traffic stats that WAY more of you are lurking than we would hope. Come out and chat. :)  


Twitter Angie and I are both active on Twitter, so we have decided to start using #Bloom for tweets related to the book club. If you are on Twitter, we encourage you to do the same when you tweet about Bloom. 

Additionally, our friend Sara (@gitzengirl) has put together a list of Blossoms, so be sure you Twitter handle is listed in this Ning forum. Click here to view the Twitter list, then click follow this list. (If you want to be on the list, be sure to add your handle to the Ning forum. If your tweets are protected, please be sure to be following Sara and send her a DM to be added to the list!) Thanks to Sara for her help. It is so fun to have all Bloom twitterers on one list.

We can't wait to share the book selection with you tomorrow!