A big thank you is owed to all those who participated between November 5th through 19th by either uploading a book to BookRix or becoming a fan of BookRix on Facebook for our recent charity campaign! More than 500 books were uploaded from start to finish!

Because of some fabulous BookRix members, the charity  – Room to Read - will be receiving a $700 donation from BookRix to help fund their quality programs that provide direct benefits to children. The Reading Room, School Room, Girl’s Education and Local Language Publishing program efforts from Room to Read are felt around the world. This year Room to Read even opened their 10,000 library to underprivileged children. Currently, their efforts are focused in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Laos, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, South Africa and Zambia.

Several BookRixers really got into this charity benefit by sending out motivational messages to their friends to encourage them to upload new books on to the BookRix site. BookRix hopes to continue this tradition of good deeds in the future so stay tuned for other BookRix Charity Campaigns to come in the future!

In the meantime, take a look at what fellow BookRix authors contributed to the charity campaign.

Room to Read is a global organization seeking to transform the lives of millions of children in the developing world by focusing on literacy and gender equality in education. Founded on the belief that World Change Starts with Educated Children, Room to Read works in collaboration with local communities, partner organizations and governments to develop literacy skills and a habit of reading among primary school children and to ensure girls have the skills and support needed to complete their secondary education.  Since 2000, Room to Read has impacted the lives of more than four million children in Asia and Africa and aims to reach 10 million children by 2015.

Check out this inspiring video of Room to Read’s humble beginnings:

Take a minute to poke some fun at man’s eternal search for love… write and post the best (or most ridiculous) fake dating ad you can imagine to enter it into the BookRix Best Fake Dating Ad writing challenge going on only until Monday, November 29!

Even if you can’t think of a good one, check out the fake dating ads already posted in the I Love BookRix Writing Contests group’s writing challenge. We’ve got everything from a prisoner’s search for love to cringe-worthy dating ads from the seemingly living dead. After all, the dating ad doesn’t have to be real or truthful (because most of them aren’t after all).

You could win one of two Starbucks gift cards worth $25. After all, Starbucks is the classic date spot located on just about any corner.

Guidelines for the Writing Challenge:

* You can only create one fake dating ad so make it the best!

* Your dating ad should be an exercise in brevity – stick to a few lines to lure in love!

* Do not include any personal information in this dating ad – this should be a completely fictional ad that one would place on Craigslist or other classifieds. You wouldn’t give out your real home phone number to strangers so don’t post it in this fake dating ad please!

* Group members will vote on their favorite two ads to receive the Starbucks $25 gift cards in the Voting thread that will open on November 30 in the I Love BookRix Writing Contests group.

It’s easy to participate:

1) Join the I Love BookRix Writing Contests group if you’re not a member already.

2) Post your short fake dating ad in a reply in the Best Fake Dating Ad Challenge thread. That thread will close on November 29, 12 noon EST, 5 pm London Time/GMT so make sure to get yours by then!

3) Vote on your favorite two fake dating ads during the voting period from November 30th to December 7th in the Best Fake Dating Ad Voting thread in the “I Love BookRix Writing Contests” group.

Have fun conjuring up your fictional love seeking ad!

The top 11 Frightening Fiction BookRix contest stories have just gone to the jury so check them out here for yourself. But don’t say we didn’t warn you – they just might give you nightmares!

1. Himabindu.works8, soulmate, 67 votes

2. Gooduklady, Mr. Wrong, 64 votes

3. R.lynn, The Descendants Saga, 63 votes

4. Writer723, The Midnight Bandit, 60 votes

5. Lazarus67, Faeries Don’t Have to Work, 38 votes

6. Rebekahjennings, The Visitor, 37 votes

7. Michaelmpacheco, Panis Angelicus, 35 votes

8. Dalemoses, Quiet, 33 votes

9. Ankitaverma19, It so happened, 31 votes

10. Four.oclock, Nightmares 10.1, 26 votes

E-book by tmcamp

And the Wildcard Pick nominated by community member Chryse and reviewed by BookRix staff is:

Matters of Mortology by Tmcamp

Congratulations and good luck to the top 11 finalists! The top three winners will be announced on or before December 8 so stay tuned!

Think your story has what it takes to Get Published?  Join the BookRix Community and enter your manuscript in to the Get Published Writing Contest, going on through January 17.

For information on all current BookRix Writing Contests, visit the “Contests and More” section of www.BookRix.com.

Join the Bookrix Charity Campaign by uploading a book between now and November 19 and BookRix will donate $1 for every book uploaded to BookRix directly to Room to Read.

All you have to do to join the charity campaign is to upload your book to BookRix. It will automatically be counted. You can even follow along by looking on the homepage for an ongoing tally of the books uploaded! We will post the final number of books uploaded and amount donated after November 19.

Room to Read seeks to transform the lives of millions of children in the developing world by focusing on literacy and gender equality in education. Working in collaboration with local communities, partner organizations and governments, Room to Read develops literacy skills and a habit of reading among primary school children and ensures girls have the skills and support needed to complete their secondary education. To read more about their worthy cause, visit their website www.RoomtoRead.org.

If you want to do more, here are other ways to help:

* Send a message to all your BookRix friends encouraging them to participate, too. You can read a tutorial on how to send a message to all your friends on BookRix by clicking on the BookRix Book on the right.

* In addition to the effort on www.BookRix.com, we are hoping to donate even more money to Room to Read through our Facebook page. For every new “Like” we receive from fans on our Facebook page, we will be donating $1 to Room to Read! If you haven’t already liked us on Facebook, please do so and invite all your friends to take part, too!

* Send a message to your friends who aren’t on BookRix and invite them to join or to like us on Facebook!

Together we can make a difference in the lives of less fortunate children around the world. Thanks for helping with this effort to raise awareness and money for Room to Read today!

Congratulations to BookRix member Gooduklady for winning the Worst Nightmares Mini Contest for her book, House of My Dreams.

E-book by Gooduklady on BookRix.com

Gooduklady won a Kindle in the Into the Darkness horror group’s first Mini Contest, Worst Nightmares, featuring scary nightmare stories. The book to come in second place was briandoswell’s The Running Man and third place went to himabindu.works8’s The boy in the striped pajamas.

If you like horror books, check out all the other stories entered into the Mini Contest on BookRix. Congrats again to Gooduklady for her win!

BookRix Provides Novel Opportunity for Free Easy Exposure for Authors Online!

BookRix (www.BookRix.com), an online community connecting authors, readers and publishers makes it easier than ever for authors to promote themselves online for free.  Authors and writers will find a wide variety of useful resources and tools to easily upload their written works into the more than 10,000 titles currently listed on www.BookRix.com with free editorial and design software supporting many file types.

Once your “book” is uploaded, it’s comfortably read with ViewRix, a state of the art book viewing software that’s easy to link to from an email and share through Facebook, Twitter, Stumble Upon, Digg and Delicious as well as be embedded into a blog or website for sharing – much like a YouTube video.

BookRix can be compared to how musicians use MySpace as a site to connect with potential audience members and fans that they otherwise would not have had free promotional access to with their creative works.  Authors on BookRix control whether they share all, parts, or one section of their works depending on how much they want to offer publicly and whether their works are read only online with ViewRix, or set to be an eReader download.

Large numbers of potential readers are now only a few clicks away, with nearly 140,000 registered members as of October on BookRix.com who may be willing to read, review and provide feedback for written material – not to mention thousands of readers who visit the site anonymously each month.

Award Winning Professional Speaker and Best Selling Author, Jim Cathcart is now part of the online literary community and has made three of his books available on BookRix, including Relationship Selling (Spanish) and Win Through Relationships (Audio). In the first month of being available, Cathcart’s audio book had been heard more than 230 times – connecting with new audience members who otherwise may not have ever come across his materials.

In 2000, noted bestselling author Seth Godin allowed readers the chance to see his book Unleashing The IdeaVirus for free online for an entire year before it hit bookshelves.  This alternative method for reaching his audience resulted in increased sales as many fans had shared his work virally online – expanding his name across the web organically and effectively with a simple link to his eBook.

The BookRix online community is comprised of a wide variety of users and groups from vampire lovers and gothic fans, poets and foodies, to accomplished writers wanting to perfect their style or discuss all things editorial.  BookRix actually hosts writing contests that pay generous cash prizes with an official line-up of qualified judges that review the top choices voted by BookRix members.

BookRix users owning an iPad, smartphone or a similar mobile eReading device also have the ability to download eBooks from the BookRix mobile site, http://mobile.bookrix.com. The BookRix mobile website allows for browsing of books from 55 different literary categories providing access to mobile readers, bringing yet another reason for potential author success through effective free promotion with BookRix.

About BookRix:

BookRix is an online eBook community of members who use the site to read and create eBooks, share work, ask for feedback and promote their published work to other members. BookRix makes it possible to read free books online. Publishing houses also can use the site to promote new releases and authors, stay in touch with fans and communicate news. For more information on BookRix, visit the FAQ or About pages on www.BookRix.com.