Support4Change Blog

June 19, 2008
By Arlene Harder, MA, MFT

If you already know about online “giveaways,” wait until tomorrow, June 20, to get the direct link to a giveaway in which I am participating. If you don’t know about these events, read below and THEN come back tomorrow.

A giveaway is something I didn’t know anything about until last year when I joined Wonderful Web Women, a Niche Partners project dedicated to providing women with the inspiration and skills to be successful on the Internet. Their motto is, “The most generous and honest marketing advice for women on the Internet.” I find that to be true, for many other marketing programs claim you can make a six-figure income working only two hours a day. They tell it like it is.

Anyway, now the community at Wonderful Web Women is about to launch their first yearly “giveaway” and has banded together with invited friends to create a collection of over 200 gifts that are worth more than $10,000. These gifts will be available for only three weeks, from June 19, 6 pm Chicago time, to July 10. 

I’ll tell you about the gifts in a moment, but first let me explain why I think this comes as close to being a free lunch as you can get.

What is a giveaway?

Imagine a huge outdoor market with hundreds of booths where merchants give you their products for FREE! If you like their gift, they hope you will later come to their store and buy something. An online giveaway works on the same principle. You come into the market and visit the booths to see what is being given away. You see something you like and ask to have it — for free.

And this is where the almost-a-free-lunch comes in. Your “cost” is signing up for their newsletter in order to receive the free gift. BUT remember that you can always unsubscribe after you receive the gift.

However, online businesses and services that offer gifts are hoping you will like other products they sell. They hope you will want to keep your subscription. After all, they do need to make a profit.

My contribution to the giveaway 

For the past month I’ve been working very hard to create a special product that will only be available on the giveaway. And yes, even if you are already a subscriber to my newsletter, you will need to sign up again, although you will not get two newsletters sent to your inbox. That’s just the way the program is organized.

“Open Up the Right Side of Your Brain” is a free sampler of imagery exercises from a manual, Images and Symbols: The Glue of Habit, The Lubricant of Change I am writing for therapists, coaches, and their clients that will be published this fall. The sampler, a downloadable PDF, includes the following imagery exercises:

Other gifts from the Wonderful Web Giveaway 2008 

Many of the gifts for this event have been created especially for the Wonderful Web Giveaway 2008 and are donated by men and women from all walks of life. Here are just a few of the topics covered:

Come back here tomorrow, June 20, and I’ll give you a special link to the giveaway. That link will give me credit for all the people who sign up, although there is no money involved unless you choose to become a member of Wonderful Web Women, in which case I receive a small remuneration.

How to sign up for the giveaway 

When you land on the Wonderful Web Giveaway 2008 page, you will need to sign up for the Wonderful Web Women list, which  puts you on the WonderfulWebIdeas list, which sends you a wonderful web idea once per week and rare emails on upcoming events. Also, you can choose to join the Wonderful Web Women list as a member, but this is not done automatically. On the sign up page you will be told (again) that a giveaway works by joining lists to receive gifts.

I got a sneak preview of the gifts and am impressed with many of them. Of course, there are lots I don’t want and can’t use, but overall I found several that fit my needs and getting them was almost like a free lunch.

See you tomorrow.