Third Annual Indie Lit Secret Santa Gift Exchange
From now until December 14th, you can sign up to participate in our annual Indie Lit Secret Santa Gift Exchange. We are again using Elfster this year to handle the exchange, so if you’d like to sign up, head over to our gift exchange page and join.
When you click on the link, it will take you to the exchange page with an RSVP field. Add comments if you want, click ‘Yes’ in the left top corner of the field, and then click the green RSVP button. If you haven’t joined Elfster before, then you will be prompted to join.
If you’re unfamiliar with the exchange, it’s pretty simple. We’d like everyone to exchange gifts related to indie lit presses and publications. We’re thinking that $20 is a solid gift value. We’ll draw names the 15th, the day after the exchange closes, and then participants will have about a week and a half to buy and ship out their gifts.
If you have any questions about the exchange, let me know. Email me, comment here or at the Elfster page, and we’ll figure it out.
HTMLG Secret Santa: What Did You Get?
I conducted a very scientific Secret Santa survey, and out of three people polled, only one person got a gift from their HTMLG Secret Santa, yet all three sent gifts. I was one of the people I polled, and I was NOT the person who got a gift. I want my gift! Also, this poll conclusively indicates that only 66 2/3% of Santas sent gifts. It’s not too late. Your recipient will still appreciate a gift, even now! I know that because 2 out of 2 people who did not get a gift yet said so. You will still be loved and praised despite your (forgivable) tardiness.
But for those who did receive a gift, what did you get? Tell me how excited you are! I need that right now.
January 7th, 2010 / 11:42 am
Secret Santa: NAMES HAVE BEEN DRAWN
Time to find the perfect indie lit bonbon and send it along to your recipient! If you signed up for Secret Santa, you will have just received an email with a link to find out who your person is. Follow the link, click on the name, and you should see their address. If you do NOT see their address, it means they forgot to enter it. You can actually anonymously ask your recipient their address through Elfster. Just go to the exchange home, click on “Send a message” and check the box next to “The person you are giving a gift (anonymous)” and then ask their address.
But it would be much easier for everyone if those of you who haven’t inputted your address would simply DO SO NOW! To do so: GO TO THE “YOU” TAB on Elfster, then click on UPDATE YOUR PROFILE, and then ENTER YOUR MAILING ADDRESS and hit CONTINUE and then CONTINUE again and you’re golden.
Thanks to everyone who is participating! Start cyber-stalking your recipient NOW! I know I am…
Secret Santa closes Dec. 15
Sign up here by next Tuesday (more than 100 in so far). More info here.
[Big thanks to the excellent and wise-eyed Justin Sirois (Editor at Narrow House, author of the wonderful MLKNG SICKLS) for the Santa Image Magic.]
Second Annual Indie Lit Secret Santa Signup Open
From now till December 15, sign up to play Secret Santa at HTMLGiant. It’s easy! On the sign-deadline, you will find out your recipient and her or his address, and by Christmas (it’s December 25, this year, I think), send them a book from an indie press or a subscription to an indie mag. And you get one too! Sounds like it was a great success last year, and it’s sure to be this year, too.
Also, let us know if you’d like to donate a discount or an inscription or anything else that’ll sweeten the deal. The point, after all, is to support independent literature, so let’s help ourselves help ourselves!
More details can be found on the post from last year, here. It’s really all pretty simple. Spend $10-$20. SIGN UP HERE TO PLAY! ****UPDATE: IMPORTANT NOTE: WHEN YOU SIGN UP, YOU WON”T AUTOMATICALLY BE ASKED FOR YOUR MAILING ADDRESS, WHICH ADDRESS IS ESSENTIAL IF YOU WANT TO RECEIVE A GIFT. AFTER SIGNING UP, CLICK ON THE “YOU” TAB, THEN CLICK ON “UPDATE YOUR PROFILE,” AND THEN ENTER AND SAVE YOUR ADDRESS.****
Secret Santa Results and Thank You
Thanks to everyone who participated in this year’s Secret Santa Gift Exchange for Indie Lit. One hundred and forty people took part in the exchange, and if everyone followed our suggested $15-$25 gift range, I feel like saying that we exchanged around somewhere between $2,100 and $3,500 worth of gifts – so that is exciting, I think, for everyone. Also, several participants kindly donated their own work to others, as did editors of various presses, which is another fine way to spread word about new writing.
Below I’ve posted the Santa pairs and the gifts that I know were sent, and as far as I can tell, everyone played fair – for those who haven’t emailed me what you purchased, please let us know what you sent/received in the comments. Please email me if you have had any trouble with the exchange, but keep in mind that some gifts may arrive after today, some are subscriptions that will also take time to kick in, etc. Pretty soon we’ll have an HTMLGIANT sort of marketplace to trade gifts around if you’d like.
Also, if you still haven’t received your gift and don’t want to know because you’re waiting for the surprise, be aware that spoilers come after the break.
Thanks again to everyone who participated; I think this was good fun.
Secret Santa Sneak Peak
Based on the emails I’ve been getting, there are some cool gifts out there. According to my list of confirmation emails, about half of the gifts have been purchased/sent out out to all of you. Things so far seem to be running smoothly.
Reminder to all of those still wondering what to get: time is running out.
In the meantime, I discovered this ‘thank you’ post by Michelle Panik. Have a look to see what her Secret Santa sent her. A brief preview of the joy to come for all of you.
Also, due to popular demand, I have reopened accepting new Santas until this Thursday at 5pm CST. If you missed out, it’s not too late to sign up.
Administrative Email to All You Secret Santas
Here’s the email I just sent out to you Secret Santas in case some of you have insane spam filters (if you’re not a Secret Santa, please disregard or something, I don’t know):
Hi Everyone,
Thank you for signing up for our Secret Santa thingy. I have finally gotten all of the Secret Santas assigned. I used a fancy random number sorting system in Excel. I typed random numbers very quickly into a column and then sorted everyone’s names by those random numbers in an ascending order and then pasted that list against the master list.
I will begin sending out those assignments later tonight.
So, the purpose of this email is to go over a few things. I will try to keep it as clear as possible.
1) Because the main idea behind this exchange was to support independent presses/journals/authors/etc, we strongly encourage you to choose a gift from that ‘world.’ If you’re unfamiliar with the small press world, then have a look at the links over at Newpages.com or check the HTMLGIANT archives for various presses/journals that we’ve spotlighted. Many of these presses/journals are also running holiday specials at this time. We’ll try to spotlight more of these in the coming weeks. Also, feel free to email me back (SECRET SANTA ??? in the subject field) if you have a question.
Secret Santa – Time to Buy Stuff
So we’ll stop taking new Santas now. 129 of you signed up, which broke my last goal of 125.
Good work.
Look out in your email and on this site for more stuff. I’ll have the random assignments out soon. My plan is to do that by this Monday. That way everyone will have plenty of time to purchase and send things.
For now, relax, go play.
I’ll take care of everything.