Progress Report

As of the end of May my lenses have raised $45.26 for Room to Read.

If you have lenses in the group. Please post a comment with an estimate of how much you have raised.

I think we will need to extend the deadline to New Year's. . .

Seth Noticed Our Fundraiser

We got a short mention on Seth Godin's blog.

Most of the post talks about the lessons learned during the first year out of Beta. Watch for my thoughts on Seth's thoughts tomorrow at The Giant Squid.

The most important detail for today is way down at the bottom of the post which says:

"If you want to see what's working, here are three things to try:

* Do a Google search on "laptop bags"
* Visit How to Start a Chess Club.
* Visit this lens about scary movies.
* Visit this group about Harry Potter."

I won't mention that there are four things listed. That would be rude considering how generous Seth and the other Big Squids have been in helping promote the fundraiser.

Anyway, I was really excited to see this. It will be interesting to see if the added traffic trickles down to individual lenses.

Now if I could somehow get Jo Rowling to link to it.

Payday is here: Was it good for you?

Today Squidoo processed is payout for January Royalties! The Big Squids are working on a widget to show the totals raised for a charity. However, it is not ready yet_

So I am going to ask lensmasters to leave a comment below and say how much their lens(es) raised for Room to Read. (This is obviously voluntary.)

My lenses earned $12.02 for Room to Read. How did yours do?

Other Lens(es) of the Day

I should point out that there are other Lens of the Day winners in the group. They are:

Funky, Chic and Cool Laptop Bags and
Michelangelo's David.

Both lenses are really incredible and, probably, more deserving of the LOTD than my humble lenses.

Lens of the Day

Waiting for Harry Potter 7 (one of my oldest lenses) was honored as today's Lens of the Day. Room to Read - Harry Potter was also mentioned.

I've kind of been hoping for something like this. Now there is semi-official recognition I can submit the site to places such as Mugglenet and The Leaky Cauldron. So far it has felt as if I was spammed their in-boxes. (Which I suppose I was.)

We'll see if this increases the amount of submitted lenses and traffic.

New Book Club Challenge

I started another contest at the Squidoo Book Club. I'm hoping it will encourage people to add quality lenses to the Book Club and to the fundraising group.

Contest rules:

Create a new lens about a movie that was based on a book. Add it to the Squidoo Book Club and to Room to Read - Harry Potter which is a collection of lenses which donate at least 20% of their proceeds to the charity.

The lens with the highest lensrank on March 31 will be Lens of the Month for April at The Squidoo Book Club and will be highlighted at Room to Read - Harry Potter. The lensmaster will also win a free copy of Tiffany Dow's world famous eBook, Social Networking on Squidoo. She is also willing to include The Multi-Layered Mindset of Web 2.0 Marketing and Building an eBook Empire.

Countdown Timer Test

Blogger does not seem to like other sites javascript. Only one Plexo module shows up in the sidebar and they don't accept any in the body of a post.

Let's see if they like Mugglenet's countdown timer...