By Oline H. Cogdill

As we enter the holiday season – starting with Thanksgiving – we also enter a time when non-profit organizations need our help more than ever.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the mystery community does its part whenever it can. At every Bouchercon, there is an auction for which many authors donate books, character names and more with the proceeds going to a local literacy group.

The trick for many in the mystery community is to find unusual ways to help non-profit groups.  A couple of years ago, Mystery Scene donated $5 to the New Orleans Library Fund for every back issue sold.

Here’s what two authors are doing. We’d love to hear more stories from authors.

Chris Grabenstein, author of the Ceepak novels, says he tries to come up with ways to donate books and character names that will help raise money for charity.

  For example,  when his fourth Ceepak novel Hell Hole came out, Grabenstein “bought a bunch of books at my author discount, St. Martin’s donated a box and we auctioned off a couple of character names and raised $5,000 for the FDNY Burn Unit – since the book was dedicated to Engine 23.”

 The author also held the novel’s launch party at the firehouse.

“Recently, we raised $2,000 for a tutoring program I volunteer at by donating several cases of books, throwing a party with a magician for kids in the tutoring program, and auctioning off a name in next year’s YA book.” Grabenstein added.

“And, for my sixth Ceepak novel, I needed a dog and cat so we ran an Internet contest to raise money for an animal rescue group.  We raised $1,000!”

Two of Elaine Viets’ novels have revolved around pets so it was a natural fit for her to donate money to animal causes. For her 2006 novel Murder Unleashed: A Dead-End Job Mystery, Viets personally donated $1 to Pets Are Worth Saving (PAWS) for every copy of the novel sold during its debut month. For her latest novel The Fashion Hound Murders: Josie Marcus, Mystery Shopper about puppy mills, Viets had a signing at the Humane Society of Missouri. A portion of her sales went to that group. 

 But like Grabenstein, Viets has supported other causes. For Fashion Hound, Viets recently was one of the main speakers during a book fair for St. Vincent Home in St. Louis.

Viets also will do this again. Well Read, a Fort Lauderdale bookstore, will donate $1 from each sale of The Fashion Hound Murders to Grateful Paws Dog and Cat Rescue. Grateful Paws, a no-kill all volunteer shelter in Fort Lauderdale.

Viets will match every dollar Well-Read raises. 

 Viets also has helped raise money for the Ryan Hummert Memorial to honor a young firefighter killed in Maplewood, Mo., where her Josie Marcus books are set.

I know that there are many other authors who also donate to the non-profit of their choice. Tell us what you do?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 25th, 2009 at 5:42 am and is filed under Chris Grabenstein, Elaine Viets, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.