USA Valiant Lending Library Story - 7,072 miles travelled

[drmirage]

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THE VALIANT TRADE PAPERBACK- LENDING LIBRARY PROJECT

******NOW CLOSED AS OF MAY 13TH, 2014



LENDING LIBRARY DESTINATIONS:
Northridge, CA
Evington, VA
Roxboro, NC
Pittsburgh, PA
San Antonio, TX
Dunedin, FL
Jericho, VT

Total Distance Traveled: 7,072 mi

We will be tracking the library by distance which will be unique, traveling coast to coast on its journey within the United States.



Recently Just added Two More Volumes



Valiant Fans member Aomalle27 donated Two More Volumes
Harbinger Vol #3 and Harbinger Wars Vol #1



VALIANT TPB LENDING LIBRARY PROJECT

THE IDEA:

Bruce and I have been kicking around the idea of increasing the Amazon reviews of the Valiant TPB's in a continuing effort to help VEI grow this side of their business. We've come up with a plan that we hope finds favor with our fellow board members and helps increase the reviews.

This lead to the creation of the "Valiant Trade Paperback - Lending Library" It offers VF members who might not subscribe to all the VEI titles, or who might not have all the issues to give an honest review of the trades.

We have purchased a group of VEI Trade Paperbacks to ship out to any VF board members to read all 8 TPB's and then go to Amazon.com and write some honest reviews of each trade. More or less a week time period is given to read all the trades and when finished, pay to ship them to the next lender/borrower who wants to do this.

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THE PROCESS:

Bruce and I will be in touch with each individual who gets the VEI Library to inform the lender the next person's address to ship to. This project is all on the honor system and this is all we need to make this library system work. The only costs each lender will incur during this project is the shipping costs forward to the next reader which is approximately $6.00 with USPS Media Mail.

All 10 trades include 55 issues altogether, its adds up to about just 11 cents per issue to ship the library forward and much less than the retail cost of a single VEI trade paperback. We want to give members to experience all the VEI relaunch titles they might not have bought and more importantly paying it forward to VEI for giving our Valiant Universe back.

Dinesh himself has mentioned that these Amazon.com reviews are EXTREMELY helpful to this aspect of their business and VEI truly appreciates the time and effort it takes to post these reviews.

If anyone is interested to be a part of this library project, please send Bruce and or myself a private message and we can schedule to send these books out to you!

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THE REQUIREMENTS:


1. VF members within the United States
2. Over 50+ posts here on the boards
3. Valid Amazon.com account
4. Read through all 12 TPB's
5. Write reviews on each TPB's
6. Ship the TPB' to the next lender/borrower

There should also be a teaser thread coming soon for the possiblity of yet ANOTHER lending library so the momentum is growing for this project. Let's all do what we can to make this a resounding success which on VALIANTfans.com members can do!!!!!

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THE COST:

All it costs for those who want to participate in this offer is to send the books to the next lender/borrower. Which is estimated about $6.00 with USPS (Post Office) Media Mail (2-9 Days Delivery Time) Therefore with 10 Trade Paperbacks that contains 46 issues total, that's an average of 11 cents per issue.

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THE MOTIVATION:

One of the motivations we've stumbled upon for creating this offer was by encouraging members to write the reviews for the trades in the recent months. In the group of messages we have sent, an unidentified VF member responded that he/she would gladly do the reviews but he/she can’t. When we read that response, we assumed that the member could not do the reviews because he/she did not have an Amazon.com account, but that wasn't the situation.

We found out later that he/she could not do the reviews simply because he/she has not read them! Also, the reason for not having read them was he/she could simply not afford the books! Bruce and I were stunned and taken back because the anonymous member had been VF member for several years with a great number of posts.

So we both have come up with a little hope to some who want to read the books with a system to follow. With the lending library offer, it’s a win / win situation to read the 10 trades and all it costs is to ship the books to the next reader.

THE SUPPORT:

Just before we send off the VEI Lending Library, one more thing was added.... Dinesh Shamdasani and Atom! Freeman had given this project their 100% support and wrote a short little message of the inside front cover of X-O Manowar Vol #1 for those who will be reading these books.

This were done at the Q&W Release Party at Collector's Paradise on July 13th 2013.



New additions after the annual SDCC 2013 Valiant Trivia Night / Poker Night Event.



SO IF ANYONE IS INTERESTED - SEND BRUCE OR MYSELF A MESSAGE TO SIGN UP

[brucehartshorn]

Nice post Elery! Can not wait to see if our fellow board members take advantage of this. Plus, if more than one person in your home has an Amazon.com account, you could EACH post reviews!

I have every faith that the folks here will lend a helping hand and make this yet another VF.com/VEI success

[drmirage]

EXCELLENT! To all the participants and or potential readers, we forgot to mention that the goal of this project is help promote Valiant. We are not making any $ on these. We just want to help out a few members who have not read all the books. This project will be as transparent as possible.

The first seven VEI TPB's were purchased from Amazon.com.

As of 6/24 we have our first candidate.

Just to reconfirm: the rules are simple.

1. Read these in a week or so.
2. Write reviews for each on Amazon.com.
3. Pay the shipping to the next lender / borrower.

That pretty much covers it...... No mowing lawns, cutting shrubs or washing cars needed.

[Baramos]

Cool idea!

I extol you all to just buy them yourselves, though, because they are going for pretty great prices on Amazon (well, they were, I haven't rechecked). But I understand some people may be really strapped for cash--this is a great idea.

[drmirage]

Totally agree! The stories are well worth the price of the trades. However, not many can spend $9.99 to $14.99 per trade. So we're making this offer so that anyone can get access to them.

Cool idea!

I extol you all to just buy them yourselves, though, because they are going for pretty great prices on Amazon (well, they were, I haven't rechecked). But I understand some people may be really strapped for cash--this is a great idea.

[caniac]

Great idea!

[dave]

Totally great idea!

[The Dirt Gang]

Great idea!

+1

[drmirage]

We have our first candidate!

[Burrito Boy]

The lengths Valiant fans will go to to promote the company continues to amaze me. This is an awesome idea!

By the way, I like that you wrote he/she even though there's only one she on the forum.

[drmirage]

There's gotta be more than one female VF member on the forum out of 2644 Members.

Isn't Deedee a member?

After thinking about it more... I did get to meet Sanders and MsJay at the LA Times Book Festival back in April. I'm pretty sure she's a member of VFans.

The lengths Valiant fans will go to to promote the company continues to amaze me. This is an awesome idea!

By the way, I like that you wrote he/she even though there's only one she on the forum.

[Chiclo]

We're striving for the best in helping promote VEI.

There's gotta be more than one female VF member on the forum out of 2644 Members.

Isn't Deedee a member?

The lengths Valiant fans will go to to promote the company continues to amaze me. This is an awesome idea!

By the way, I like that you wrote he/she even though there's only one she on the forum.

Serenity and MissJay.

The Mrs. has forgot her password.

[jmatt]

Back in the 90s, Kurt Busiek did something similar on Compuserve. He created a lending library of his title Untold Tales of Spider-Man and the forum members all took turns reading and mailing it to each other.

Worked like a charm, nearly everyone who participated added the book to their pull lists. I even went back and picked up my own copies of the ones I read in his circulating library. Kurt's a great guy.

[Burrito Boy]

We're striving for the best in helping promote VEI.

There's gotta be more than one female VF member on the forum out of 2644 Members.

Isn't Deedee a member?

The lengths Valiant fans will go to to promote the company continues to amaze me. This is an awesome idea!

By the way, I like that you wrote he/she even though there's only one she on the forum.

Serenity and MissJay.

The Mrs. has forgot her password.

I stand corrected. But still amused.

[drmirage]

Well, great news everyone!!! The TPB's have finally showed up in the mail!

First thing I noticed upon looking at these trades very closely is that X-O Manowar Vol #1 is already on its second printing.

Now that we finally have these... Lets get ready to rock and roll!


Brand New VEI Trade Paper Backs


Brand New VEI Trade Paper Backs


Amazon.com Receipt

[drmirage]

The first lender, the books will be traveling approximately 2,496 miles from Los Angeles, CA to Lynchburg, VA.

For this project, we think it will be cool to actually keep track of where the library travels by distance. It's already interesting because its traveling coast to coast on its first journey. Obviously will not include the travel from Amazon's fulfillment center to Los Angeles, CA.


This map will show where the library is currently heading.

[hawkeyeps]

You're stars Elery and Bruce, you guys should sign the inside cover and pass it on. Each fan who sends on should also sign, that would be super cool. After so many signatures I'm sure those are books Valiant would love to have, another plus is once we losers sign the book it's worthless all the more reason to send it on

Sorry that Canada and the Internationals are left out of this deal

Screw that I'll do what you do for my homies in non-american land.

Give me a little time I'm dealing with disaster porn here in Calgary, but this deal goes for everybody outside the US as well

First up outside the US pm me and we'll get it rolling

[drmirage]

Hawk, excellent idea! Right now, we actually need more members to sign up.

If we don't maybe its a good thing that all VF members bought and read all the issues.

Working on the Canadian only set now. Details will follow shortly.

You're stars Elery and Bruce, you guys should sign the inside cover and pass it on. Each fan who sends on should also sign, that would be super cool. After so many signatures I'm sure those are books Valiant would love to have, another plus is once we losers sign the book it's worthless all the more reason to send it on

Sorry that Canada and the Internationals are left out of this deal

Screw that I'll do what you do for my homies in non-american land.

Give me a little time I'm dealing with disaster porn here in Calgary, but this deal goes for everybody outside the US as well

First up outside the US pm me and we'll get it rolling

[brucehartshorn]

Hawk,

Thanks for the offer. You'll be hearing from Elery soon on this.

Now that the books have started on their journey, who will be the next member to help with these TPB reviews? How many miles can we possibly get out of a set of TPBs?

Please realize that thanks in large part to the people who have already done Amazon reviews, VEI is already going into 2nd printing on some of these which means that our collective efforts are having the desired impact of having people take another look at the revived VEI line and picking these up!

So just let Elery or I know that you want to be added to the list of participants either on this post or via PMs, and we'll get them headed your way!

[drmirage]

Looking for more candidates

[Squirrel]

Count me in!!!

[Shadowman99]

Count me in!!!

I think it'd be really nice to collect readers' signatures in the books

Maybe the first reader (whoever you are!) can print a few A4 pages with a table on similar to a 'visitors book' (that you sign when you go visit castles and stuff)
With name/username, location, and comments... Then the books themselves wouldn't end up covered in scribbles from front to back

I think that'd be really nice

[Ramses818]

I just want to how cool it is you guys are doing this! I am always amazed how I can barely dress myself and you guys can be so active and get this stuff done! Truly you are the definition of "Fans" aka Fanatic's! Lover your hard work keep it up.

[brucehartshorn]

Just for a little update:

Since Bloodshot TPB Vol 2 came out yesterday, we're adding that to the "library" so now there will be 8 volumes in the lending library!

It just gets bigger and better. Where else can you get to read 8 TPBs and in return be asked to simply do 8 honest reviews on Amazon and then forward them in a $12.35 Priority Mail Flat Rate Box to the next person helping out?

I can tell you that plans are actively under way to have 2 distinct duplicate libraries going around here in the states as well as another set for our Canadian brethern. And.......we might not be done yet! After all, the world is a much bigger place........hmmmmmmmmm

[lorddunlow]

I just want to how cool it is you guys are doing this! I am always amazed how I can barely dress myself and you guys can be so active and get this stuff done! Truly you are the definition of "Fans" aka Fanatic's! Lover your hard work keep it up.

You might fit in at Blood's poker night. I hear it's pants optional.