A few weeks ago, we asked you all to help us out by answering some Hunger Games poll questions. More than 200 of you were kind enough to comply (many of you without even entering to win one of the books we were offering as thanks)!

As I mentioned then, the reason for those poll questions was a presentation I was putting together on the Hunger Games for One Book Sarasota. And I promised I’d share that presentation when I returned.

So with the help of Keynote, Quicktime, and YouTube—and with thanks to the fantastic folks in the Sarasota County libraries system and at Bookstore1Sarasota, as well as the Hunger Games fansites that kindly retweeted the poll link (which you’ll see on …

» Continue Reading “Our Hunger Games Talk for One Book Sarasota”

We’re having a dinner party to celebrate the return of Mad Men—and you’re invited.

On Sunday, March 18 (one week before the Mad Men season 5 premiere), we’d like to invite anyone who’s interested to join us in preparing and posting a dish of your choice from The Unofficial Mad Men Cookbook.

If you have a blog, post pictures and your comments—and the recipe!—there . . . and make sure to let us know you’re participating, by leaving us a comment here or emailing us at heather@benbellabooks.com.

If you don’t, we’d love to have you join us at our Facebook page, and post your pictures and comments in our “Party Like a Mad Man” photo album!

(Even if …

» Continue Reading “An Open Invitation: The Unofficial Mad Men Cookbook’s Virtual Mad Men Dinner Party”

Last week we gave  away books on Twitter as our Valentine’s gift to our readers. Here are the lucky winners! (Winners: we’ll be in touch via Twitter to get your contact information.)

Monday, Triumph of The Walking Dead: @ContestWeiner

Tuesday, Fringe Science: @Froze8

Tuesday, Immortal and Eternal: @mr_no_pants

Wednesday, Unraveling the Mysteries of The Big Bang Theory: @Laalaacrazybit

Thursday, The Unofficial Mad Men Cookbook: @BresBaubles

Friday, A Friday Night Lights Companion: @NJayme

…

» Continue Reading “Be Our Valentine Giveaway Winners”

Last month we held a Big Bang Theory-themed giveaway to celebrate the launch of Unraveling the Mysteries of The Big Bang Theory, and today we’ve got the winners for you (chosen courtesy of random.org)!

Grand prize winner:

JOHN

4 runners up:

JUDY
REGINA
ANGELA
SAMANTHA

10 book winners:

RODERICK EDWARDS
RON
DAVID SELIG
CYNTHIA
MEG
ERIN PITTS
DEB
MICH VERRIER
KARINA
JERRY RIEDEL

Congrats to all of our winners! We’ll be in touch via email so we can send your prizes out. If you haven’t already, you can sign up for our Unraveling the Mysteries of The Big Bang Theory mailing list below and we’ll be sure to send you updates about any future giveaways.

» Continue Reading “Unraveling the Mysteries of The Big Bang Theory Giveaway Winners”

Last month we posted a Perfectly Plum giveaway leading up to the premiere of One for the Money, and now we’ve got some winners to announce! The three entrants who will be taking home signed copies of Perfectly Plum are . . .

ELAINE

KELLY GARBATO

BRITT

Congratulations! We’ll be in touch via email so we can get your prizes shipped out directly. Thanks to everyone who entered, and if you didn’t win, don’t worry: you can still grab the book for only 89 cents on Kindle.…

» Continue Reading “Perfectly Plum Giveaway Winners”

You didn’t think we forgot about you this Valentine’s Day, dear readers? Of course we didn’t. We just wanted to surprise you with something special to show our commitment to you! Chocolates and flowers and stuffed animals all seemed inadequate to express the full depth of our feeling, so we’re giving you this instead: daily free essays about relationships, and daily chances to win books on Twitter for the next week. Here’s the line up:

Monday

• Read “‘For Love Is Strong As Death’” by Kim Paffenroth from Triumph of The Walking Dead
• Enter to win a copy of Triumph of The Walking Dead by tweeting (or retweeting, from @SmartPopBooks): “Be our undead valentine! RT this to enter to win Triumph of The

…

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At the end of this month, I’m headed down to Sarasota, Florida, to give a talk on the Hunger Games (The Hunger Games was their One Book Sarasota pick for 2011). I’ll be talking a little about The Girl Who Was on Fire, and more about some of the ideas in the essays.

In preparation for that presentation, I would love to get you all’s help gathering some data.

I’ve included a handful of poll questions below. And as thanks for your participation: After you give your answers, leave us a comment and we’ll enter you to win one of 3 copies of The Girl Who Was on Fire – Movie Edition . . . INCLUDING the extra movie content you’d normally only …

» Continue Reading “Hunger Games Poll and Girl Who Was on Fire Giveaway”

One of our main goals here at Smartpopbooks.com is that, when you visit our site, you’ll enjoy what you read so much that you’ll want to share it—that you’ll want to tweet about it, or post it on Facebook, or email it to a friend.

We’ve just finished a round of changes to our share buttons to make that process a lot easier. They look the same—but using them to actually share is much smoother and simpler. (We’re particularly pleased with the new email button.)

So next time you’re moved to tell someone about something of ours—our Unraveling the Mysteries of The Big Bang Theory giveaway, say, or yesterday’s Psychology of Joss Whedon essay about Buffy and Spike—I hope you’ll be as happy …

» Continue Reading “Thanks for sharing!”

There are many reasons why The Big Bang Theory is one of the most popular shows on TV right now: the friendships, wonderfully geeky references, and of course, Sheldon’s antics, all combine to create something we’ve never seen on TV before. A show about geeks that celebrates them instead of mocking them; a show that makes these nerdy guys the heroes that you root for while you’re watching; a show that makes being smart cool and funny, instead of something to be avoided. As author George Beahm says in the introduction of our new companion book, Unraveling the Mysteries of The Big Bang Theory:

The Big Bang Theory didn’t simply serve warmed-up leftovers, but instead gave viewers new, tasty fare. Although we have geeks and girls aplenty, …

» Continue Reading “Unraveling the Mysteries of The Big Bang Theory Introduction and Giveaway”

We didn’t blackout Smartpopbooks.com today. But we did want to talk a little bit about why we don’t support SOPA.

We are not in support of piracy, obviously. Our continued existence and ability to create books depends on people buying those books, and as e-books are adopted more widely, e-book piracy is bound to continue to grow. But I’m personally not convinced—as many, many people around the web and in academia and in politics are not convinced—that SOPA and PIPA are the way to do that.

We publish books. We’re in the business of making agreements with writers on their copyrighted work, where we pay them a certain amount of money for the privilege of making their work available to book buyers. And so we …

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