(Nashville, Tenn.) Thomas Nelson, Inc. announced today the launch of a multi-faceted social media campaign to coincide with the release of Max Lucado’s new book, Fearless: Imagine Your Life Without Fear. The company is utilizing the influence of its online “friends” and “followers” to help spread the world about this important release.

On Monday, August 10 at 10 a.m., Michael Hyatt kicked off the campaign on his blog, http://michaelhyatt.com/, with a video book review and a unique offer. He offered the first chapter of Fearless for anyone to download or share. He gave the first hundred commenters a free copy of the book with no strings attached. Lastly, he made available a thousand copies for bloggers through Thomas Nelson Book Review Bloggers program.

As people shared with their online networks news of this offer, thousands of people rushed to michaelhyatt.com to try to claim their copy of Fearless before the offer expired. The surge of traffic crashed the site’s server three times and by noon two hundred copies were given away to readers. Over five hundred copies were given away to bloggers. By nightfall, Thomas Nelson had given away more than twelve hundred copies of Fearless in total.

“Since the initial development of Fearless, both retailers and customers have noticed an exciting buzz around the book because it’s message is both timely and relevant. I don’t know anyone who is immune to fear and its debilitating effects,” commented Hyatt. “When we decided to giveaway copies, I assumed we would get a lot of interest. But even I was caught off-guard by the surge of traffic that overwhelmed my blog’s server. The response was tremendous. And I hope this only a sign of things to come for Fearless.”

On Friday, August 14, exclusive video of Max Lucado’s “Fearless Town Hall” will be available at the website for the Fearless campaign, www.TheFearlessTimes.com and www.MaxLucado.com/TownHall.  Lucado answered profound questions from live audience members, questions related to fear of job loss, fear of losing God’s love, fear for loved ones, and other relatable issues. Excerpts from the video town hall, plus chapter excerpts from Fearless, are available for download at www.TheFearlessTimes.com and can be linked to Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. The Fearless Times website also allows people to submit questions about their fears to Lucado directly.  Questions will be answered randomly from all submissions received via the web, Twitter, Facebook, and other social marketing sites.

Max Lucado has more than 65 million books in print and a publishing career that has spanned nearly 25 years.  His books have been on many national bestseller lists including The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, CBA, ECPA, and USA Today.  Max and his wife Denalyn live in San Antonio, Texas, where he is Minister of Writing and Preaching at Oak Hills Church.

Contact:    Jana Muntsinger
tel:    (281) 251-0480
email: jana@mmupublicrelations.com
web:    www.thomasnelson.com

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