Ok, so in Media Meltdown there’s a scene where a piece of media the kids create gets posted and shared on BoingBoing.net. So, you’ll understand my glee when I opened my browser yesterday to find this fantastic review of Media Meltdown on boingboing.net.

Full circle, very cool, and a very welcome endorsement from a website and group that I’ve admired for several years now. Watching the review get tweeted, re-tweeted and shared around the web is equally cool. Particularly as this spreading via social media is a key part to the kids’ success in the story.

Check out the review on BoingBoing.net to read the review and feel free to tweet and share the news (you can also just pick up the phone and tell your friends too, like we did in the olde days before the interweb.)

When we decided to offer Media Meltdown as a free download, we hoped it’d catch some attention. In one week, we crashed the server and at last count have given away over 25,000 free downloads. This week, Publishers Weekly ran a great piece on Media Meltdown, calling the free download an “online feeding frenzy”.

They also spoke to Orca Editor Andrew Woolridge about the whole thing:

Unlike some authors who remain wary of undermining sales with free digital releases, Wooldridge said the the Graphic Guide creative team approached him about doing the free promotion: “The author asked us to give the free promotion a try,” said Wooldridge, who was encouraged by the gesture. “There’s a hunger for material like this,” he said. “Teachers see the book online or see the Web site and it all leads to book sales.” Indeed, while Orca is conservative with its print runs, Wooldridge said the first three books have averaged sales of about 25,000 copies.

Read the whole story at Publishers Weekly.

When my publisher and I started offering a free full download of Media Meltdown, the latest Graphic Guide Adventure last week, we figured it’d generate a bit of interest. We didn’t figure we’d burn through our bandwidth and break the website in the first week!

Since October 1st,  http://mediameltdown.net has had over 52,000 visits and over 12,000 copies of Media Meltdown have been downloaded. When an average new Canadian children’s book is published, there usually only about 5000 copies printed, so these numbers not only melted our server they melted my head too! I couldn’t be happier that so many people are reading Media Meltdown and meeting Pema, Bounce and all the other characters for the first time.

And we’re not done yet.  You can still get your free copy of Media Meltdown by heading over to http://mediameltdown.net and following the links.

Just try not to break the server. Okay?

Since Thursday’s launch of the free download of Media Meltdown, hundreds of people have grabbed their very own copy of the latest Graphic Guide Adventure. Kids, adults, educators, grandmas, grandpas and probably a few raccoons are now roaring their way through Bounce and Pema’s latest adventure. And you can too! One click will get you a free copy of Media Meltdown. And when you’re at mediameltdown.net, check out the media quizes, games and other free stuff that’ll make you a media master.

I’m totally excited by the great response to today’s launch of the free download of Media Meltdown, the latest in the Graphic Guide Adventures series. Readers from Canada, the US and the UK have grabbed their copies, so don’t you think it’s time you download your free copy of Media Meltdown. Go on, it’s free. As in free speech AND free beer. You can’t go wrong.

Enjoy.