On September 6, 2009, author and ex-military member Edward C. Patterson chatted with soldier Joe Terry. Joe, deployed in Iraq, had a Kindle but could not access Kindle’s Whispernet to purchase ebooks. Ed gave Joe his entire collection of 13 novels as a zip file. That got Ed thinking. Were there other deployed service members with Kindles or other reading devices who would appreciate a good book? Ed started a thread in the Kindle boards community, asking if authors would be interested in donating free ebooks to the brave men and women who serve and protect. And an amazing thing happened. Operation EBook Drop was born.

In jumped Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords, ebook publisher and distributor website. He notified the 1,300+ authors and publishers on Smashwords, and suggested a way in which they could, if they wished, donate their books free to the troops. The idea was simple: they created 100%-off coupons for their books, Ed emailed the names and email addresses of troops who wanted to participate; the authors emailed the troops with the coupon code, and the troops could download free books from Smashwords in a variety of electronic formats.

Yes, free books for deployed troops! This is not a gimmick to promote authors and their books. Free books, no strings attached!

As I write this, 190 authors are participating in Operation Ebook Drop, including those with Mojocastle Press, Noble Romance Publishing, All Romance eBooks & OmniLit.com, and Katarr Kanticles Press. Ed estimates that over 4,000 books have been donated.

Authors have been blogging, Tweeting, Podcasting, sending out press releases, anything they can think of to get the word out. We adopted the submarine USS Oklahoma City. Thanks to Stephanie Kelsey, the editor-in-chief of Mojocastle Press, and her design team, we have our own logo.

This is the Kindle board thread where it all began, and continues to grow, which includes letters and photos from troops.