Peter Singer’s new book about the effective altruism movement, The Most Good You Can Do, is now available on Amazon.com in the United States and will be available soon elsewhere. If you haven’t had a chance to read it yet, it’s a great introductory guide to what effective altruists care about and what they are accomplishing, and I think it could make it a lot easier for those of us who are working on outreach to provide realistic examples of how effective altruists live and work. (Peter Singer is also donating all of his author royalties to effective charities.) We at CEA would also like to see this book become a big attention-getter for effective altruism, so we have worked with Peter Singer to provide a prize give-away to EA chapters and individuals that are able to buy and resell or distribute quantities of this book. I’ll describe these incentives first, and then below I’ll give an example of how groups can arrange events to support sales.

Groups or individuals that purchase 3, 5, 15, or 50 books will qualify for different prizes:

3 or more copies: Invitation to exclusive live-streamed Q&A forum

Peter Singer will hold an exclusive online Q&A forum in late April for participants in this program. Each set of three books will earn one individual sign-in invitation to the Q&A forum. (Details of the forum will be finalized and shared with participants in the next few weeks.)

5 or more copies: Get a book copy customized and signed by Peter

One specially-marked “supporter” edition of the book’s dust jacket will be signed by Peter and sent for each five copies purchased. This will fit the hardcover edition of the book, not the paperback edition being distributed in Australia and New Zealand. (Peter will sign this during his tour in mid-April, so please send an estimate of the count to chris@centreforeffectivealtruism.org by 4/10 if you’re planning to claim this.)

15 or more copies: Personalised career decision analysis by 80,000 Hours (1 per 15 copies; limited to 20 total across the whole promotion)

80,000 Hours will sometimes provide career decision analysis services, but limits the service by prioritizing clients by impact and charging a substantial fee. At the 15-book level, they will waive the fee and consult with you or anyone you designate to put together an individualized career decision analysis report. (It could be useful to consider who in your EA circles would benefit most from this.) This can be held onto to use at a later date, so we would recommend using this when you or the designee has a major career decision to make in the future.

This level also includes the levels above: five invitations to the Q&A forum and three signed “supporter” dust jackets.

50 or more copies: Peter talks with you or your group via Skype

For groups or individuals responsible for selling 50 books, Peter Singer will arrange to hold a conversation or Q&A with your group via Skype after his book tour is completed. This could be a great way to create a major event to grow a smaller meetup group or keep your membership engaged. (Offered no more than once per group.) 

This level also includes the levels above: invitations to the Q&A forum for sixteen members, ten signed “supporter” dust jackets, and three separate offers of personalized career decision analysis (if the limit of 20 has not been reached).

How to participate

We would like to stay in touch with all of the local groups and individuals who are working on this promotion, so please let me know if you’re thinking about setting up a book-selling event. If you’re looking for ideas about how to make the promotion work, we can provide feedback and compare strategies across groups. Please write to the promotion’s organizer, Chris Jenkins, at chris@centreforeffectivealtruism.org if you’re participating or considering an event plan!

For prize claims, please hold onto your receipts (for online orders, this can be printed as PDFs) and write to us at prizes@centreforeffectivealtruism.org. If you would like more information about any of these plans or would like to discuss your own plans with us at the Centre for Effective Altruism, please let us know!

EA groups: starting a book-selling event

The easiest way to do this if you have an active EA chapter or meet-up is to hold an event with an admission fee and give out copies of the book there. We can talk with you about planning and promoting these events as we communicate with other local groups about their approaches: please email Chris at chris@centreforeffectivealtruism.org!

Duration of the promotion

For claiming signed book jackets, please estimate the number you expect to claim and provide your estimate by Friday, 4/10/2015. For all other prizes, please stay in touch about your plans during the promotion, and be ready to send your receipts to prizes@centreforeffectivealtruism.org by Tuesday, 4/21/2015.

Thanks for reading! For ease of linking, this description can also be found here: http://www.mostgoodyoucando.com/giveaway