Spunky Mystery Box

This giveaway is now closed. Congratulations Natalie "M-A-D Momma". I am emailing you now.

I'm doing a giveaway this week, but it's not your average giveaway.

I'm happy for the Spunky Coconut to promote my fellow authors and food bloggers, and their cool books. It's good attention for the people and things I like, and I hope it's of interest to my readers.

Food companies, however, have really latched on to the whole blog review/giveaway thing. It puts their products in front of thousands of people, while their only expense is the cost of sending that $10 box of whatever. I recently learned that 70% of corporate free samples go to blogs these days. Every week my inbox is full of random companies offering review samples, stuff to giveaway, or they just want to announce their corporate news. Much of the time the publicity person emailing me hasn't bothered to figure out what my blog is about. They just paste my name at the top of a form letter and move on to the next blogger. These impersonal emails are tiring, especially when their product is inappropriate for my site and my readers. These I politely decline.

Sometimes the companies approaching me are downright rude. For instance, one company asked me to stop linking to their competitors, offering me a few samples as payment. Another company sent me a box of stuff (half of which wasn't gluten-free). When I told them I wasn't going to do a review they gave me a sarcastic, "Enjoy that FREE stuff we sent you." It's hard not to feel like most companies are just exploiting bloggers for advertising that is practically free. The whole thing has made me feel discouraged.

My husband, Andy, had this great idea that it would be nice to do a giveaway without promoting any companies. So, that's what I'm doing. The mystery box in the photo above contains four food-related things that I bought myself, and one yummy homemade treat (made by yours truly). It's my gift to one of you, my readers.

I hope to inspire a trend among bloggers. Lets all stop doing product reviews and giveaways—or as I've now come to think of it—free advertising for companies. Lets start a trend of mystery boxes—lovingly prepared homemade treats, and personally selected products. Our readers will appreciate it more, and companies will get the message that it's time to stop taking advantage of us.

To enter to win my first mystery box (yes, I'm already planning the next one :-) just leave a comment here with your full name (in case there are two people with the same first name) and/or email. This giveaway will close Friday, January 27th at noon mountain time. I will announce the winner here on this post, so check back to see if you won. If I can't get in touch with you within three days, I will pick another winner.

♥, Kelly