Critically acclaimed author, Melanie Wells, fights adult illiteracy with unique campaign

Photo by Rick Bryant, Rick Bryant Studios; courtesy of Melanie Wells

I Told Two Friends Campaign extended to run 45 days

Fact: 18 million adults in America don’t read well enough to earn a living wage.
Fact: 63% of prison inmates in America can’t read this sentence.
Fact: 774 million people worldwide are illiterate. Two thirds are women.

Author and licensed therapist, Melanie Wells is launching a unique campaign to fight adult illiteracy. Based upon the old ‘I told two friends’ virulent shampoo commercial, Wells hopes to raise $100,000 for ProLiteracy, an organization whose mission is to end adult illiteracy worldwide.

For fans of Melanie Wells, their participation in the I Told Two Friends Campaign is two fold:

First: buy two copies of Wells’ latest psychological thriller, “My Soul to Keep” – either through links on the IToldTwoFriends website, online, or at any local bookstore. These need to be new copies, as copies from a used bookstore won’t work for this campaign.

Second: give the copies to two of their friends and ask these friends to join the campaign by buying two copies for their friends.

Melanie’s commitment is that, for every copy sold at retail price, she will donate 100 percent of her profits (yep, every penny of her profits) to ProLiteracy.

Those who join in theIToldTwoFriends.com effort to help solve adult illiteracy are encouraged to be creative in recording their efforts. Videos of the book exchanges and documentation of the books purchased through that one fan’s efforts are to be published on the site. Prizes will be given along the way for most friends enlisted and most original documentation efforts.

The I Told Two Friends Campaign launches August 15 and will run 45 days through September 28.

“My Soul to Keep” is the third in Melanie Wells' critically acclaimed Day of Evil series, which includes “When the Day of Evil Comes” and “The Soul Hunter” published by Waterbrook Multnomah Publishers, a division of Random House. Wells’ main character, Dallas-based Dylan Foster, leads an ordinary life, teaching psychology at SMU, driving a clunker of an old truck and dealing with stress by cleaning everything in her home. When she meets Peter Terry, a strange, pale man with several old scars on his back, her life takes a bizarre and dangerous twist. Throughout the three books, Dylan must confront issues of evil verses truth in order to save herself and those she loves. The Day of Evil series is well-crafted, with three-dimensional characters complete with human strengths and flaws. Wells takes her readers on a roller coaster ride, with laughs on one page and shivers on another. This is definitely not a series to read at night.