City of Glass ARC Contest - win a copy!
ETA: THE CONTEST IS NOW OVER. THANKS FOR PLAYING, AND LOOK OUT FOR THE ENTRY LISTING THE WINNERS.
City of Glass ARC Contest, December 2008
It's Christmas, and as some of you know, therefore the time of year when we here at my blog (meaning me) give away ARCs - otherwise known as Advance Reader Copies. They're advanced copies of a book, created mainly for publicity and review purposes. This year I've got four extra copies of City of Glass that I intend to give away - and just like last year with Ashes, it's going to be via a contest.
The contest rules are below. Please read all the way to the bottom of this entry to find out who can enter and how you enter. Especially please do this before you post questions about the contest.
So here's how it works: the contest starts today and there are four categories and one ARC for winning in each category. Each catgory requires you to do a fun or creative thing that’s somehow related to the Mortal Instruments books. You can enter the contest more than once as long as you enter in different categories (so you can enter up to four times. You can, however, only win once, and you can only enter once in each numbered category.) The categories are as follows:
Categories
1) Art: Create a piece of fanart related to the Mortal Instruments. It can be anything you want, of any scene or character or location, in any medium. Drawing a comic or cartoon counts. Photography counts, too. You can enter, say, a number of drawings as long as they're a related set (like a set of comic panels); ditto photos - each entry has to be one individual artistic work.
2) Video: Create a fanvid, a movie, or a book trailer - anything in video format. Here's an example of a fanvid, and clicking through to the vid's YouTube page will link you to lots more.
You can also make a video of yourself talking about the books, or really anything as long as the format is video and the topic is the MI books. This category is more work, but that means less entries so you'll have a better chance of winning. :D
3) Fanworks. Icons, banners, layouts, wallpapers, communities and fanmixes: fun stuff.
In this category, you can choose to make a set of MI-themed icons, featuring pictures, text, whatever - it’s up to you. There can be as many icons in the set as you see fit. You know icons - they look like this.. You can also make a banner or a wallpaper (to see a fanmade wallpaper, go here. ) Banners are meant to go across the top of sites or under a signature on a discussion forum. They look more like this. You can also start a community, like Bibi did with All About Alec. Or you can make a fanmix - fanmixes are a list of songs you’ve picked out that remind you of a particular book or other media property; in this case, the MI books. You can find an example fanmix here.
You'll notice there's nothing about writing in this category; I'm sorry, but last time I did the contest judging the writing was incredibly time-consuming and hard, so no writing this time around.
4) Book location: Take a picture of a copy of City of Bones or City of Ashes in a weird location. On top of a school bus, in a fish tank, at the circus, whatever. Last year the winner took a photo of the book in Red Square in Moscow, I believe.
How to enter - PLEASE READ
Just post your entry or a link to your entry here on my LJ. If you are going to link me to photos of your entry, please consider NOT POSTING THOSE PHOTOS TO MYSPACE OR FACEBOOK. In those cases, you will have to friend me for me to be able to see the pictures, and even then, the hosting systems on these sites often malfunction. Even if you friend me, should you win, NO ONE ELSE WILL BE ABLE TO SEE YOUR PICTURES EITHER and I'll have to find somewhere else to host them so I can post them to the winners entry; this is not likely to dispose me well toward picking you. I'd recommend using Flickr or Photobucket or one of many free image hosting services.
Include the category you are entering in in your post, and your name (real name or whatever nickname you want to be known by. Something so that you can be identified) Keep in mind that eventually you'll have to give me your address if you win (one win per address) so I can send you the book, but don't post it here. You do not need an LJ account to post on LJ. You can also post anonymously. Whether you post anonymously or not does not affect your chances of winning. You can enter no matter where you live. (In fact, I can’t even tell where you live from your entry, anyway.) There are no age restrictions either.
Spoilers and security: There have been some readers who have been very anxious that the winners will post spoilers for the end of Glass, thus ruining it for everyone. One should keep in mind that the publisher prints thousands of ARCs (mostly for the book industry itself: reviewers, booksellers, librarians), of which these are only four; if someone out there really wants to ruin the end, they can, but obviously if that was a big concern for Simon and Schuster they wouldn’t have printed ARCs in the first place. In general people in the book industry honor the unspoken code of not posting spoilers - it’s just a tacky thing to do. I’m just going to say that by entering this contest, you’re entering into an agreement not to publish spoilers once you’ve read the book. If you don’t think you can hold yourself back, don’t enter. And I'll know where you live. ☺
Contest end
The contest ends Christmas Day. This post will stay stuck to the top of my LJ until then. On Dec. 25, I'll stop entries, and start judging the entries; some time after that, I will post the winners. There will be first, second and third place winners. First place winners get a signed copy of City of Glass. Second place gets a signed first chapter of the first book of The Infernal Devices, : The Clockwork Princess. Third place, well, you get glory.
The winners will get their prizes in January.
I hope you guys will have fun with this! And please, don't overthink it. There's no need to ask questions like "Is there some specific number of songs I need to put in a fanmix?" or "In the photo of a weird place is it okay if there is also a person in the picture?" Yes, it's okay. It's okay if there's a person, a moose or a hockey team in the picture. If it's not mentioned in the rules, it's fine. Just have fun.
ETA: PLEASE DON'T POST YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS. I don't need it, as I won't be emailing you. I'll be posting the winning entries here, like I said, and then you can contact me. I would rather not have lots of private email addresses floating around the comments.
City of Glass ARC Contest, December 2008
It's Christmas, and as some of you know, therefore the time of year when we here at my blog (meaning me) give away ARCs - otherwise known as Advance Reader Copies. They're advanced copies of a book, created mainly for publicity and review purposes. This year I've got four extra copies of City of Glass that I intend to give away - and just like last year with Ashes, it's going to be via a contest.
The contest rules are below. Please read all the way to the bottom of this entry to find out who can enter and how you enter. Especially please do this before you post questions about the contest.
So here's how it works: the contest starts today and there are four categories and one ARC for winning in each category. Each catgory requires you to do a fun or creative thing that’s somehow related to the Mortal Instruments books. You can enter the contest more than once as long as you enter in different categories (so you can enter up to four times. You can, however, only win once, and you can only enter once in each numbered category.) The categories are as follows:
Categories
1) Art: Create a piece of fanart related to the Mortal Instruments. It can be anything you want, of any scene or character or location, in any medium. Drawing a comic or cartoon counts. Photography counts, too. You can enter, say, a number of drawings as long as they're a related set (like a set of comic panels); ditto photos - each entry has to be one individual artistic work.
2) Video: Create a fanvid, a movie, or a book trailer - anything in video format. Here's an example of a fanvid, and clicking through to the vid's YouTube page will link you to lots more.
Click to viewYou can also make a video of yourself talking about the books, or really anything as long as the format is video and the topic is the MI books. This category is more work, but that means less entries so you'll have a better chance of winning. :D
3) Fanworks. Icons, banners, layouts, wallpapers, communities and fanmixes: fun stuff.
In this category, you can choose to make a set of MI-themed icons, featuring pictures, text, whatever - it’s up to you. There can be as many icons in the set as you see fit. You know icons - they look like this.. You can also make a banner or a wallpaper (to see a fanmade wallpaper, go here. ) Banners are meant to go across the top of sites or under a signature on a discussion forum. They look more like this. You can also start a community, like Bibi did with All About Alec. Or you can make a fanmix - fanmixes are a list of songs you’ve picked out that remind you of a particular book or other media property; in this case, the MI books. You can find an example fanmix here.
You'll notice there's nothing about writing in this category; I'm sorry, but last time I did the contest judging the writing was incredibly time-consuming and hard, so no writing this time around.
4) Book location: Take a picture of a copy of City of Bones or City of Ashes in a weird location. On top of a school bus, in a fish tank, at the circus, whatever. Last year the winner took a photo of the book in Red Square in Moscow, I believe.
How to enter - PLEASE READ
Just post your entry or a link to your entry here on my LJ. If you are going to link me to photos of your entry, please consider NOT POSTING THOSE PHOTOS TO MYSPACE OR FACEBOOK. In those cases, you will have to friend me for me to be able to see the pictures, and even then, the hosting systems on these sites often malfunction. Even if you friend me, should you win, NO ONE ELSE WILL BE ABLE TO SEE YOUR PICTURES EITHER and I'll have to find somewhere else to host them so I can post them to the winners entry; this is not likely to dispose me well toward picking you. I'd recommend using Flickr or Photobucket or one of many free image hosting services.
Include the category you are entering in in your post, and your name (real name or whatever nickname you want to be known by. Something so that you can be identified) Keep in mind that eventually you'll have to give me your address if you win (one win per address) so I can send you the book, but don't post it here. You do not need an LJ account to post on LJ. You can also post anonymously. Whether you post anonymously or not does not affect your chances of winning. You can enter no matter where you live. (In fact, I can’t even tell where you live from your entry, anyway.) There are no age restrictions either.
Spoilers and security: There have been some readers who have been very anxious that the winners will post spoilers for the end of Glass, thus ruining it for everyone. One should keep in mind that the publisher prints thousands of ARCs (mostly for the book industry itself: reviewers, booksellers, librarians), of which these are only four; if someone out there really wants to ruin the end, they can, but obviously if that was a big concern for Simon and Schuster they wouldn’t have printed ARCs in the first place. In general people in the book industry honor the unspoken code of not posting spoilers - it’s just a tacky thing to do. I’m just going to say that by entering this contest, you’re entering into an agreement not to publish spoilers once you’ve read the book. If you don’t think you can hold yourself back, don’t enter. And I'll know where you live. ☺
Contest end
The contest ends Christmas Day. This post will stay stuck to the top of my LJ until then. On Dec. 25, I'll stop entries, and start judging the entries; some time after that, I will post the winners. There will be first, second and third place winners. First place winners get a signed copy of City of Glass. Second place gets a signed first chapter of the first book of The Infernal Devices, : The Clockwork Princess. Third place, well, you get glory.
The winners will get their prizes in January.
I hope you guys will have fun with this! And please, don't overthink it. There's no need to ask questions like "Is there some specific number of songs I need to put in a fanmix?" or "In the photo of a weird place is it okay if there is also a person in the picture?" Yes, it's okay. It's okay if there's a person, a moose or a hockey team in the picture. If it's not mentioned in the rules, it's fine. Just have fun.
ETA: PLEASE DON'T POST YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS. I don't need it, as I won't be emailing you. I'll be posting the winning entries here, like I said, and then you can contact me. I would rather not have lots of private email addresses floating around the comments.