It’s Thursday, my brain functionality’s starting to recede down the back of my neck, and I’m staring at a stack of Infoquakes wondering what I can do to promote the book. I’ve toyed with the idea of doing some kind of gimmicky promotional giveaway here on my blog before. But I’ve always decided to put this off, because I don’t like to do things half-assed and I have no idea how effective this will be.
So instead of coming up with one gimmicky promotional giveaway, how about five? I’m gonna give away five signed copies of Infoquake to five lucky people between now and next Friday, September 29. (Presuming, of course, I get at least five people to respond.)
The signed copies of Infoquake will go to:
1. The poet. The person who submits the best limerick that begins “There once was a young man named Natch.” (In case you haven’t followed any of the zillion and a half links on this blog to the Infoquake website, Natch is the book’s protagonist.)
2. The detail-oriented reader. One person who can submit the correct answer to this question: what city is the seat of the centralized government in Infoquake? (The answer is freely available by reading the excerpt and/or background articles on the website.)
3. The fan of quality literature. One person who has recently bought any other book released by my publisher Pyr. (Might I suggest Sean Williams’ The Crooked Letter, Ian McDonald’s River of Gods, or Justina Robson’s Mappa Mundi?). Prove it by submitting to me the first line on page 95 of that book. (If there is no first line on page 95, then go to the next page that there is one and submit that instead.)
4. The lecher. The person with the most interesting true story about a sexual encounter you’ve had at a science fiction convention. Hilariously failed attempts at sexual encounters or mind-boggling encounters you’ve witnessed from afar might possibly count, if they’re good enough stories.
5. The kiss-ass. The person who submits the best answer to this question: “David Louis Edelman deserves the Hugo, Campbell, Nebula, Emmy and Tony Awards this year because…” (Please, no tying this in with #4.)
Send your entry (or entries) to me via e-mail at dedelman@gmail.com. You’ve got from now until Friday, September 29, at which point I’ll announce winners and publish the best entries.
Submit to as many of these gimmicky promotional giveaways as you want, but you can only win one of them. In case of multiple correct entries for #2 and #3, Yours Truly will pick winners at random. All judging will be done by Yours Truly. All interpretation of the rules will be done by Yours Truly. Winners restricted to the continental United States in order to save Yours Truly money in postage. Yours Truly reserves the right to amend, abridge, avert, abrogate, or annihilate the rules as he sees fit. Contest will be strictly audited by PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Arthur Andersen, Anderson Cooper, Deloitte Touche, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Allen Ginsberg, and God Almighty. You don’t want to piss those people off by cheating, do you?
(No, these giveaways aren’t associated with Amazon in any way. Nor are they associated with Pyr, or anybody else but me. So direct your snarky legal ire at me, not them.)
Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Go buy the book, m’kay?
Updated: C’mon, guys, it’s not that hard, is it? Send me entries over e-mail, don’t post them here in the comments. I’ve x’d out the two entries below. (But don’t worry, I’ll still consider you guys eligible.)
Update 9/26: So I’ve gotten plenty of limericks (#1) and plenty of lines from page 95 of Pyr books (#3). But only one correct entry for #2 and one submission each for #4 and #5. You could still win this thing! (I’ll even guarantee anonymity for #4.)
Update 9/29: The contest is now closed, and winners have been posted.