Apparently, the proprietor of The Skwib is out of his tiny little mind, and he’s giving away Kindles. One for liking his Facebook page (when it reaches 2000, he’ll give one away, but you can also be entered by signing up for my newsletter) and one for every 75 copies of Marvellous Hairy sold.
There’s also a 1/10 chance to win a Kindle skin, if you’ve already got a Kindle!
You can get all the details here.
I managed to get the gallery down to a shortlist of six. You can vote below, or visit the gallery to see all the entries. (Highly recommended — there is some incredibly creative and wonderful work there.)
Feel free to tell me what an idiot I am for my choice of six in the comments!
Voting is open until October 11th.
It’s back!
This contest ran a couple of years ago, and it was a lot of fun, so let’s do it again.
Here’s the concept: find a vintage ad, and then create a product from a created world — it can be from a book, movie, TV, etc. It doesn’t have to be science fiction; you could go with a fantasy world, an alternate reality, whatever. The only proviso is that it has to have been written by someone else, so none of your own bizarre fictional futures. Here’s a couple I mocked up, based on the grim post-apocalyptic THE ROAD and the less-grim, but still post-apocalyptic THE POSTMAN (both books worth reading, btw):
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It doesn’t have to be post-apocalyptic, by the way. If you’re more of an optimistic Star Trek kind of person, then I’m happy to see Oil of Olay ads featuring Warf, scotch ads with Scotty, or ear-hair trimming systems endorsed by Quark.
Here are the finalists from last time to help you get the idea.
Or you can in a gallery here“>check out the gallery for this year’s contest is here.
The winner chooses from:
The runner up:
All five finalists:
All entrants:
Some things that may help
Vintage Ads at Livejournal
Vintage Ads search results at Flickr
Go be awesome!
Don’t miss this opportunity to win a walk-on role in my next book, which I’ve extended a couple days past Labour Day. All you have to do is sign up for The MonkeySphere, my monthly newsletter, or join my Facebook page, and you could win:
Even better, join both — you’ll double your chances, and anyone who signs up for the MonkeySphere will get $2 off Marvellous Hairy. More details here.
Do it now, because the contest closes soon!
Don’t miss this opportunity to win a walk-on role in my next book, which is nearing completion. All you have to do is sign up for The MonkeySphere, my monthly newsletter, or join my Facebook page, and you could win:
Even better, join both — you’ll double your chances, and anyone who signs up for the MonkeySphere will get $2 off Marvellous Hairy. More details here.
Hell yes, we’re going to do this again. This is a contest in which you may be able to win:
Now, if you’ve entered, or think you will, this is an excellent time to start thinking about how you would like to appear in my next book. Actually, to say next book is to narrow it down too much. I’m currently at work on two books; both are satires (naturally). One is a speculative fiction, the broad theme of which is artificial intelligence, and the other is a historical fiction — or rather, a gentle send-up of the kinds of historical fictions that win Booker and Giller Prizes on a regular basis.
You can put yourself in either book. Almost anything goes. You can appear as yourself — with your name attached, or as a pseudonym. Or your cameo can be somewhat fictionalized. Perhaps you’ve always wanted to be a pirate. Or maybe a ninja. (I hope not, but there’s no accounting for tastes.) Maybe you’d like to be a character with an extra appendage. Almost anything goes, as long as we can work it into the story in a way that doesn’t completely destroy the structural integrity of the novel.
So, what do you imagine you’d like to do with this opportunity? Feel free to share here.
Still want to enter? Join my fan page or my newsletter (sign up for both to double your chances). You have until midnight, August 31st!