All righty. I'm about to run off to Minnesota for six days of book related fun fun fun but before I left, I wanted to put up the rules and prizes for the most exciting Ballad contest yet (writers, listen up).

Okay, first of all, the prizes.

The absolute grand prize about which I am enormously excited is

A 1 chapter (or 15 double-spaced pages, whichever comes first) critique by all three of the Merry Sisters of Fate:
me, Brenna Yovanoff (author of forthcoming FE in '10)(brennayovanoff ) and Tessa Gratton (possessor of secret news I wish I could share)(tessagratton ). These are my two critique partners, who read every manuscript I write before it makes it to my editors. They rip and tear my manuscripts apart and put them back together like nobody's business. I would not be who I was without them and I'm thrilled that they've agreed to do this.


The first prize is this swank messenger bag. Not just a swank messenger bag, but a swank messenger bag stuffed with a signed Ballad, a signed Lament, a signed Shiver, and a signed Shiver audio book.




And the second prize is stack of books all involving the paranormal and teens and death and good stuff:

a signed copy of BALLAD
NEED by Carrie Jones
GRACELING by Kristin Cashore
IMPOSSIBLE by Nancy Werlin
THIRSTY by M. T. Anderson

And the third prize is

a signed audiobook of Shiver (what? I have a lot of them)


And here are the rules:

To enter, you must find a copy of Ballad in the wild -- that is, in a bookstore of any ilk. You do not have to buy said copy of Ballad. All you have to do is whip out your camera or your cell phone and have someone take a picture of you holding it. That's one entry. That's it. You want another chance to win? Have your sister pose next to you. She doesn't have to buy the book either. Or even hold a copy. She does need to be looking at the camera though. Want another chance to win? Have that random woman browsing the Sarah Dessen books stand next to your sister. Again, she doesn't have to hold the book. Or even know you. Just be willing to smile into the camera in proximity to someone holding the book. Want visual examples? Of course you do.

FOUR ENTRIES. None of them know the king of the dead, but he's looking at the camera (I think. His eyes are shadowed.) He doesn't have to hold that book, but he is anyway because he's so darn thrilled to be in it.

Then what I need you to do is take the photos and post them somewhere online -- I don't care if it's your facebook, livejournal, photobucket, mom's website, whatever, that's not important. The only thing that's important is that you link them here. You can embed them directly in the comment if you have the voodoo to do that. Or you can just send me a link. Make sure it's someplace I can see it and do a headcount. Bonus prize to someone who gets more than 20 people in a photo. ;) I'll think of something good . . .

Got the idea? Okay, to give you plenty of time to find it in the wild, we're running this baby through October 10th, which is the second Saturday in October. Pleeeeeennnnny of time to find it.

And with that said, here's the playlist for Ballad. I need to preface this by saying that I used a ton of Celtic music like this awesome Kila song, bands like Lunasa and Solas and singers like Iarla O Lionaird whose name is too awesome for me to spell however such music is not available on heathen sites like Imeem or Playlist.com. (their loss). For those who are interested in the finding of Celticky stuff, I will do a post on that when I get back and have loads of time.

Okay. So that behind me, here's the playlist of the rock music I used for Ballad. Those who loved the playlist for Shiver may be somewhat shocked as the Shiver playlist reflects the fact that Sam is the type of boy you could bring home to your parents. And James . . . is not.




See you guys in a week! Happy contesting!