Contest Winner! and Thoughts About Contests

And the winner is..... MYRNA FOSTER!

Congratulations, Myrna. Just let me know what book you like, and I'll send it your way. Any book at all (except maybe this one).

Thank you to everyone who entered, and thank you especially to all of you who read the story and offered thanks and encouragement. You guys are awesome.

If you enjoyed Pawn's Gambit, you might be interested to know there is an audio podcast version available at BCS as of today. Like everything there, it's free to listen to. Also, you get to learn how to pronounce my name (dang, I should've made a contest for that!).

So this was my first time running a spread-the-word style contest. You know, the ones where you get bonus points for each of: being a follower, already having been a follower, commenting, linking on your blog, linking on Twitter, linking on Facebook, following on Twitter, following on Facebook, already having followed on Twitter/Facebook, etc, etc, etc.

Obviously I didn't do all that. It was intentional, of course. I wanted things to be simple. You had to spread the word, because otherwise, really, what's the point? But that's it. I didn't require anyone to read the story -- I understand fantasy adventure isn't for everyone -- but I wanted everyone to hear about it and read it if it sounded interesting.

I also wanted it simple because of how I tend to do contests. When a contest gives me a list of things to get points for, rather than go, "Gosh, I can enter this contest any way I want!" I tend to be all, "Dang, that's a lot of stuff I have to do to maximize my chances."

Cuz that's the thing: I don't want to enter unless I give myself the best chance possible. But I don't always want to follow a random blog I just met, or give up one of my three posts per week to someone else's contest. You know? It's psychology: when people are given more options, it makes it harder for them to decide, not easier.

I got some proof of that in your contest entries. I expected the simplicity of the contest, and the attractiveness of the prize, to garner a bunch of entries who didn't answer the bonus question. That is, people who entered but didn't read the story. But what happened was, out of all the contest entrants, only TWO people entered without answering the bonus question.

Two.

Interesting, no? Well it is to me, but then I like psychology.

Anyway, what about you? What makes you want to, or NOT want to, enter a contest?

9 comments:

fairyhedgehog said...

I like it when there's an element of skill and I hate having to Tweet, link, join, Follow, etc. (I may do it but I don't like it.)

fairyhedgehog said...

Oops! I answered your question and forgot to say, "Congratulations, Myrna!"

Krista Van Dolzer said...

Yeah, I already mentioned how I felt about your contest rules:)

And congrats, Myrna! Hooray for southern Nevadans!

Susan Kaye Quinn said...

Congrats Myrna!

And is there something wrong with me that the "Relationships in Science" part of that title jumped out at me?

Contests: I used to ignore them, unless there was a particularly tasty prize. Then I'd go berzerk, stopping short of posting on my blog, unless I really wanted the prize (read: critique) or just wanted to help promote a friend. But lately, I've become a less hesitant to click the "follow" button and have been more active on Twitter, so it's easy to rack up "points." Mostly I just play for fun.

Also: I think people answered your question because they wanted to read your work. It's not often we get to see the fiction writing of our blogger friends. Strange that.

MattyDub said...

Well, I should just say that the only reason I didn't Tweet about your story or post it on Facebook or my blog is because I don't have a blog or Facebook or Twitter account. Otherwise I would have, and I would have gone for the book, too.
-M

Myrna Foster said...

LOL! I don't want THAT book!

I'm with Susan on people wanting to read your work. It's exciting when the writers whose blogs we read get published. You'd be excited if Natalie Whipple got offered a book deal, wouldn't you?

I won't give up a post to a contest unless I'm excited about it. Thanks for having this one!

And thanks, everyone, for the "congratulations!"

Adam Heine said...

I figured my regular readers would want to read the story. I guess I was thinking more of newcomers who responded to the rest of you guys spreading the word (hi, Krista!).

In any case, this is interesting information. I'll have to try different things in the future to see what happens.

Matty: If I do this again, feel free to hijack your wife's Facebook account for the purpose :-)

C. Michael Fontes said...

Congrats Myrna!

kanishk said...

Congrats Myrna!
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