The Blue Blazes Photo Contest: Win A Big Damn Stack Of Books

HOLY CRAP IT’S OUT SOUND THE ALARM BURN ALL THE PANTS DRINK ALL THE LIQUOR DO CLUMSY PIROUETTES IN A PRETTY MEADOW AHHHHHH

Ahem.

As noted elsewhere today, The Blue Blazes is now out in the world.

It’s on shelves. Lurking there. Waiting for your eager touch.

And I’m lurking here, waiting to capture that eager touch on film.

More to the point, it’s time for a contest, baby!

Here’s how this works (the short version):

I want you to take a photograph of you with your copy of The Blue Blazes.

I will send a big tower of books to the person with my favorite photo.

Here’s how this works (the long version):

Go get The Blue Blazes. Physical copy probably makes a prettier photo, but you can do a digital copy on the e-reader of your choice (long as I can tell what book it is). Get your picture taken with the book. Send me that picture to terribleminds at gmail dot com.

You can obviously just do a picture of you standing there with the book, looking morose, and hey, maybe you won’t have much competition and you’ll sail into the sunset as the winner by default. But note that with this photo you are trying to appease my bizarre sensibilities. I am drunk and untrustworthy and you are trying to amuse and/or impress me in some capacity. I AM THE EMPEROR IN THE ARENA AND I WILL GIVE YOU A THUMBS UP OR A THUMBS DOWN. Thumbs up gets the prize. Thumbs down gets eaten by a flock of deranged cassowaries.

So: a funny picture! A dramatic picture! Sexy! Disturbing! Something! Anything! Surprise me!

The winner — who must, I am afraid, live in the United States because shipping on this collection is going to be an unruly bear — will get a package of books by yours truly that includes:

Blackbirds (UK trade paperback)

Mockingbird (UK trade paperback)

Under the Empyrean Sky: Heartland #1 (ARC paperback)

Unclean Spirits: Gods & Monsters #1 (trade paperback)

Double Dead (trade paperback)

Dinocalypse Now: Book #1 (trade paperback)

Beyond Dinocalypse: Book #2 (hardcover)

Bait Dog (hardcover Kickstarter edition)

Don’t Read This Book (paperback; anthology I edited)

Fireside Issue #1 (features my Atlanta Burns short, “Emerald Lakes”)

Human Tales (features my short, “The Toll”)

I will, of course, devalue all of these with my signature if you so desire.

That right there is 11 books.

And one of those books is the not-yet-released Under the Empyrean Sky, my cornpunk YA which John Hornor Jacobs calls a mash-up of Star Wars and Grapes of Wrath.

So: go take a picture of you with The Blue Blazes.

Send me the photographic evidence (either send me the file or a link to it).

Send it to terribleminds at gmail dot com.

I will share my favorites on this very blog.

I will choose one among my favorites to get the big-ass book stack above.

You have one week to get me that photo!

Ends next Tuesday, June 4th, at noon EST.

EDIT: International participants are allowed and NOW (as of 6/4) do not have to pay shipping! You can thank the magnanimous Angry Robot overlords (Lee Harris in specific) for this — and, so I’m also extending the contest by another 12 hours to accommodate any international folks who want in. So, that means you have until 11:59PM tonight to get your photos to me.