The Awkward Author Photo Contest Awakens

One more post before I fuck right off to a warm and distant island —

Hey! YOU.

I have a stack of the new Miriam Black novel, Thunderbird, that I’d like to give away. The book doesn’t come out until February, but damnit, I have ARCs, and I’d love for you to have one.

And! Since it’s National Novel Writing Month, I figure this is a good time to engage in a much-needed and momentary distraction in order to playfully envision yourself as the AUTHORIAL PRESENCE you hope to be — which is to say, it’s time to depict yourself in an awkward author photo in the hope of winning BIG FANCY PRIZES (cough cough that are actually mostly just books cough cough but hey shut up books are awesome).

You can see the entrants into the first contest here. Or, examples:

What exactly goes into an awkward author photo, you ask? Well, I don’t know! The goal is not to make a real, official back-of-the-book-jacket photo, but instead to make something weird, funny, goofy, uncomfortable, or awkward. Something to make people laugh or, I dunno, stare worriedly at your deranged visage. If you want to make it Miriam Black-themed and throw in a couple birds, sure. If you want it to be Christmas-themed, or Star Wars-ian, or Fuck-2016-themed, since all are relevant: hey, you do you. Have fun with it. No requirements other than:

It needs to be a photo of you. An author photo, like you’d find on the back of the book jacket.

Photoshop is fine, provided you’re ‘shopping a real photo.

The rules are:

The contest runs from today till December 14th, 2016, noon, EST.

You get one entry. Just one. Multiple entries disqualifies you.

Email that entry — a photo of medium size, at least 700px wide — to me at terribleminds at gmail dot com, and when you do…

Use the subject (and this is a must): AWKWARD AUTHOR PHOTO CONTEST SUBMISSION 2016.

I will search for that subject, and if it ain’t exact, I might miss your entry.

Your photo will be uploaded to a public Flickr page so that it can be seen and judged, and it may also end up here on the blog or other social media if it’s one of the winners. I don’t own the photo, though, and I claim no rights to it. If you want to share credit for who took the photo, please do! I’ll include any credit I get with the photo page.

Open to international (non-US) participants, but international winners pay their own shipping.

I will get the photos up and judged in the week following the contest deadline, which means the books will likely be out to you around or just after Christmas, but before New Years.

The prizes:

I’ll pick one BIG-ASS WINNER, and said Big-Ass Winner will receive: a copy of Thunderbird, and, I’ll throw in some of my other books, too, all signed. Plus: hey, I’ll pitch in a $50 giftcard to the indie bookstore of your choice — even if you don’t have one near you, a number of the best ones ship. (Note: this will require that I actually be able to buy a gift cert for that bookstore. If you name a bookstore that won’t let me buy one for you, I’ll have to default to, say, Mysterious Galaxy or WORD or some such, be advised.)

Then, you, the audience will pick your favorites.

The top four will each get a physical copy of Thunderbird and I’ll also throw in one of my self-pubbed writing e-books, your choice. (Excludes Kick-Ass Writer.)

The rest of you will all get a participation trophy. Which is an imaginary high-five from me, because you’re awesome, and I love you. I mean, I don’t love you in a creepy way. I’m not going to show up at your house with a boombox and a clownsuit.

Just the clownsuit, probably. No boombox for you.

ANYWAY, so them’s the rules.

It begins now.

Have fun.