Book Blog Olympics--Call for submissions

Hi folks, get your URLs for Funniest Blog Post submitted through the Ganzfield contact form (http://www.site.ganzfield.com/Contact.html) by midnight, EDT, Tuesday, July 31st... and then come on back on Wednesday for the vote! 

The Book Blog Olympics!

Hi folks,

So, I was wandering around Facebook this morning when Kay (of K-Books) made a comment about not being that into the Olympics, and then Kimmy (author of Triangles--see how I just keep name-dropping?) said that we needed a Book Olympics... and a "ping!" sound went through my head.

This image is totally ripped off from an elementary school in Pennsylvania.

Okay, so here's the plan:


National teams. 
You can choose to represent any country to which you have a legal tie (you live there now, are from there originally, have a passport with their name on it, etc.).

Sign up. 
We might as well use the Ganzfield contact form for this (beware of the ninjas): http://www.site.ganzfield.com/Contact.html. Include your name (or nom de blog), your nationality, your email address, and your mailing address (anywhere on Planet Earth or a lunar colony, if you have an APO address) for prizes. You can enter at any point throughout the games, but we must have your info in order to qualify you.


Submit your entries. 
You can enter one, some, or all of the events, so long as we get your entries by the stated deadline.
We'll post them here, and then have people vote for the winners. Winners will receive gold, silver, or bronze medals (made of ACTUAL pixels---oooooh!) for each event. Each winner also will receive a Spencer Hill Press book of his/her choice... and we have some great ones in the works.


Events. 
Have a suggestion for an event? Please post it below in the comments--we need more! Ideally, they should be entertaining to do and to judge.

So far, we have funniest blog post, innovations in interviewing, speed reading or most books read in a 24 hour period, best flash fiction, and "Twit-kwan-do," in which contenders would go head to head in 5-minute Twitter one-up contests.

And this one is ripped off from a sports science site.

So, we can make the first event "Funniest Blog Post," with entries (URL to the post) accepted through the contact form (listed above) through midnight, EDT, Tuesday, July 31st.

Eye of the Beholder

So, I'm now in the position of selecting images and even hiring models for some of Spencer Hill's cover art, and I have a dilemma. I don't want to perpetuate the negative body image issues of our culture, but I want our authors' books to sell. And THIS is what is done to make those fashionable images that sell stuff:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U

(I'd embed it, but embedding has been disabled).

So, what's a publisher with a conscience to do? Plech--I think I'll stick to fire flowers and artful shadows. At least my own series has natural-looking models--speaking of, have you seen the new cover for Adversary?

Yeah, they glow--they're in love. It's a G-positive thing.

Happy Monday!

ISS

I used to post on this blog five times each week. I've cut back to 1-2 times for the past several months, with the combo of work and family health stuff, and most of the recent posts have been about SHP and their books. So, today, I have something totally random--time-lapse images of the Earth from the ISS.

And the only reason I'm posting it is that it's cool. Enjoy!

YA Crush Tourney

SHP has a book in the YA Crush Tourney: http://ya-sisterhood.blogspot.com/

Aiden St. Delphi from the Covenant books will be up for his first round on July 20. Please vote for him!