Somewhere Over the Sun

Okay, here’s a chance for you to take advantage of me being generous and giving away a free copy of Somewhere Over the Sun for the somewhat selfish reason of looking to get more publicity for this site and my book.

I’m going to come up with a points-system for a number of things you can do to help my publicity and get a free copy of my book in your hands. This contest will close on Sunday, March 27th at 11:59 p.m (Mexico City time…which I’m not sure what it translates to in U.S time anymore because you guys decided to change clocks).

• Send a tweet with the hashtag #SomewhereOvertheSun and a link to either this site, my Amazon page, my B&N page, my Facebook page or my Goodreads page = 1 point
• Tweet a link with the hashtag #SomewhereOvertheSun and a link to your favorite blog entry of mine = 2 points
• Recommend Somewhere Over the Sun to your Goodreads friends = 1/2 point per friend
• Get your friends to visit my site and e-mail me your name = 1 point per friend
• Get your friends to visit my site and e-mail me your name and what is their favorite blog entry of mine = 2 points per friend
• Mention my Facebook author page in your Facebook status = 2 points
• Reblog this or any other of my blog entries on Tumblr, adding that you are doing so for the sake of this contest = 2 points per reblog (1 additional point for every reblog stemming from your reblog)
  
• Tweet a picture of you doing something awesome along with the hashtag #SomewhereOvertheSun = Sliding scale from 1 point to 300 points, depending on awesomeness
• Get a celebrity to tweet #SomewhereOvertheSun = Sliding scale from 1 to 1,000 points, depending awesomeness of celebrity
  
• Get a celebrity to add Somewhere Over the Sun to their Goodreads reading pile =  400 points
• Other publicity efforts I have not thought of will be rewarded points according to, of course, a sliding scale of awesomeness.

Good luck.

I will tally up the points and announce the winner, possibly by Monday the 28th, unless I’m too busy finishing (!!!) book number two.

A few days ago, I visited my old high school and talked to a creative writing class about myself and my book. All you narcissists out there, be advised that taking up a profession in writing provides plenty of opportunities to ramble on and on about yourself. Eventually, you may even manage to hold the attention of a dozen or so teenagers for an hour and a half. Even as a literature-loving seventeen year old, holding my attention inside of a classroom when I was a second semester high school senior for more than four minutes would have been impressive, so I feel quite proud of my talkative achievement this past week.

Anyway, enough of the class was interested in my assignment suggestion for me to want to post it on this site as a Somewhere Over the Sun contest. I ran this contest before the book was out, and I’ve decided to do it again in order to encourage the young writers and novelists around me by offering a free copy of my book as an incentive.

The guidelines

If you had the ability to turn fiction into reality, written words into truth, what story would you write? As per the limitations that my protagonist Alan lives through, assume that you cannot summon gold, or cure diseases or reveal any kind of deity. Entries should be between 200-1,000 words (I won’t strictly adhere to either limit). I will pick the winner based on style, content, originality and that ever-subjective quality of likability. With his/her permission, I will post it on this site. The deadline is 2/19 at 11:59 p.m. (CST- Central Standard Time). All stories should be emailed to adi.alsaid@gmail.com. This contest is open to absolutely everyone on the planet.

Good luck!

My book is now available for sale!

I’m extremely excited, but have been away from the internet all day so I haven’t had time to express my glee. I’ve added a buy the book! page to this site and that’s exactly what I’d love for you to do. :)

Moving on, that means that the first official Somewhere Over the Sun giveaway is over! I’ll record the video of me randomly choosing the winner later tonight and post the results tomorrow. I’ll be fairly internet-absent the next couple weeks, so I’ll be writing posts at nights after my long working days (more on that later) and queuing them to be posted the next day to create the illusion that I’m around.

I’m going to go celebrate with some family dinner, some form of booze, possibly some going out, then some writing, then working another 11-hour day tomorrow. Thank you for all your pre-publishing support, lovely readers of mine. Keep it going, since there’s no heating in my Mexico apartment and your affection is warm and fuzzy.

Only a few more days, dear readers!

Unfortunately, the publisher likes to work in terms of ‘approximately’ so I’m still not entirely sure what exact day Somewhere Over the Sun will be available for purchase. But it’s very, very soon.

Until that very exciting unknown day comes, I wanted to remind you all one last time that I’m giving away two autographed copies of my novel. To have your name entered, you simply have to officially tell me your name through here or via e-mail at adi.alsaid@gmail.com.

If you’d like to have your name entered three times into the drawing for a higher chance to win, just tell me a story. Any story at all. It can be a sentence long fiction via my ask box, 140 characters of made up plot in a tweet, an email with a few paragraphs about the time your glasses broke in the fourth grade and you were terrified about telling your parents so you threw the glasses away and pretended your eyesight was perfect, a handwritten letter detailing how you came to love chewing ice.

Anything at all, dear reader. Fiction or non-fiction, short or long, spoken, written or in the form of pictures, find a way to get your story to me, and I’ll enter your name into the drawing which will be held on the night of my book’s release, whatever the night ends up being. I’ll post a video where I randomly draw two names from a hat or a hat-like container, and the winners will each receive an autographed copy of Somewhere Over the Sun.

By the way, that shirt looks great on you. Here’s the quotation of the day:

“Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule I know of, babies- God damnit, you’ve got to be kind.” God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, Kurt Vonnegut

Inspired by a Facebook note going around which tells you to, in fifteen minutes, list fifteen authors you consider to be influential in your life, I’ve decided to give you a list of my own. If you haven’t read some of my fiction, this list might give you an idea about who you could potentially compare my writing. Maybe. That’s not right, no. It’ll tell you about the wordsmiths whom I studied under for long enough that they probably shaped who I am as a writer. I’d like to mention that, although I obviously enjoy particular authors’ works, I’m more of a book-by-book fan than an author fan, so having only read one book by a particular author is enough for his/her name to appear in the list. Thoughts are, of course, always welcome.

1. Kurt Vonnegut
2. Stephen King
3. Chuck Palahniuk
4. Paul Auster
5. Jonathan Safran Foer
6. Cris de Oliveira
7. Charlie Kaufman
8. Woody Allen
9.  Dave Eggers
10. Bill Watterson
11. David Eagleman
12. Neil Gaiman
13. Joan Didion
14. Milan Kundera
15. Edgar Allan Poe

And I’ve only received a handful of stories so far! Make sure you lower those people’s chances of winning by submitting anything at all to me to get your name included into the Somewhere Over the Sun giveaway!