Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Book Giveaway - "The Book" by M. Clifford


Welcome to TNBBC's 3rd Book Giveaway!


This giveaway was made possible by self published author M.Clifford. His novel, The Book , placed in the top 250 of this year's Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. An amazing accomplishment! And now two lucky people out there will have the opportunity to win a copy of this dystopian look at the future of censorship and government control in a digital age gone wild.







Here is the summary from Goodreads.com:
It begins,“Don’t read The Book.” All information is controlled by The Book, a digital reading device that exists in a paperless, dystopian future shockingly similar to our own. Among the many Book lovers, we find Holden, a simple sprinkler fitter content with his small life. Within his favorite story, he discovers an inconsistency between the digital version & a rare paper page, preserved as “recycled” wallpaper in his favorite Chicago bar, The Library. A quest for answers leads him to discover a secret library of books & the subtle, potent censorship of all written words. Alongside the like-minded readers of the Ex Libris, Holden dedicates himself to freeing the world from the grip of the Publishing House & overthrowing the Editors of The Book, saving the last printed words on earth. As the government’s capacity to outwit the minds of the public reveals itself, Holden is forced to accept that the only way to succeed may be to sacrifice the one thing they love more than life–books.

Michael Clifford and I are calling this the "Napkin Pitch" giveaway contest!
Michael is looking for ideas for a future novel.
The rules are simple:

In 300 words or less, post a comment here submitting an original story idea! The two best submissions will be chosen (There are two copies of THE BOOK to be given away!). Be sure to include your email address, so Michael and I can contact you if you are the winners. Michael will send the winners a letter of gratitude/authenticity for their idea and the nature in which he will expand on it. He will ALSO acknowledge the person's name and original story idea in the book once it is published!

If that's not enough to get you to put on your thinking caps, and send in a submission, I don't know what is?!?!?!

Please be sure to post the comment to this blog post, and remember to include your email address. Submissions that fail to follow the rules will be kicked out.

The giveaway contest begins today, and will end on Saturday May 15th.. so get those submissions is soon!

Best of luck to you all, and a gigantic THANK YOU to M.Clifford for allowing me this awesome opportunity! I cannot wait to see what you guys come up with!

12 comments:

  1. Lori -- I just want to be clear on my understanding of the rules...our story idea can be anything???

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  2. What a great competition! Here goes:

    A small group of people become really good friends on a book loving internet site. They share much about themselves and their families, including birthdays, addresses and phone numbers and they live all around the world. This group loves books and figures let’s write one ourselves. They set up a holiday in a beautiful cottage in the mountains so they can meet face to face and start planning their book. The holiday is fabulous and cause for much discussion in the following months. Everyone returns back to their countries and the writing goes brilliantly, after a year or so the book is published and it is a hit; sales are through the roof! However, one member is not so happy about sharing all the profits and sets about visiting each member, taking him/her on a worldwide trip; this member figures if the rest of the group isn’t alive then more the money for him/her. As members start dropping off the remaining members start to think it is just too much of a coincidence that their group is becoming smaller and smaller. A few get together and voice their thoughts but is the killer amongst them? No one knows who they can trust. No one knows who the killer is. In the meantime the book has hit number 1 and the money is pouring in. Will the group be able to join the dots before it’s too late? Will they be able to enjoy their money? Are their families’ lives in danger also? Is the killer living a fictional life, just wanting the material for their next book? Only time will tell…..but it’s running out quickly.

    My email address is: mandy_dj@hotmail.com

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  3. KT - Yes. It can be about absolutely ANYTHING!

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  4. Please don't enter me! I'm just responding about the Book Trailer awards, I would totally hop the bus down there, but I have a prior engagement, my cousin is getting married that weekend! :-)

    That said, I totally believe a TNBBC meet up should occur at BEA, as TNBBC is what made me fanatic about reading again. :-) Also, I'd love to meet the faces behind the posts/conversations.

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  5. I like this idea:

    A book about a murder mystery within a reality show. Something along the lines of a group of contestants participating in a reality show where the participants become embroiled in a murder mystery involving the host of the show. Instead of competing against each other, they band together to catch the murderer and keep themselves in the game at the ssame time. I think it would be fascinating to see how the different contestants complete the challenges and wrestle with the idea that the information they find during these challenges can either give them an edge to win if they keep it to themsleves or contribute to solving the mystery if they share it with the other contestants.

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  6. My email address is madamerkf at aol dot com

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  7. Hmm... I thought I had added my thoughts to this post.
    I haven't been able to find this book anywhere locally, and it looks amazing! ... Sure hope I win, because this type of book is my favorite right now!! I love books about books, and dystopian. Yay for adding them together! Anyway...

    My idea is something I have pondered for a long time:

    Have you ever wondered what if? What would have happened if I had made a different choice? The main character discovers an alternate view of reality. They don't live this alternate view, it is more of a window into what might have been. As the character takes a look through this window, they are able to view the events of their life through what might have been. They think of, or identify a choice they made, and are able to view the results of what would have been if they had choosen opposite.

    As the character begins to play with the idea of this window, they begin to realize that every choice we make, great or small can have far reaching effects and a great impact on their lives and the lives of those around them. Every decision is potentially life altering- even things that seem inconsequential, like should I go grocery shopping today or tomorrow. (Today I would carry the bags of a young woman struggling to find worth in life and give her some motivation to keep living, but if I go tomorrow, I will miss her.)
    The window goes farther and allows them to view what another person's choices could have yielded if they have a direct impact on this person's life.
    You can take the ending two ways, depending on how you formulate this character. It can be a learning experience where they realize that living in the past solves nothing and leads to more complications within their lives. As they learn this, they leave the window permanently to live their lives fully. OR they can slowly become obsessed with the past, and what might have been. They become so caught up on what could happen that they lost the ability to make a choice without consulting the past and the what if's of life. Because the window does not allow you to change anything or make another choice, it slowly drives the main character mad and this character completely loses their ability to make a choice or function in the real world.

    ben06012@byui.edu

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  8. Hopefully I'm not too late!! I finally got a day off so I can whittle down my story idea to the following. I think this is a wonderful contest and even if I don't win a copy of the book (which sounds absolutely fabulous, by the way!), I've enjoyed the fun in throwing my story idea out there to an actual published writer! Kudos to you, Lori, and of course to M. Clifford to giving wannabe writers a shot :) My email is booklover@myself.com

    Samantha Harding is afraid she might be losing her mind. An only child whose parents died when she was in college, Sam has a hard time really trusting people. But lately she's been seeing and hearing things that cannot be there and it's only getting worse.

    Two months ago she passed a older man on the beach during one of her sunset walks. She thought nothing of it other than he made her think of a sea captain she imagined would have first built many of the old houses along the point in Cape Grey. That is until she saw his face staring back at her from a portrait hanging in the library. A portrait painted in 1874 after his mysterious disappearance.

    In the past several weeks, Sam has had vivid dreams of the sea, of a shipwreck, of a woman calling out from the railing of the old Foster place. Calling her name. Then yesterday, a battered, yellowed piece of paper washed up on the shore. The writing was smudged out on most of the page, but two words were still perfectly clear: KILL HER.

    The young writer does the only thing she knows how to do: she goes to the library to try to find out what these dreams could mean and where this piece of paper could have come from. While rummaging through the stacks to find a book on the sea trade in Cape Grey, the hair on the back of her neck stands up. She knows she is being watched. Trying to be calm, she walks back to her work desk, only to find that her bag has been searched. She whirls around to see if she can spot the watcher, but only sees a shadow disappear up the stairs.

    Sam must find out what these mysterious messages in her dreams mean before she goes crazy and before whoever is following her gets to the answers first. Because this might be a case of life or death...and her story might be the one coming to its end!

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  9. Thank you everyone for your submissions. M.Clifford and I will be working together to choose the two best story ideas, and will announce the winners within the next few days, hopefully!

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  10. Thanks SO much you guys! I'm thrilled to see what happens.

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  11. Your welcome Ashley. I did get your email, and I replied. THE BOOK should be going out to you about midweek. I will confirm when I ship it.

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  12. I just got my copy today! I am beyond excited to read this! I will hopefully get to it by the end of this week, I need to finish up the other books I'm reading first! I will definitely let you know what I think of it when I finish, and I'm sure it will go up on my blog as well!

    Thanks again to both of you!!

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