Thursday, April 03, 2008

Out of the Wild ARC Contest

It's here! It's time for the Out of the Wild ARC contest!!!

Yes, I'm bouncing up and down as I type this. You see, for months now, I've been mulling over the idea of doing a contest to give away an ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) or two of my next book. I've visited lots of other writers' blogs -- purely for work purposes, of course, not procrastination (hah!) -- and seen their contests and been green with contest-envy. But now... it's time! I'm also excited because of what I'm going to ask you guys to do to win. Hee-hee! Oh, the power! It corrupts!

Seriously, though, I got the idea for this contest from Miss Erin, so you can praise/blame her. After she reviewed Out of the Wild, she mentioned that she wanted the T-shirt that various characters wear in the novel. The shirt in Out of the Wild has silver glitter letters that read, "Northboro: Fairy-Tale Capital of the World". Rapunzel (Julie's mom) hates it, though Gillian doesn't understand why.

"It doesn't give away any secrets," Gillian said.

"Just please don't wear it again."

"I wish you'd trust me," Gillian complained.

I wish you'd understand, Julie thought. Something as awful as fairy tales didn't belong on a T-shirt.

But I disagree with Julie. I think there should be T-shirts!!! So... welcome to the first ever Wild T-Shirt Design Contest!

The Challenge

Create a T-shirt design for Into the Wild or for Out of the Wild (or both)! It can be words, a picture, or words and a picture. It can say "Northboro: Fairy-Tale Capital of the World". Or not. It can mention the book titles. Or not. It can include your favorite phrase or sentence from Into the Wild. Or not. It can refer to your favorite character. Or not. It can be simple or ornate. It can be funny or serious. Whatever you think would make a great T-shirt!

For some examples/ideas, take a peek at the Tamora Pierce T-shirts available here on Cafe Press or the T-shirts in the sidebar of Bookshelves of Doom.

The Prize

As I am a firm believer that success in anything requires equal parts skill and luck, two winners will be selected, one for skill and one for luck. The "skill" winner will be the person whose T-shirt design is my favorite. The "luck" winner will be chosen at random from all the entries, so the more you enter, the better your chances!

Each of the two winners will receive an advanced reader copy (ARC) of Out of the Wild!

The best design(s) will be made available as T-shirts on Cafe Press! And if I use your design for a T-shirt, I'll buy you one of those T-shirts.

The Rules

You can enter as many times as you like. To enter, please create an image (that could be printed on a T-shirt) and either (A) post it somewhere online and put a link to it in the comments to this blog entry, or (B) email it to me and leave a comment here telling me that you did.

The image should be either a PNG or high-quality JPG file, and it should be 2,000 by 2,000 pixels in size (in other words, 10 x 10 inches at 200 dpi). If you want the printed image to be a shape other than square, make the background transparent.

You can use any words, phrases, or names from Into the Wild that you want. If you choose to use graphics, please do not use any copyrighted images. (This means that you can't use the cover art for Into the Wild or Out of the Wild -- sorry!).

The best design(s) will be uploaded to Cafe Press and made available for purchase on a T-shirt at the base price (no mark-up). No mark-up means that Cafe Press makes money on this, but I don't. (If you're not okay with having your design sold, please let me know when you enter.)

If you do not wish to make a T-shirt design but still want to be entered to win the "luck" drawing, please simply post a comment and say you'd like to enter.

You've got until the night of Tuesday April 15th to submit your designs. The winners will be announced on Thursday April 17th.

Good luck!!! And have fun!!!

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22 Comments:

At 9:16 AM, Blogger Enna Isilee said...

Muahahaha! Yes. It's finally here.

Okay, more questions. I'll try to put them all in one post this time.

Can we make them on Zazzle (www.zazzle.com) or do you want us just to make the images?

So we can make as many as we want? Eh? Like... two hundred? ;)

Oh dear. I think that's all my questions, but I'll probably think of more. *sigh*

 
At 11:55 AM, Blogger Sarah Beth Durst said...

Enna Isilee: Yay! I'm so glad you're excited about this too!

You just need to make the images. When it comes time to make the T-shirts, I'll upload the images to Cafe Press.

And yes, you are more than welcome to make as many as you like -- though two hundred might not leave you with much time for leisure activities, like eating and sleeping! :)

 
At 12:48 PM, Blogger Madison said...

I might try to design a T-shirt, but I'm no artist so for now...here's my entry for the "luck" drawing.

Good luck all you more talented artists than I! I look forward to seeing your creations. :-)

 
At 3:06 PM, Blogger Unknown said...

Hopefully I get time to design something but for now here's my luck entry ;)

 
At 5:09 PM, Blogger Enna Isilee said...

Ha! Who needs food and sleep when there's a book on the line? Eh?

And of course I'm excited! I've been wanting OOTW ever since I read ITTW!

 
At 6:32 PM, Blogger Kelly013 said...

I just sent you an email with my first entry attached.

 
At 10:27 PM, Blogger Sarah Beth Durst said...

Kelly: Got it! So funny! Thanks!!!

 
At 1:43 PM, Blogger Enna Isilee said...

*sigh* Couple more questions:

If we e-mail them to you, do you want a seperate e-mail for each entry?

And can there be a front and a back? Because I was just thinking of putting something like "Sarah Beth Durst's Into the Wild" on the back so that people who didn't understand the reference on the front might be able to understand.

 
At 12:08 AM, Blogger Sarah Beth Durst said...

Enna Isilee: No sigh necessary. I'm happy to answer your questions! You can email your entries separately or together. Whatever you prefer is fine with me, so long as the total attached file size per email isn't so large that it makes the mail server implode (keeping it under 4MB per email should do the trick). And yes, you can absolutely submit front and back images. Just indicate that the images are to be the front and back of the same T-shirt. Happy designing!

 
At 11:28 AM, Blogger Enna Isilee said...

Fantastic! Most people wouldn't understand my shirts if they hadn't read the book.

 
At 2:03 PM, Blogger RR2 said...

For now, here's my luck entry. I hope I have time to actually make a design.

 
At 10:25 PM, Blogger Q said...

Here's my luck entry. I haven't had any ideas yet, but the cogs are turning!

 
At 1:41 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Here's my luck entry! I'll probably try to design a t-shirt but i don't know if i'll have time so this will have to do for now!

 
At 5:19 PM, Blogger Enna Isilee said...

I fully intend to create many many entries (and have drafted a few) but just in case something goes horribly, horribly wrong, here's my luck entry.

 
At 4:59 PM, Blogger Tasha said...

This is my luck entry as I don't have any artistic talent! I can play almost any instrument you put in front of me, but give me a paintbrush and I'm doomed!!

 
At 8:06 PM, Blogger Enna Isilee said...

I'm back! I'm almost done with all of my entries but I just want to clarify:

You want 2000 x 2000 pixels? That seems really big to me, so I just want to make sure.

I don't have the power to make the background transparent(my photoshop has gone MIA), so does that mean that if it's on a black or colored shirt there will be a big white square surrounding it?

 
At 11:53 PM, Blogger Sarah Beth Durst said...

Enna Isilee: Hi! Yes, Cafe Press requires 2000 x 2000 pixels for T-shirts. And yes, if the image background is white, rather than transparent, we'd probably go with a white T-shirt to match.

Looking forward to seeing your designs!

 
At 7:51 PM, Blogger Enna Isilee said...

Okay. I'm sending in what I've done! It'll be in two e-mails since I made them the best quality I could and they are thereby very large files. (4 MB per e-mail, yes?) Anyway, here they come!

 
At 8:11 PM, Blogger Enna Isilee said...

There they go!

I think that's it for me unless I have some stroke of brilliance between now and Tuesday. It could happen.

(Wow. I comment a lot. Tee hee.) :)

 
At 8:15 PM, Blogger Enna Isilee said...

Ah! (yes, I'm commenting again) I just realized that I forgot to resize some of my images so that they were 2000 by 2000! If this is a problem let me know and I can re-send those images.

 
At 4:35 PM, Blogger Sarah Beth Durst said...

Enna Isilee: Got 'em all!!! Awesome! Thanks! (And no worries, I can resize the images.)

 
At 6:16 PM, Blogger Enna Isilee said...

w00t!

I've also made a typo on one, *blush* just realized. If it gets chosen for a CafePress I'll fix it.

 

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