Teen Angst? Naaah... Giveaway Contest Results

Tony won an autographed Teen Angst? Naaah...!

click to enlarge

Well, this was sort of a nightmare. Last October I had a little cross-promo thing going with a Magic website that I like, Pojo. They put up the Magic-playing story from Teen Angst? Naaah... and had a little contest to win a signed copy of my book.

About 200 people entered the contest. After 6 months, I decided it was time to pick a winner. (That's the funny thing about contests; you can set one up and just never have anyone win if you want to; I wonder if McDonald's ever does that with "Winning Time," I mean who watches over them?) I went through the list of 200 people who had entered and picked an email address that looked cool to be the winner.

Here was the thing, though--I wanted whoever won the contest to send me a picture. That way I could have their picture on my site like "hey, here's the person who won my book, there really IS a winner to my contests, it's not a rip-off, etc. etc." So I emailed the winner and asked him for a digital photo and his name and address so I could send him his signed book.

He never answered. Neither did the next "winner" I emailed, or the next. Apparently people didn't want my free book.

So I said screw it, I'm going to send an email out to ALL 200 people who entered the contest and ONE of them will want a book and for the first one who answers back with a picture and an address, they will be the winner.

Problem was, I hit the wrong button and accidentally sent this email out to EVERYONE on the NedVizzini.com mailing list.

All of a sudden, the people who didn't want anything to do with a free Teen Angst were emailing me VERY SWIFTLY to claim their copy! I thought I could go to B&N; or something and buy like 20 books and send them out but when it became clear that I would have to buy about 1000 books, I had to send out a damage control mass mail, tell people that they hadn't won anything, and announce the real winner (the guy who emailed me back first with his picture), Tony Provinzano of IL!

Thanks Tony! The next contest will be managed better, for sure! And keep playin' bass!