West Of Mars — Win A Book!

Want us to post something for you?

We’d love to — as long as it involves a book or its author. E-mail us once you’ve read the particulars listed below.

**What we need: The permalink to your information. Not sure what a permalink is? That’s the link with the extra stuff after your blog’s name, the link that will take a reader directly and only to your giveaway post.

I know, I’d love it if people hung out and read my entire blog, too. Susan sometimes does — read yours, not hers — so don’t despair. Susan’s not the only one out there looking to connect with books and book lovers.

**When we need it: Unless you’re dropping us a note about an author appearance, please hold your information until the day things happen. If we post your information early, people are bound to stop by looking to enter your contest or read what you’ve posted… and they won’t find it. Will they remember to come back later, when it IS up? I can’t say. Don’t risk it.

**How to reach us: Via the Win a Book e-mail. If you send us invites over Facebook or GoodReads or BookArmy or Shelfari or … or… or… See the problem? These invites become nothing more than static on the spam horizon. Contact us directly.

I know. I know. It’s a hassle. You forget. Your time is precious. It’s limited.

It is, unfortunately, the only way we can keep up.

**To join our blogroll: Send us information to post. That’s all. If you send something and Susan misses it, please remember she’s only human and give her a polite nudge. (If you nudge the others, they’ll nudge Susan for you.)

I shouldn’t need to remind you that if you’re sending us links and we’re busy promoting your site and your activities, it’d be nice if you reciprocated with links on your own blogrolls and maybe a mention or two.

Hmm. I shouldn’t have to remind you, but it looks like I just did. How about it, then?

**What’s the Usual Rules all about? When a publisher is providing the books for a giveaway, they generally impose two restrictions: Winner must be in the US or Canada, and they cannot ship to PO Boxes. Susan has spoken with folk at the publisher about this. There’s a variety of reasons why, from expense to issues of who has the right to distribute books within countries other than the US and Canada. In other words: it’s out of all our hands. We wish it was otherwise, too.

**Will you post things if you see them in your reader? With very few exceptions, no. I know that’s how we’d done things in the past, but again, the volume around here has picked up quite a bit. Our time is as precious as yours.

Likewise, we will NOT stop by every week or month or however often you’d like so we can pick up the permalink ourselves. Susan has books to write. All of us have lives. This is our labor of love. Please don’t abuse us, or we’ll shutter this place. It really is that simple.

**What’s with the lists, and why do some people get lists and others get a new post for each give? It depends on how you send your links to us. We used to break each list down into its own post so we could feature the book better. But due to the increase in volume around here, if you send us a list, it gets posted that way.

Please don’t buck the trend and send them one at a time. At some point in the undefined future, when the inbox is swollen, I’ll start listing all of THOSE, too.

Remember once again, gang. This is a labor of love. Time’s precious and limited.

**Can I leave you notice in the comments? Nope. Sorry. It’s rude to hijack another person’s post and it also runs a very high risk of being lost in our spam. Please. Send us an email.

**Why doesn’t Susan ever enter the contests she posts? Ha! Have you seen the size of her TBR? It’s expanded from a pile to a mountain and now into an entire mountain range, complete with East, West, and Northern Peaks. Plus the one Down Under. It’s scary. It gives her anxiety. It needs to be tamed and diminished before she starts fulfilling more of the 3,000+ books on her wishlist.