Contest: Win an advance reader's copy of Ready Player One, Ernest Cline's amazing upcoming science fiction novel

When I interviewed Ernest Cline about his forthcoming novel Ready Player One, a few people rightfully complained that they did not want to hear about a book that wouldn't be available until August. I apologize for writing about the book so many months before it comes out. But like I said, I have not been this entertained and impressed with a science fiction novel for a decade or so.

For those who don't want to wait to read this terrific novel, I have good news. Crown publishers sent me 10 advance reader's copies of Ready Player One and I'm holding a contest to give away these advance reader's copies.

Here's how to enter:

1. Follow @gweekpodcast at Twitter.com

2. Tweet this: "I entered Boing Boing's Gweek contest for a copy of Ready Player One. To enter follow @gweekpodcast & retweet. gweek.net"

(Please don't tweet it more than once.)

I'll pick ten followers at random to receive the books. The contest ends at 6pm Pacific time on Friday, May 13, 2011. Good luck!

• [Lukezor]

  I think most people would consider it poor form to ask people to send a spam email to their friends in order to enter a competition, and I don’t see how this is materially different.

  This is promoting the kind of behaviour that gets people blocked, or “unfollowed” as the case may be.

• [johnnyaction]

  Using a false equivalency argument is the kind of behavior that gets one ignored.

• [Anonymous]

  This is a typical way to enter contests, I tweeted. crossing fingers :)

• [irksome]

  Since I’m not a twit, I don’t Twitter.

  I’d much prefer another limerick contest.

• [Eric Ragle]

  I’ll admit that I took some time off from Boing Boing (mainly because I was in the middle of a career change) but I don’t remember the commenters being this whiny before. I mean, come on people! You don’t have to retweet your followers, you don’t have to build a standing desk and you don’t have to be so snarky in the process.

  • [Darcy Fitzpatrick]

    I just thought BB might be interested in some feedback from a reader. Some agree with it, some disagree. Yay for discussion! Don’t really see the need to go about negatively characterizing those involved in the process, though.

    • [Eric Ragle]

      I agree, they don’t need any help.

• [Eric Ragle]

  Oh yeah! I need this book! Also, Cline has some amazing poetry slam stuff out there that people should check out as well.

• [Robert]

  Here’s how I think about it: People follow my tweets specifically because they’re interested in what I’m interested in. For the most part. Ergo, if I’m interested in this, and I tweet this, my followers should, in theory, also be interested.

  You can’t claim that all your friends or email acquaintances are interested in the same things you are.

• [Darcy Fitzpatrick]

  I would love to have a chance at winning one of these books, but I can’t justify semi-spamming my followers for my own potential personal gain like this :(

  • [JonStewartMill]

    When you put it that way, it does sound kind of crass.

• [Anonymous]

  Thanks for your review and podcast. Our Random House / Crown sales rep just dropped off our ARCs and there is a similar level of enthusiasm coming from our early reads. — Christin @ Booksmith

• [Improbus]

  I don’t think I will suffer any ill effects waiting until August. Heck, I may even wait until the unabridged audiobook comes out.

• [Prinny Princess]

  I tweeted, too. Even though I fear in case I win anything, it won’t get to me by mail.

• [Anonymous]

  Never done a “tweet-me” contest before, but this was the first that made me think it’d be worth irritating some followers for. Please, please…

• [BigSquiddy]

  having a blast reading this at the mo…picked up an ARC when I was in Auckland.. almost finished, very fun read! Love all the stuff from my childhood through the 70′s and 80′s.

  How does Cory feel about being elected leader of OASIS again?

• [Stefan Jones]

  Unfair! I’m not on Twitter.

  I do listen to the podcast, though!

• [Lukezor]

  Cool. Perhaps I could also send an unsolicited email message to everyone in my address book. Would that help?

• [Variable Rush]

  So… did I lose yet?

• [johnnyaction]

  It’s a pretty standard trade of an adver-tweet or promo-tweet for a chance to win a pre-release copy of a book.

  If you don’t want to play, you don’t have to. Kind of like “cool tools” No one is forcing people to read posts with those headings. If it gets your knickers in a bunch that somewhere someone could be making money off of your actions… you may as well turn off your computer right now. You are the commodity.