Pay it Forward Giveaway

A while back, Nice Mommy and Evil Editor Angie had a fun contest. She said she would send something to the first three people to reply to her post. The thing is, the winners have to pay it forward and hold a similar contest.

Which is quite a nice kick in the pants for yours truly. I keep meaning to hold a contest (all the cool kids are doing it), but I have this problem when it comes to actually putting stuff in the mail. (Yet another reason I like ePublishing.)

Knowing my natural penchant for postal-avoidance, I thought and thought and thought, and ate a Godiva truffle, and thought some more about how to give something away without having to mail it.

Here's my solution: I do an electronic give away. Instead of oh-so-cute and cuddly hand-sewn items, I will give away cold hard pixels. I have at my disposal, Photoshop, Illustrator, Fireworks, Flash and a lovely new toy called a Wacom tablet that lets me draw straight into the graphics program of my choice.

Maybe you've been wanting a flash banner for your website, or a pretty cover for your free ebook, or an anime avatar drawn in your image. Here's your chance. The first three people to respond to this post get the web-only file type of their choice, three hours of work by me and up to three of their favorite royalty-free images from dreamstime.com or istockphoto.com to be purchased by me for use in their shiny new file.

Examples of graphics stuff I've done:I did a bookmark for Ann Aguirre using images from the cover of her forthcoming novel Grimspace. Check her kick-ass quote from Sharon Shin! I asked that part of my payment be a signed copy of the book--I am so looking forward to reading it. Have been since I read the excerpt on her site ages ago.

I did the cover from Ember using this royalty free image, and, depending on the version, a copyright-free illustration from the original Perrault version of Cinderella or a curl of smoke as the background.

Then there's the anime avatar, which, apparently, looks enough like me to get me recognized at a LARA meeting IRL. But maybe that's just because anime me also has short hair and brown skin and there aren't so many women fitting that description being newbies at RWA local chapter meetings.

Also, here's the Flash banner I did for Like a Thief in the Night before I got the cover.

Here's the static banner ad I did after. I still need to update the Flash image...


I also did all of the graphics on this blog layout, and my web site (but don't take the website as an add--I did it all in one afternoon and I totally intend to re-do it up nicer when inspiration strikes me. :g:)