SHADOWS ON THE MOON ARC GIVEAWAY!

That's right - my post title deceives you not. The time has come - as long promised and awaited - for me to give away ONE PRECIOUS COPY OF SHADOWS ON THE MOON!

Do I seem a little excited to you, readers? You bet your sweet bippy I am! I only have THREE of these little babies in my clutches, and this is the first one to be sent out alone into the cruel, cold world *Sob*.

The winner will recieve a signed and (if they wish) dedicated copy of the uncorrected proof this book, along with any other goodies I have hanging around at the time, including (but not limited to) signed postcards and fridge magnets, bookplates, scented Japanese fans, chocolates, sparkles and kittens (well, maybe not kittens). I will send the prize anywhere, up to (and including) Utter Pradesh, Outer Mongolia, Deepest Peru and the Polar Icecap.

This book will not be released in the UK until July 2011, and at present I do not plan to give away any other copies, since my mum has dibs on one and I'd like to keep one for myself. So if you want it, this is pretty much your only chance.

What do you have to do to get your eager little hands on this fantabulous prize? Well, here's where it gets interesting, my lovelies. I need you guys to help me out.

You see, when I started this blog, I was a wee, naive little creature, unschooled in the ways of blogging. I thought that if I posted interesting original content on a regular basis and made a sincere effort to interact with readers, I would soon have a thriving audience. And at first, it was so. Within the first month, before I could even catch my breath, I had over a hundred followers! What's more, they were the most faithful, intelligent and enthusiastic followers I could hope for.

But I've noticed that my follower count has pretty much remained completely static for the last three months, and since I am now slightly more savvy as to the way authors usually draw readers to their blogs, I realise that in order to increase this number and reach more readers, I'm supposed to 'friend' influential people on Goodreads and Facebook, stalk and follow certain key blogs, and make comments all over the place, even when I have nothing to say. Apparently this is the reliable way to increase blog traffic.

Um. No. Not gonna. It all seems a bit fake to me, to be honest, and I have enough trouble keeping up with the people I really do want to follow. Plus, stalking is creepy. However, I would still like more people to learn about my blog. Because I believe in my blog. I think more people *should* get the chance to hear about it, and read it, and ask me questions about writing and publishing and get honest answers. And you guys do too, right? So what I want is for you to be my emissaries. I'm not going to tell you how. I'm not going to ask you to post links. I just want you to go out and there talk about The Zoë-Trope. Tweet it, Facebook it, stick a link in your blog, chat to friends about it, whatever. Go forth and find me followers.

If, by Christmas, the number of blog followers has reached 200, I will pick a winner from among all those followers to recieve the ARC. And I will also post a video of me singing the blues (live and unaccompanied) on YouTube. Anyone that knows me knows that singing in public is one of the very few things that gives me stage-fright, so I'm really sticking my neck out here.

That's it. That's all. 200 blog followers by Christmas. Since the number of my followers is already 114, that means you only have to find...(counts on fingers, scratches head, gets out abacus) 86 new followers. I really, really hope you can do it. Even if it does mean squawking like a chicken on YouTube.

Come on...you know you want it...