Sunday, December 11, 2011

And the winners are ...

Oh my GOODNESS you guys, 646 entries??? 


(meet surprised monkey)


Wow! That is incredibly awesome. Thank you! I loved reading the comments so much! 

Ahem, that number of entries poses a wee problem to figuring out WHO WON. You see, what I had thought I would do is print out the comments, cut them up and put them in a punch bowl, film the whole thing so I wouldn't be tempted to just cheat and tell you my favorite comments were the winners, mwahaha, but ... 646 comments! If I could just hit "print comments" then I would be happy to use the paper and ink, but I think I'd have to format each page to print, and that would take forever, and blah blah blah, so I took the suggestion of using random.org and coming up with numbers, and ... drumroll please ...

Here they are!



However. Who are they? Except for "1" (yay!), I don't know.


There are a lot of surprised monkeys on google.


I googled tutorials on getting my comments to come up numbered in blogger, and I did what it said, but there are still no numbers! Razzlefratzen. And when I tried to actually count through and figure out which comments match these numbers, I kept messing up. Apparently my brain isn't capable of tricksy procedures like counting right now. 

So ... can you do it? Please


Tell you what. For the first two people who post the winning names here ... the accurate winning names, meaning they corroborate each other, I will throw in an additional prize ... Hm. *strums lip* What will it be? *looks idly around room for likely shwag* 

Hungarian edition of Lips Touch? No? Ha ha. How about a paperback book to be determined later (when I can see what I have): most likely either Blackbringer or the Australia/NZ ed of Daughter (same as the UK, only trade paperback).

Yay! Advance thank you, county-brains! Now, let's just hope that none of the winning numbers turn out to match any of the comments that are like, "I've never heard of you before but what the hell? Free stuff is free stuff." Ha! 


More surprised monkeys.

This one looks more disgusted, really.

Kind of guilty shock?


Yeah, this guy did come up under "surprised monkeys". *shrug*


Alright. Sorry for the spasticity. Thanks in advance for the help! Winner NAMES coming soon!


UPDATED: 

Okay, it's the end of the day and I've just peeled myself out of bed after falling asleep in the process of getting Clementine to sleep, and it's 11 pm, dangitall, and I feel like my brain is on sideways, all slurry and dopey, so to be brief:

Thank you for the county help, we have accord! The winners of the giveaway are, thanks to random.org:

1. #1 Angela: "My gosh! I hope I'd win these. They are amazing. I'm from Indonesia and I've recently fallen in love with Daughter of Smoke and Bone. Keep on spinning those lovely stories! And can't wait for the sequel!"

2.
#222: The Geek Bride: "Yay! Thank you so much for the opportunity to win. Your writing brings magic to this world & should be read by all."

3.
#331: Allison: "Oooh, exciting giveaway! I've been wanting to read Daughter of Smoke and Bone for a while now (SO MANY people are saying AWESOME things about it!), but I've been busy trying to graduate college. Semester's almost over, though, so this is the PERFECT time :D And all the cool stuff that comes with each package looks super nifty/gorgeous/fantastic. Yaaay!"

4.
#572: Anonymous: (Ana) "Thank you for an amazingly fantastic giveaway!!! The artwork for Daughter's graphic sampler is so beautiful!! I wish I could draw like that. :D ~Ana~ (The #1 Brownie Lover) :)"

And for being the first to count them up, the extra TBD prizes go to Candace and almeldiel. Thank you! Everyone -- well, not everyone, but the six of you -- please email me your mailing addresses -- and please put CONTEST WINNER as the subject line. YAY! Thank you for playing! 


*wanders in an incomplete circle, slumps against door jam, and falls asleep*





29 comments:

Unknown said...

Ok, I think I have it right.
#222 - Melbelle1127
#572 - Anonymous - Ana
#1 - Angela
#331 - Allison

Anonymous said...

Hope I got this right:

1 - Angela

222 - The Geek Bride
http://www.lainitaylor.com/2011/12/big-fat-holiday-giveaway.html?showComment=1323370304490#c99458693227326206

572 - Ana
http://www.lainitaylor.com/2011/12/big-fat-holiday-giveaway.html?showComment=1323570820749#c6221371899103833141

331 - Allison
http://www.lainitaylor.com/2011/12/big-fat-holiday-giveaway.html?showComment=1323400841509#c4046397781207834176

I encountered people with a "This Comment Was Removed By Author". I counted those, though, since Laini didn't say anything about those. Hrmmm...

Candice Westberg said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Candice Westberg said...

Shoot!

222 The Geek Bride

572 - Anon. Anna

1 - ANgela

331 - Allison

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ava said...

222: The Geek Bride

572: SteffiTwoBits

1: Angela

331: Allison

I think...

Laini Taylor said...

Thank you!! If these are right, then the additional prizes go to Candice and almeldiel -- sorry, Rachael, you *might* have the wrong #222. But thank you too!

Please email me your addresses!

Unknown said...

I double checked and got a different answer now, well, I'll post just in case

#222 - the geek bride
#572 - Lorien's leaf
#1 - Angela
#331 - Allison

Brodie said...

#572 - SteffiTwoBits
#1 - Angela
#222 - The Geek Bride
#331 - Amy

I think? Ahhh I hope! Thank you for this :)

Ava said...

Sad moneky face, I was comment #2. The tragedy!

M3LF4C3 said...

So happy for the winners! Definitely awesome prizes with stiff competition.
As for me, perhaps next time luck with be on my side :)

Brodie said...

*reads above comments* Oooh I didn't count the deleted comments, I skipped over them. That explains my differing answers haha.

Anonymous said...

The comments are grouped at 200 per page, should that should help (I hope) if someone else wants to corroborate the answers. Yikes. :D :D :D

*continues to cross fingers*

Laini Taylor said...

Oh dear. I'm still not clear on who won! Arg, you see what I get for my laziness? Wish that darn blogger hack would've worked and numbered my comments! Anyone know how to do that?

Anonymous said...

@Laini: This one looks like it's easy to install:
http://www.doncaprio.com/2011/11/number-comments-blogger-how-to-blogspot.html

Anonymous said...

Here's another helpful post for numbering comments.

http://1stfloorflatcomputery.blogspot.com/2009/11/how-to-number-your-comments.html

Good luck! :D

Irene said...

I have a serious aversion to anything that has to do with numbers (yeeey words!) so count me out.
(I know, I am hilarious.)
Congrats for the winners, whoever they may turn out to be!

Unknown said...

Congrats to the winners! I found the last copy of Silksinger at an independent bookstore in San Diego and ordered it up. Can't wait to dive into it and Blackbringer.

Connie Onnie said...

I thought maybe you could copy & paste into excel but that didn't work either. Or at least wasn't any faster, sorry not to be more help. Good luck with figuring it out.

Tricia J. O'Brien said...

You know that old saying: No good deed goes unpunished. This was such a fantastic offer that of course it had to get messy. Le sigh. Good luck sorting it out, thanks so much for giving us all the chance at wonder and congrats to whoever wins the number game. :)

Candice Westberg said...

I didn't even think about the deleted comments. Since the comment thread included them in its groupings of 200, I included them as well. *shrug* If you have to change your system, or veto it completely, I won't have any hard feelings about your needing to pull the prizes for this crazy moment. *grin* Either way, it's been fun! The adreneline rush to get the correct answer up last night was a nice way to end my weekend. And I did it while watching part one of Stephen King's Bag of Bones, so double bonus. Have a fabulous week!

LTM said...

ah, very sorry to have missed this giveaway! Loved DOS&B very much--super-congrats and whatever comes is well-deserved.

Now. How to get my hands on one of those illustrated samplers? It's gorgeous! :o)

Best wishes,

tone almhjell said...

Ahahaha, I looove those monkeys.

elliespen said...

According to my quadruple-checked count, which follows the numbers given by blogger, which *DOES* count deleted comments as comments, the winners are as follows:

#1 Angela: "My gosh! I hope I'd win these. They are amazing. I'm from Indonesia and I've recently fallen in love with Daughter of Smoke and Bone. Keep on spinning those lovely stories! And can't wait for the sequel!"


#222: The Geek Bride: "Yay! Thank you so much for the opportunity to win. Your writing brings magic to this world & should be read by all."



#331: Allison: "Oooh, exciting giveaway! I've been wanting to read Daughter of Smoke and Bone for a while now (SO MANY people are saying AWESOME things about it!), but I've been busy trying to graduate college. Semester's almost over, though, so this is the PERFECT time :D And all the cool stuff that comes with each package looks super nifty/gorgeous/fantastic. Yaaay!"


#572: Anonymous: (Ana) "Thank you for an amazingly fantastic giveaway!!! The artwork for Daughter's graphic sampler is so beautiful!! I wish I could draw like that. :D ~Ana~ (The #1 Brownie Lover) :)"

And yes, I know I'm not eligible for any of the prizes anymore, but I wanted you to be able to rest easy knowing that Candice and Almeldiel DID get it right and DO deserve the extra two prizes.

kirarose said...

I agree the winners should be
Angela
The Greek Bride
Allison
Anonymous

Sadly I was 459.

____ said...

Congrats to the winners!! :)

Unknown said...

I just love the pictures :) congrats to the winners!!

Anonymous said...

Laini, you had a contest during FINALS WEEK!!! The one week in MONTHS that I haven't checked in every day. ::grrr:: Are you maybe pretty please going to do another one soon? =)
Amanda

wade said...

Hello,

Until last night I didn’t know you existed. I hope you don’t take offense to this, there are lots of people that I don’t know exist. A twittery friend @JemaeJemaeJem mentioned you and your book. I asked her if she thought my wife would like it, and Jemae gushed and raved about Daughter of Smoke and Bone. So here I am discovering wonderful things about your lovely life. I very much like your little one’s name, Pie is very cool. I came here hoping you sold some of your books yourself. Much rather the artist have the money than some big impersonal entity. Speaking of which Amazon has it from about $9 for a Kindle download to $45 for a supposedly signed unread edition. I personally haven’t gotten into the E-book craze. I like the texture of those cobbled together scraps of paper, and the fact that dropping a book doesn’t normally break it. The Mrs is starting to like E-books and there is a tablet coming into the house in the near future. Why someone would buy a book, get you to sign it, then not read it, is beyond me. You might as well have written your name on a chunk of 2X8 for this person, nothing quite as wasted as an unread book. Anyway thank you for being and for sharing your creativity with the world. If I had only learned of you last week, I could have been the guy looking for free stuff. By the way if today you’ve had thoughts of Tucson, a woman named Susan, or of Arizona in general, that was me. Lots harder to get a reply that way I’ve found. Dear lady you are now a discovered person, and followed on twitter (hope that’s ok). I look forward to in time reading the rest of your blog. I wish you and your sweet family a blessed and Happy Christmas. Thank you for your time.

Wade

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