Michael Young, author of The Canticle Kingdom is holding a summer project for grades 5 – 12 that promises to be a great amount of fun for those who participate. The program includes music, art, reading, a scavenger hunt, and more. There are prizes for accomplishments! For more information, please see the full description of the program at the Canticle Quests website.

Here is a short description of the program:

With summer upon us, many are planning how to spend their summer vacation. All too often, young people opt for making the couch and TV their best friends during their free time.

Instead they could be expanding their minds and developing their talents, talents that can help them live a much more fulfilling life.

“Canticle Quests” is a summer program that helps young people develop themselves and share their work with others. Participants read novels from authors who have contributed to the project and then create works of art, writing, music, and more in order to earn points.

The points gain them entries into a final drawing with prizes provided by local authors and businesses. The best submitted works will also be showcased on the website for all to enjoy.

To put it in simplest terms:

WHO: All people going into 5th – 12th grade

WHAT: A summer reading/activity program with a chance to be recognized and win prizes.

WHERE: Open to everyone in the U.S. and Canada.

WHEN: June 7th – September 15th 2010 (You may sign up before the official start)

WHY: Because Summer is too precious to waste

There are no costs associated with the program at any time.

Sign up today and get started!

WARNING: Don’t read this blog too fast. You might miss a really cool prize if you do…

There is an interesting contest going on between a bunch of authors which I thought was worthy of a quick post.

Check out what Karen Gowen is doing on her blog, here: http://karenjonesgowen.blogspot.com/2010/05/bmillers-pay-it-forward-best-contest.html

And this was inspired by B. Miller Fiction, here: http://bmillerfiction.blogspot.com/2010/05/pay-it-forward-giveaway.html

Here is another cool post by some Mooks: http://mooksinthemovies.blogspot.com/2010/05/paying-it-forward.html

I am quite impressed with this. Why? Because of the way B. Miller is offering to buy a book from an author. Do a review. Spread the word. Get local stores to carry the book. This is an author’s dream, to get readers to talk up their book and create buzz.

What is also interesting to me was the way other authors and writers have started to link to the contest. I am curious to see how far this spreads… There are quite a few sites already linking to these contests. And adding to them. If you click on all the links, it is going to take you some time to get through them all, I am sure.

I hope it goes viral.

I have been REALLY busy lately. I am in the middle of writing the sequel to The Thorn, and so my blogging time has been somewhat limited. SO… I need to keep my own addition to the contest SIMPLE.

1. Follow me on this very blog: 1 point
2. Follow me on twitter @DaronFraley : 1 point
3. Follow Tristi’s Blog: 1 point
4. And then follow @TristiPinkston on twitter: 1 point
5. Follow Michele’s Blog: 1 point
6. And then follow @Micheleabell on twitter: 1 point
7. Follow Kim’s Blog: 1 point
8. And then follow @kimberlyjob on twitter: 1 point
9. Comment on THIS post and let me know what you have done. If you are already a follower on any of these blogs or twitter IDs, you still get the point. Just let me know. There are 8 points possible. Each point gets one entry in the contest. Winner will be drawn randomly from all entries received.

Contest ends on JUNE 1, at MIDNIGHT.

The prize?

I have FOUR, (Yes, I said FOUR) author signed books which will be given away as a set. A book from myself, Tristi, Michele, and Kim. One winner. ALL FOUR BOOKS.

How is that for a prize? I will pay the shipping (U.S. only, please. I can’t afford international shipping). Of course, if the winner is outside the states, and they wish to pick up the shipping charges, I would be more than happy to send the books to them.

Here are the books:

The Thorn, by Daron D. Fraley (that’s me!)

My review of Secret Sisters, by Tristi Pinkston

My review of Summer in Paris, by Michele Ashman Bell

My review of I’ll Know You By Heart, by Kimberly Job

HAVE FUN! SPREAD THE WORD!

Earlier this week we had a contest to help drive entries to the Goodreads giveaway for “The Thorn”.

Although we didn’t hit 2000 entries for that contest, I still think 619 entries is respectable for a new book from an unknown author. Thank you all for your help! If you are a published author and you have never done a giveaway on Goodreads, check it out. I think it’s a great way to start to get name recognition, from what I can tell.

The winner of the “Tweet-it-up” contest, with the most number of tweets during the time frame is:  @heartensoul4u

Congrats Sharon!

Please send your mailing address to my email account which you will find at the bottom of my contact page (DARON link at the top of the page).

The winner of the Goodreads copy was Laurel Lammers of South Dakota (Laurel, if you read this post, I have your address already, and will be shipping your copy next week.) Congrats!

Thank you all for your participation.

Tweeted blog contests are a double edged sword. If there is a contest out on a blog site, and those entries can be kept at a minimum, then those who have entered the contest obviously have a better chance of winning the prize. So why would anybody want to promote the contest with twitter? Isn’t it better to enter the contest, and then keep it secret? Makes sense to me.

I want to do an experiment… I have a contest going on over at Goodreads. It is for a free copy of my book (a giveaway), and so far there are 432 entries to win a single copy. I want that number to hit 2000. In fact, I would like it to go even higher than that. There are only 3 days and 13 hours left to enter the giveaway.

This blog contest is simple. Whoever tweets the most between now and the close of the Goodreads Givaway, WINS a signed copy of my book. See? If you tweet it up, AND join the giveaway, you actually have TWO chances to win a copy, and the chance you earn by tweeting will probably be much better odds than the giveaway.

I want you to help me tweet it up. Here is a sample tweet, with a shortened URL to this post:

Contest for free signed copy of book by @DaronFraley: http://bit.ly/bBDnAR #thethorn #giveaway #contest

You can say whatever you want in your tweet. But you must include a link to THIS BLOG POST so that folks can find the link for the goodreads giveaway, AND your tweet MUST include both my ID @DaronFraley and the hashtag #thethorn

This is how I will track how many tweets I see. If I don’t see it as a reply with #thethorn, it won’t count. And if it doesn’t have a link back to this blog post, it won’t count either.

Make me proud. Get creative. Be twitterific.

Now, go add yourself to the giveaway at Goodreads:  http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/3214-the-thorn

I am quite excited for the next few weeks… my book goes on a “Virtual Book Tour”, and will be reviewed by a whole bunch of very cool bloggers. I will be posting short comments here with a link to the review on the reviewer’s blog.

Stick around! This month will be BUSY. But fun!

See you at the LDS Storymakers Conference! (for info, click on the graphical link in my sidebar).

Oh… one more thing.  A gigantic THANK YOU, to all of you authors who don’t write books full of profanity and explicit scenes. I bought a book last week on a recommendation from an employee at a book store. I read less than 30 pages. I regretted my purchase. Then this week I took it back, and I traded it in for a book I know I can trust: Fablehaven 5. Brandon Mull, you are one of my heroes!

Check out his new book!

Fablehaven, Book 5:Keys to the Demon Prison

The time for the drawing has come…

This was a fun contest. I really got a kick out of the creative entries. In the end, I narrowed my choices down to four:

Andrea’s contacts, Carolyn’s puppet, Deborah’s Lamborghini, and Taffy’s brownies.

It was a tough race. It really was. I wanted those brownies. I also wanted the puppet. But in the end, I had to do a random drawing between the four entries. And the winner is:   DEBORAH!

Now I want to know what color that Lamborghini is…

Deborah, just in case you were only kidding about the sports car, whatever book(s) you deem worthy of parting with will still seal the deal.  But you weren’t kidding, right?  

Contest #1 from my post a few days ago is now complete. Methods of participating in the contest included posting about the contest on personal blogs, becoming a Twitter follower and tweeting about the contest, becoming a fan on Facebook, and following my blog through Networked Blogs. Some folks did them all. Others did a few. According to my records, the winner did three out of four methods.

Consulting random.org……  typing in the MIN and MAX number of entries……..

And the winner of the contest is number 78:  Carol Sue!

Carol, please send me an EMAIL (Daron AT daronfraley DOT com) with your shipping address. I will have the still-hot-off-the-presses book in hand on Tuesday, and should ship out on Wed or Thur of next week.

In order to be fair to all participants, I need to hear back from Carol by the end of next week (3/19/2010), or I will have to draw again for another winner.

Thank you all for your participation!

Please remember, the SECOND contest is still underway until MAY 1st. Refer to the link here, towards the middle of the page: Secret Name Contest

….and spread the word!

My good friend and fellow author Tristi Pinkston is doing a worthy project for the homeless as part of her book launch. Please see the following blog post for more information:

http://secretsistersmysteries.blogspot.com/2010/03/operation-sock-hop.html

Besides socks, blankets or coats are also welcome.

Do you like Harry Potter? What about The Hunger Games? The Maze Runner? The Chronicles of Narnia? Twilight? Classical authors like Dickens, Shakespeare, Bronte, Austin, Hemingway?

Perhaps non-fiction is your preference.

No matter what type of book you like, I am convinced that reading good books is healthy. Today I am over at “Day Dreamer”, the blog of one of my writer friends, Christine Bryant. Come by and find out what I have to say about reading.

http://christinebryant.blogspot.com

Don’t forget to leave a comment so we know you dropped by!