Final Report on the Big, Huge, Mega Contest--WOW

After a fun, roller-coaster ride of a week, the Big, Huge, Mega Giveaway contest finally came to an end this morning. All 20 winners have been sent emails, and their names are listed on the original post HERE. There were two people whose emails bounced back as unreachable, so if your name is on that list and you didn't get an email, send me a note at magicmysticminerva at yahoo. I'll try to get the prizes out sometime next week. (The books will go media mail, and so they will take a little longer.) I'd love it if the folks who won took pictures of themselves with their swag and emailed them to me, so I could put them up here on the blog.

I want to congratulate all the winners, and thank everyone who took part. I hope you all had fun, because I sure did!

Here's the way things ended up, by the numbers:
Total entries: 3,278 -- That's just AMAZING. To give you something to compare it to, the last big contest I ran, I think there were about 850 entries, and I considered that a big success.

Total blog post page views: 3,188 -- again, AMAZING. You folks clearly did a great job at spreading the word.

Reviews put up: 7 (THANKS so much for doing this! Reviews are really important for getting new readers.)

Comments: 104 (nice!)

Books pre-ordered: I'm not sure, since I haven't had time to go through all the entries yet, but I'm grateful for every single one...

Because

#25 -- that's the number the book reached in the "Witchcraft" category on Amazon (It's nowhere near that now...but either way, that's spectacular, especially considering it isn't even out yet!)

And a big thank you to everyone who followed me here on the blog, or on Twitter or Facebook, or who signed up for the newsletter.

Basically--ALL OF YOU ROCK.

So even though we didn't reach the 3,500 goal I put up on the last day, I'm still going to send the new Wickedly Dangerous mini-swag kits out to all 20 winners.

And if you didn't win, don't worry. Sometime towards the end of the month, I should be getting my author copies of The Witch's Broom  and I will be giving at least one of them away in another contest. Maybe two, if you're good :-)

Oh, and Rebecca Elson--no more complaining that you never win one of these things!

Twenty Thousand Views

I'm a bit flabbergast. Flabbergasted? Er...flabberstruck. Never mind--I'm just stunned and amazed.

My humble little blog about writing and witches and books and whatevertheheckisgoingonhereusuallytodowithcats has hit the 20,000 views mark.

20,000 times someone (maybe you) has come here to see what I had to say. Okay, a few of them may have been looking for someone else. Or something not to do with writing or witches or cats or reading or cooking or any of the other random things I talk about here. But still, I have to think that most of those 20,000 views were on purpose. And mostly not my mother. *waves to mom*

That's just...well...kinda heartwarming.

So I wanted to say "thank you" to everyone who has been one (or more) of those 20,000. Thanks for reading. Thanks for commenting. Thanks for not pointing and laughing where I can see you...

It really means a lot.

So I'm thinking I should do something to celebrate. 20,000 things, really, but I don't have that much stuff to give away. So how about y'all tell me in the comments why you come here (Magic the Cat says it's all about her, but I don't think so). And I'll pick a random commenter on Sunday and he or she can have the book of mine of his/her choice. Even international folks. And if the winner doesn't want one of my books, he/she/it can pick one of the duplicates I have of friends' books.

So, what brings you here? And what brings you back? Inquiring minds want to know. LOTS of them, apparently.

Yay.