Meryl's Notes Blog

Wow! Meryl is overwhelmed at the generosity of donated prizes and guest blog posts in celebration of this blog’s 8th birthday on June 1, 2008. Thank you for helping me (the blog) give her a little break. If only she would take a vacation OUTSIDE of Texas. That’s another battle.

There’s still time to contribute a prize (Help us get Meryl to jump out of a plane! Keep reading.) or to an article. Here are the upcoming guest bloggers and prizes.

Guest Bloggers

• John Hewitt of poewar.com
• Janet Lee Johnson of janetleejohnson.com
• Peter Bowerman, the The-Well Fed Writer author
• Yuwanda Black of InkwellEditorial.com
• Paige Eissinger, one of 2smartchix.com
• James Chartrand, one of the menwithpens.ca
• Bob Younce, The Writing Journey
• Jamie Grove, How Not to Write
• Anne Wayman, The Golden Pencil
• Yvonne Russell, Grow Your Writing Business
• Jon Phillips of Spyre Studio and Freelance Folder
• Joanna Young of Confident Writing

Prizes - Almost $6000 as of June 25

If we get We received $5000 worth of prizes by June 1 (birthday), so Meryl has to jump out of a plane at Skydive Dallas. This is no easy task for Meryl as she’s afraid of doing such a thing (she’d do the tandem jump complete with a video). Looking at a later June date.

She did it!

Now $5000 sounds impossible, but we have two sponsors that are coming who should help things along.

Prizes added June 26, 2008

It’s never too late to add a prize… well, maybe 2009 would be ridiculous.

• Softpowerhouse donates three copies of PowerReuse, a document assembly software designed for boosting productivity for professionals.

Prizes added June 16, 2008

• Five copies of Andy King’s Website Optimization.

Prizes added June 4, 2008

• Four copies of Business Daffynitions: Humor from the Workplace, one copy of Wit and Wisdom of a Regular Joe, and one copy of New Idiot-Proof Guide to Customer Loyalty from Joe Heuer, the Rock and Roll Guru.

Prizes added June 2, 2008

• Two full copies of Unicorn Castle Game PC games from Oleg Kuznecov of Meridian’93. One copy for a reader and one copy for a guest blogger.

Prizes added May 29, 2008

• Custom blog design by Jon of Spyre Studios and Freelance Folder. Prize includes:
  • typical blog layout.
  • design mock-ups (usually two to four designs)
  • coding: css and xhtml valid
  • Provides the design files (PNG/PSD if needed)
  • Built on WordPress (the person would need his/her own domain name and hosting plan)
  • 30-day support + PDF ‘how your new WP theme works’
  • WP installation and plugin configuration
  • link in the portfolio section of spyrestudio.com
• Reflexive contributes a total of 10 copies of three games! Some are for Mac.
  • Big Kahuna Reef 2: 4 copies (2 Mac and 2 PC)
  • Ricochet Infinity: 2 copies (PC)
  • Airport Mania: 4 copies (2 Mac and 2 PC)

Prizes added May 23, 2008

• AWAI’s Nick Usborne’s Million Dollar Secrets for Online Copywriting
• How to Make a Living as an SEO Writer from Yuwanda Black
• Access to Teaching Sells for two months from Copyblogger Brian Clark
• 80 Photoshop Brush Packs from Jacob Cass
• Five ebooks on writing from Anne Wayman

Prizes added May 22, 2008

• $800 DVD set from marketing extraordinaire Seth Godin. The guy admits he skipped the books so he can get Meryl closer to jumping off a plane (yes, the plane is way up in the air, not on the ground).
• AWAI’s Accelerated Program for Six-Figure Copywriting
• $450 basic WordPress customization package from Kim Beasley.
• One $100 gift certificate to Amazon from Mark Wegner of The Diamond Games — the guy responsible for me starting the separate games section.
• Lifetime subscription for RadioTime.com RedButton software — TiVO for radio where you can pause and record live radio.
• One full copy of Orchidia PC game from Joyboost. See Meryl’s Orchidia review.
• One full copy of Spinword PC game from Joyboost.
• One full copy of Astraware Classic Collection, which includes Astraware Sudoku, Astraware Solitaire, and Astraware Board games. Astraware is one of Meryl’s favorite — if not the best — developer of handheld software.

Original Prizes

• One $80 gift certificate to Amazon from Meryl ($10 for every year)
• Full version of Microsoft Expression Studio 2.
• Tara Calishain, two books
• Peter Shankman: signed copy of his book, Can We Do That?! Outrageous PR Stunts That Work–And Why Your Company Needs Them
• Lou Rosenfeld: Rosenfeld Media’s Luke Wroblewski’s Web Form Design.
• Lou Rosenfeld: Rosenfeld Media’s Indi Young’s Mental Models.
• Ted Demopoulos: Two copies of Secrets of a Successful Blogging System digital audiobook with What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting (in which Meryl appears).
• Problogger Darren Rowse provides a copy of his book, Problogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income.
• Men with Pens: one custom banner for a blog or website created to the winner’s specs and preferences, valued at $200. They ask for a 7 to 10 day turnaround from the point that the winner transmits her/his specs.
• Two full copies of Magic Farm Game PC games from Oleg Kuznecov of Meridian’93. One copy for a reader and one copy for a guest blogger. My Magic Farm review.
• One Alawar PC game package including full copies of Virtual Farm, Curse of Montezuma, and Alex Gordon.
• Full copy of First Class Flurry PC game from Chanon Sajjamanochai of Viquagames. Meryl’s First Class Fury review.
• Full copy of Lex Venture: A Crossword Caper PC game from Mark Kanter of Bang Out Games. Meryl’s Lex Venture: A Crossword Caper review.
• Microsoft Expression Software (more details coming soon).

How You Can Win

The contest has three (ouch, not “two” as I put in the first entry — Boy, I was not off to a good start with my notes about this. I also messed up the email I sent to friends and colleagues about this.) parts: Readers, prize sponsors, and authors.

1. Readers get entries for a chance to win prizes by simply leaving valuable comments, linking to this blog and its sponsors from their own blog, and telling others about it by Stumbling, Digging, and all that (keep track of what you do so you can get an entry for each one!).
2. Readers part 2: Some prizes will be available only to those who comment. These prizes are those with specific requirements that not everyone has. For example, software may only be available for Windows users and not Macs. I will put these up in a blog entry and anyone who comments within five days of the blog post (to be fair to those on vacation) will get an entry for the prize of the blog entry. These are the ones where you can win more than one! Comments must be at least 30 words to ensure they’re valuable to readers.
3. Prize sponsors: Automatically get 10 entries for donating a prize and links to their sites. Readers gain entries for linking to sponsors, which means more linkage!
4. Authors get entries into author-only prizes for their contributions. Articles can cover any of the following:
   1. Writing
   2. Freelancing
   3. Marketing
   4. Web site design, usability, etc.
   5. Technology

Participation rules coming soon. Meryl needs to take care of her clients. Here are the entry guidelines. If you want to contribute a prize or an article, we’d appreciate hearing from you by June 1.

Here are the guidelines for articles — and yes, it’s OK to have a longer article, but we’re trying to respect your time.

Guest Blogging Guidelines

• 400-800 words
• Self-promotion / bio goes in last paragraph (About the Author).
• Material must be original (it’s OK to re-use material with modifications) and first published on this site. 30 days after publication, you can re-use the article anywhere you please.
• I reserve the right to edit or reject the article for any reason (rare as most of you are great writers.)
• Due June 1 (willing to negotiate if needed).

The list will be updated as more offers come in. Thank you to everyone who stepped up.