THE MEGA CONTEST BEGINS! **Celebrate the Countdown To Our Site's "New Look", Our Publisher Partners, & You Guys!**

The Moment you have all been waiting for has come.

The Lateiner Gang is proud to finally announce our

MEGA CONTEST!!

The post is a bit long, but read through it as it will be well worth your time. We plan to have SEVERAL WINNERS! Also, FYI, this initial post of our contest will take the place of this week's "Sunday Scoop." We will return next week with a new edition of The Scoop for sure!

First, a bit about the background of "why" we are doing this. There are a few reasons we are having this Mega Contest. (in no special order might we add) The first reason is that we are going to be giving our site a "new look" and well, isn't that a reason to celebrate? Second, we want to take this opportunity to thank the publishers who have provided us with their continued support, review copies, and copies for contests almost since we started the site. And, the third and most important reason for this contest is to thank all of you out there who have become a part of our site and take the time out of your busy days to stop by and see what's going on around here. As the number of you grows frequently, we are always thinking of new things to keep you engaged.

Now, for the good stuff!  The contest will run until 11:59 p.m. EST on Saturday, November 21st, 2009.  (yes, it is a while, but hey, it's a MEGA CONTEST and you will be pleased, we promise! Also, it gives us a chance to gather more prizes along the way!)

As far as the PRIZES, we are going to be giving away a special prize from us personally, a $200 gift card for the Apple Store. The idea actually came from Dave's day job. They were doing a promotion there and it gave him a good idea. Lauryn got several gift cards for the Apple store for her birthday from everyone who asked what she wanted (and even those who didn't ask, she told!). After she got the Ipod she wanted, she had a balance of around $125 and it has basically been sitting around. Mara & David decided to "buy" her balance from her, add $75 and bring it to an even $200. The $200 was picked because first of all, our last name isn't Trump or Gates, and second of all, that amount can get you one of their cool Ipods including the "Touch". We also have some other things we are going to throw in, one of them being a copy of Angie Sage's "Syren", book 5 in the Septimus Heap series.

We received "prize packs" containing mostly YA/Fic/Fantasy books from the following publishers:

Harper Collins (YA and Adult)

Random House

Sourcebooks/Jabberwocky

Scholastic
Simon and Schuster
Little Brown & Co.

We are currently working on a few more publishers and will update the post if things pan out.  We have 2 or 3 more publishers we are waiting to hear from as well as a few major bookstores that we are hoping will also contribute to the contest.

We were initially going to list all of the books each gave us, mix and match them, and come up with 5 different prize packs.  Instead, what we are going to do, is give you a few "teaser" titles and also leave the final amount of "prize packs" until later.  We have over 30 books to give away in all so far, so no worries, there will be plenty of winners. Again, keep in mind we are hopefully not done getting books to add to the mix! 

The Maze Runner by James Dashner, Ring of Fire by Pierdomenico Baccalario, Gone by Michael Grant, The Shifter by Janice Hardy, The Everafter by Amy Huntley, The Realm of the Rodent by Greg Hildebrandt jr., Bran Hambric by Kaleb Nation, Airhead by Meg Cabot, Deeper by Roderick Gordon, and The 39 Clues

REMEMBER, YOU MUST FOLLOW OUR SITE, EITHER EXISTING OR NEW FOLLOWERS WELCOME, BUT WE WILL NOT COUNT YOUR ENTRIES IF YOU DO NOT FOLLOW OUR SITE. PLEASE ALSO INCLUDE YOUR EMAIL!

The contest will be open to US residents only as we are paying for shipping, and on this many books, it will cost us a fortune! (sorry)

Perhaps you have a friend's address in the US we can ship the books to, as that would be perfectly acceptable.

      +3  For existing followers (as usual, membership has it's privileges)

      +2 For new followers

      +1 For each place you link the contest to (include link please)


+2  For placing our button up on your site. This is in addition to your entry for placing links!

+ 1 For everyone who enters & mentions you sent them

+1 For every post/review/interview you read & comment 
on (**starting with "Flash Forward" from 10/17 - only 1 entry for each of our posts though**)

+1 For going to our friend, author Laura Bingham's site & entering her new contest for her awesome book "ALVOR" (remember to tell her we sent you!) CLICK HERE

If you have any questions, please feel free to email us at tlgbrs@gmail.com  or mrlatts@gmail.com 

Thank you all so much for taking the time to come here and share in our passion with us.  It means the world to us and it is you guys who give us the motivation to work harder and harder on our site each and every day.  We hope this contest can be a small way of us showing our thanks.

Best wishes & Good Luck to you all!!!

The Lateiner Gang

Dave, Mara, Lauryn, and Sami