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Welcome to the Competition Terminus, where you will find links to the various competitions I have run over the years. They are in the order in which they were set, as well as the current competition.
Last updated: 16th April 2014 |
 The UK edition of Eye of Zoltar |
 This beautiful and especially bound edition could be yours! (Grass not included)  The first signed first edition of The Last Dragonslayer. A true collector's edition.. Wow! Prize includes shadow, but only under optimum (sunny) conditions. |
I had two books out in the US in October 2012: The Woman Who Died a Lot and The Last Dragonslayer, both of which warranted their own competition.
These competitions were for US markets only. and you can view the results: Here for the Dragonslayer quiz, and then: here for the Woman Who Died a Lot Sleuthing Competition. Past Competitions: September 2012: Pineapple Picture Competition |
 The UK Song of the Quarkbeast and a pineapple |
Now: I have twenty copies of this book to giveaway to Hodder territory customers. To learn how you can win a copy go to my Quarky Pineapple Competition Page
Past Competitions:
TN7 Sleuthing Competition, July 2012 |
 The UK The Woman Who Died a Lot |
Preorder Amazon (UK)
Preorder Waterstone's (UK) Preorder Foyles (UK) Preorder Amazon (Canada) Preorder Amazon (USA) Preorder Barnes and Noble (USA) I had two copies of this book to giveaway: The FIRST ever signed UK hardback Hodder edition, complete with a set of postcards. The FIRST ever signed Export C Format edition, complete with a set of postcards. The US will have their own competition. For the results of this competition, please go to the TN7 Sleuthing Competition page
January 2011  The new USA paperback cover I had twelve copies of this book to giveaway, all with postacrds, special bookstamps and numbered in a futile effort to make them sound exotic and alluring, when in fact they're simply ordinary paperbacks. It's all for fun, to be honest. One of Our Thursdays is Missing was published January 30th 2012, and is available though the following links: Amazon Barnes and Noble (Nook edition also) Kindle edition Alternatively, they are also available in your local independent. Competition ended February 14th 2012. You can find the competition here and the winners to the competiton are announced here
November 2011  The new cover As is usual with UK launches, I had a 'Sleuthing' Competition with a whole bunch of tricky questions regarding the new book, Song of the Quarkbeast. To see what a 'Sleuthing' contest is like click on this link: The Great TN6 Sleuthing Competition or this one: Shades of Grey Sleuthing Competition SotQ is published November 10th 2011, and first prize is the 'First Signed' hardback edition of Song of the Quarkbeast Order a Paper Edition Amazon Order a Kindle Edition Amazon Buy at Waterstone's (And available in your local independent) Ended January 2011. You can find answers and the winner HERE
January 2012 
Matching cover for the rest of the series As is usual with UK launches, I get given a stackload of books to do something with, and because burning them creates too much ash in the grate, I thought I would attempt to make them exclusive and cool by simply putting a stamp in them and signing them. And then giving them away. So that's what I did. To see what undignified act I asked my loyal readers to undertake, go to my TN6 paperback competition page
October 2011  Canadian DS1 cover - similar to the UK Published in Canada by HarperCollins on the 14th October and available at Amazon.ca or Chapters.ca or any other bookshop of your choice - the independents need our support. I had six copies to give away. Canadian DS1 Giveaway Page October 2011  The Czech Thursday Next Published in The Czech Republic and available NOW - Ztracena V dobre Knize, or, if you prefer, Lost in a Good Book. You can order it HERE . I had two copies to give away. To see who could be arsed to enter, go to my Czech TN2 Giveaway Page
October 2011  The proof cover of Song of the Quarkbeast I always get sent proof printings of the wraparound dustjackets of upcoming books. This is one of them, a giveaway to my almost (but not quite) self-explanatory Silly Name Competition
October 2011  Run! Alice is tooled up! I was asked by Richard Knight, the Producer of Eddie Mair's 'PM' show on Radio 4 to write a pastiche of a popular children's story to be read on Radio4 as a humorous rebuttal piece for the news story that PD James was publishing a Jane Austen Murder/Mystery. To win the only print copy, done for me as a proof read, go to my plainly ludricous Alice Competition September 2011  Grau - published now by Eichborn Published now! the Eichborn edition of Grau, the German language edition of Shades of Grey. The competition was about photographing yourself with something grey. For the results, go to my German Shades of Grey Grau competition.
September 2011  Paperback of LDS out on the 15th September Soon to be published is the paperback edition of The Last Dragonslayer, which can be pre-ordered either at your local bookstore or thorugh Amazon or Waterstone's. To see how ten copies were won, please go to my Bumper Dragonslayer Giveaway August 2011  The German rejacket of the first four in the TN series This is the new and improved and dead wonderful rejacket of the Thursday Next series in Germany, as published by DTV and we gave away a set to the winner of the part of our German TN Competition. Click on the link to see the entrants and the winners. July 2011 
The Italian edition of The Last Dragon This is the first published foreign language edition of The Last Dragonslayer anywhere, and we gave one away as part of our Pasta Picture Competition If you want to know more this edition, please go to the Mondadori Website. June 2011  The Flipback 1st edition of Shades of Grey Flipback books are a new publishing idea - compact books (5" by 3") you can really fit into a pocket to take anywhere. They need no batteries, and no WiFi connection - staggering! For this we ran a . teeny-weeny writing competition March 2011  The two millionth copy of my book, a 'C' format UK 1st edition of Shades of Grey Now closed, but as a tie-in with the launch of TN6 in March 2011: The Great TN6 Sleuthing Competition February 2011 For the paperback launch of Shades of Grey we gave away five copies to whoever asked nicely. These are the results. November 2010 This was for a first signed LARGE PRINT UK edition of Shades of Grey. This competition was very simple to enter. In the book, the following exchange occurs between our hero Eddie Russett and his father, who is hopeless at crosswords: I thanked him for this good advice, then asked him if he could guess who our lodger was. "Three down," he muttered, "I spy an Equus. Nine letters, begins and ends in A." "Apocrypha." "Apocrypha? Jolly good." And he filled it in without thinking. "No Dad, our lodger is Apocrypha." "Dangles," he mumbled, rubbing out the answer for perhaps the sixth time, "an Apocryphal man, eh? You didn't ask him for supper, I hope?" All you had to do was help Eddie's Dad. 'What is the correct answer for the crossword puzzle?" Amazingly, quite a few people got this wrong and instead of thinking in a crossword sort of way, looked for nine letter words with 'A' at the begining and the end. The most plausible (yet still wrong) of these was Allozebra, which is a member of the extinct Equini family, and the least plausible either Andromeda which apparently has one of its stars called Sirrah, which is arabic for horse, or the people who suggested Appolonia, which is mostly a girl's name and not related to horses in any way. Some of you (in a good jump of logic, I think) suggested that because Eddie's Dad is so hopeless at crosswords, the 'A' at the begining and end could well be wrong, and suggested all sorts of horse-related words that had nine letters, but without 'A' at either end. Best of all, and suggested by three people, was seahorses. HOWEVER the actual answer and one which the vast majority of people managed to figure out, was that 'I spy an Equus' could well mean 'I Spot a Horse' and from there to 'Spotty Horse' - the Appaloosa. The first name out of the virtual hat and selected by the virtual Lola Vavoom was (drumroll) ... Kathy Bolt So she gets the large Print SOG. Many thanks to all who took part! November 2010 For the launch of 'The Last Dragonslayer' there was a quick quiz to win the first ever signed edition: click HERE for more details. March 2010 We had the first of our 'Sleuthing' competitions for the launch of 'Shades of Grey'. You can see what sort of nonsense we got up to by going to the Sleuthing Competition December 2009 For the publication of the German language edition of TN5, we had an Angela Merkel Poetry contest. You can see more by clicking here: Win the first signed copy of the German 'First Among Sequels' December 2009 For the Launch of Desmond Fforde's book, we offered a copy to who did the best Haiku. You can see the results HERE July 2007 The competition was to colour in any of the illustrations from First Among Sequels For more information click HERE March 2006 For the release of The Fourth Bear the task was to write a modern nursery rhyme. You can read the winners and other entrants HERE June 2004 In conjunction with the launch of Something Rotten there was a "How Hamlet are you?" game and the opportunity to test your Hamlet-spotting skills to win books and other goodies. For more details, click HERE Insanely difficult acrostic set by reader Arsinoe Chi. T-Shirts and advelopes won by Mike Tueller and Janet Coburn, so competition closed - but try it for fun anyway... April 2003 The TN3 US launch featured my mother's dalmation in a Spot the Deliberate Mistake Competition which was loosely based on a postcard I gave away on that launch. This competition soon became a 'Spot the mistake that I meant to make, not the other ones I did accidentally', the fallout of which can be found HERE March 2003 The TN3 UK launch featured a 2003 Nextian Brain competition which sported a huge host of really technical Thursday Next trivia. I was astounded by how well people knew my books - better than me, on many occasions! The answers can be found by clicking HERE July 2002 The TN2 US launch competition was something Mari wrote for penguin which we called the Penguin Literary Challenge. You can still do it but there are no prizes any more. July 2002 The TN2 UK launch was marked by a Lost in a Good Book Blurb writer's challenge where the hapless competitors had to precis LIAGB in under eighty words. Sadistic of me I know, but we have to find our laughs here at Fforde Grand Central wherever we can. The winner's entry was excellent. November 2002 I can't remember what this competition was precisely for, if anything, but in it I asked readers to tell me where they thought various character's names came from. It's quite amusing what people came up with. August 2002 Less of a competition and more of a sale for charity, I auctioned off two parts in the UK and US versions of Lost in a Good Book in 2002. We raised a total of nearly £5000 for the Usk House Day Hospice in Brecon. You can learn more about the auction by clicking HERE. |