Wishes come true in the biggest blog contest I've ever organized!!!!

Whew--last week was officially one of the most surreal, crazy, amazing weeks of my life. I seriously can't thank you enough for all your comments, tweets, and emails congratulating me about my news. The response was so much more than I ever expected. THANK YOU!

But I don't think a simple thank you is enough for the many, many ways you guys have helped and supported me on this crazy journey toward publication, so I wanted to put together an extra-special contest to thank you all properly with some awesome prizes.

I went through a million and a half ideas, trying to figure out the PERFECT contest (I did have FIVE MONTHS to think about it, after all). And I gotta say, what I finally settled on is pretty freaking awesome. In fact, I dare say it's frawesome.

The thing is, I love, love, LOVE that my publisher is Aladdin—not just because they've published SO MANY of my favorite books. But also, how cool is it that they have a magic lamp for a logo???? I just wasn't entirely sure what to do with that, until I turned to the brilliant team of Lisa and Laura Roecker, and they came up with the winning idea. Huge thanks also go to Simon & Schuster for donating a BUNCH of incredible books, and to the uber talented Christina Lee who made some awesome custom jewelry for me.

Okay, so... THE CONTEST.
I'm giving away six (yes, SIX!!!!) prize packages total (because I wanted to thank as many of you as I could). Three runners up, and three grand prize winners. EVERYONE will win awesome books and adorable necklaces (which I will explain in a second). But the three grand prize winners will win something EXTRA SPECIAL! (So special it might be a little bit crazy for me to give away--but I'm doing it anyway!!!)
Think about it. What does a magic lamp give you? 
Wishes! 
So that's what I'm giving away too! 
No really, I am.

For three lucky winners, consider me your own personal genie—minus the harem pants: 

and blue skin... (hee. I had WAY too much fun with bad Photoshop--if you can't tell...)

So here's how this works.

The three runners up will each win one of these adorable "magic lamp" necklaces Christina designed for me (the picture seriously doesn't do them justice--they are SO CUTE!):


AND some awesome books from the following selections:

(Note: Not everyone will get the same books, and no--the winners will not all get THAT MANY books. I have different amounts of all of the above, so the winners will each get some of those.  It'll work out to be FIVE books for each winner, some of which will be signed, some of which won't be, and the actual titles will be given out at random)
And the three grand prize winners will each win a signed hardcover of two of my favorite books edited by Liesa:

(BEYONDERS: A World Without Heroes, by Brandon Mull, and MILO: Sticky Notes and Brainfreeze by Alan Silberberg)

and one of these awesome "Wish" necklaces (again, the picture so doesn't do them justice):



Which will also entitle them to ONE WISH, which they get to arrange with me via email, and I will do everything in my power to grant it for them.

BUT… 
(come on, with a crazy prize like that you HAD to know there was a "but" coming) 
Because—contrary to popular opinion—I do not have any actual magical powers, I do have to put a few … guidelines on the winner's wishes:

- To quote Genie in Aladdin: "ix-nay on the wishing for more wishes." (I'm onto you guys!) :) 
- Obviously I can't grant any wish that will be damaging to my career or require breaking the law (I love you guys, but I draw the line at career suicide or jail time.) 
- This is MY contest/celebration, so I won't be able to grant any wishes that require me to pull a favor from other people. Then THEY'RE the genie and I'm just … the Messenger (ooo—did you see what I did there?) 
- Since I do have actual like, real deadlines and stuff now, (*tries not to panic*) I won't be able to grant any wishes that will require an unreasonable amount of time (and we can discuss "reasonable" if you're one of the winners)
- I may have sold my book, but I'm no J.K. Rowling (yet…), so the wish has to be reasonably priced. (again, we'll discuss "reasonable" if you're a winner)
- And—just to be safe—I do have to reserve the right ask the wisher to suggest alternatives until we can agree on something. 
All of which, I know, might make me seem like one of the crappy, fat-and-lazy genies: 


But really—there's a LOT you can still ask me for, like: 
-ARCs from my sekrit ARC stashes (and I have some AWESOME ones you guys don't know about)
- An ARC of KEEPER OF THE LOST CITIES, whenever I have one-A mention in the acknowledgements of my book -Naming a character

-Critiques -Presents -Shannon Shame (you guys wouldn't waste a wish on that though, would you? WOULD YOU?) 
And that's just the tip of the iceberg. If you live local and want me to take you to lunch/dinner--it can happen! Or something else you dream up. You guys are all writers—I have no doubt you'll find plenty of super-creative ways to put those wishes to awesome use. (In fact, I'm a little afraid of what you'll come up with.)

Pretty awesome, right?

You KNOW you want to win. Which means you're probably wondering how to enter.

I wanted to make this as simple as possible so I'm going to try and keep the rules simple. If you would like to enter, all you have to do is make sure you're a follower of my blog and leave a comment on this post by 11:59 pm PDT on Saturday, October 22. That will give you one entry in the contest. (International entries are--as always--more than welcome).

You don't have to do anything more than that. But if you would like extra entries, you can earn one additional entry for any of the following:

- blogging about this contest- blogging about the awesomeness of any of the books being given away in this contest(because I am ALL about spreading love for amazing books)-tweeting about this contest-posting on Facebook about this contest-adding KEEPER OF THE LOST CITIES to your shelf on Goodreads(and if you've already added it, that totally counts)
If you do all of the above, that would give you 5 extra entries. Which means the maximum number of entries anyone can have is 6. Just let me know in your comment what you'll be doing so I can count your entries accordingly.
I'll then draw 3 grand prize winners and 3 runners up and post their names on Sunday, October 23rd. It'll be up to them to contact me about their prizes, and if I don't hear from them within a week I'll be forced to draw a replacement winner.
And... that pretty much covers it. But if you have any questions feel free to ask away in the comments.
Okay…ready? Set? GO!!!!