How Shadow Picks a Winner

Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here, with a follow up on last Friday’s review of Lea Wait’s Mainely Needlepoint mystery, Thread and Buried, and a reminder that to be entered in the drawing for an advance reading copy you need to leave a comment at that post, the weekend update, or today’s blog. The deadline is midnight tomorrow (Tuesday, November 5) and the results of the “drawing” will be posted on Wednesday. I’ll also notify the winner by email.

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That brings me to the means by which I choose winners in all my giveaways. It’s one I developed back when we still had three elderly cats living with us. Now that they’re gone, we just have Shadow. Last month, she picked the winner of an ARC of my A View to a Kilt, so she already knows the routine. As regular readers of this blog know, my husband and I inherited Shadow from Lea, so it seems doubly appropriate that she do the honors for Thread and Buried.

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Here’s how it works. I assign a number to each comment. Then I crumple up post-it notes with numbers written on them, as many or as few as necessary, depending on how many people leave comments. In a variation on drawing a number out of a hat, I toss the post-its in a container, give it a shake, and then dump them all out on the floor. This is where the cat comes in. Anything lying on the floor is guaranteed to attract feline attention. The first post-it Shadow bats at or picks up with her teeth will be the winner.

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Good luck everyone, and thank you for taking the time to leave a comment.

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[photos of Shadow are from a practice run]