Welcome to the 2013 New Year Hop!
Welcome to the epilogue of the Mayan Calendar, and thanks for taking part in the New Year’s Holiday Hop. I’m M. Edward McNally (but you can call me “Ed” ), and this is the homepage for my Epic Fantasy series, The Norothian Cycle. Welcome, and thanks much for hopping by. 
Here is how I am working my giveway, which will be so simple a caveman could do it, assuming the caveman had internet access. Volume One of The Norothian Cycle, The Sable City, is always FREE for all e-book platforms. It weighs in at a bit over 180,000 words (I did say “epic,” right?) and it is the source of my super simple “How many jellybeans in the jar?” style question:
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Feel free to leave a guess here as a comment, along with a way you can be reached online (if you are not already posting as a facebook, wordpress, whatever profile). At the conclusion of the blog hop which runs January 11th to 14th, I will select a winner by a careful process of addition and subtraction, to calculate the closest answer to the correct number of characters who speak a line in the book. Guessing higher or lower doesn’t matter, so feel free to take a shot in the dark.
The correct or closest guess, or guesses, (ties are fine) will win THE NOROTHIAN CYCLE. That is, I will get you e-copies of the existing books in the series (Death of a Kingdom – The Wind from Miilark – Devil Town) which sell for $4.99 each, provided in any of the normal ways: Either directly via Kindle “gift,” Smashwords coupon, or just sending the apporpriate files for any kind of e-reader you may have. Whatever works for you. In addition, I will throw in the next book, Volume V: The Channel War, when it becomes available later this quarter.
That’s all there is to it, just leave a number as a guess, and do remember to check out the main page of the Holiday Hop to visit all the participating blogs, and enter for the Grand Prize packages including (drumroll) A KINDLE FIRE!
Thanks again for taking part, have a great New Year, and as I always say: Thanks for reading.
Ed McNally
Note, for my purposes, “speaking one line of dialogue” is defined as saying something “in quotation marks.” So a nameless guard who opens a door and bids Tilda to enter doesn’t count. But if he said, “Come on in, y’all,” the same nameless guard would count as a “speaking” character. 
