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| Again, I am in love with this cover. Its evocative and makes me want to know more. |
The digital prizes are really nice. You'll get a prequel to the Shard & Shield. She calls it a short story, but at 9000 words, it's pretty much a novelette in its own right. You'll also get a digital colour copy of her world's map and some never before seen character art. Offhand, I have seen the character art now and it is wonderful. I haven't had a chance to read the short story yet, but it looks good, too.
For the three grand prize winners, she has signed physical copies of her book, as well as a printed copy of the map and some characters cards. You also get an actual shard of crystal, much like the character has in the book (though missing the magic of its namesake, unfortunately).
Now, if all that, and her wonderful writing, isn't enough to get you excited, then consider this. While researching into slavery for one of her characters, Laura found out just how pervasive an issue slavery still is in our world. Over 40,000,000 people today are slaves, and 1 in every 4 is a child. Laura is taking a stand and trying to make things better. In addition to your loot, for every pre-order, Laura is going to donate $2 to the International Justice Mission. They're a charity whose stated mission is to end slavery in our lifetime. And for all you math whizzes out there, yes. That means she's donating more than she's getting for every pre-order. Say what you will, but that is what I call dedication to a cause.
Note: Apparently, in an all too common case of "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished", Laura has had to change the legal terms of her donation. Why? Well, there are a multitude of laws out there specifically to stop people from playing the system which, annoyingly, make it more difficult to donate into the system, because of course it does. Please check out Laura's update where she gets into more detail about it. More importantly, what does this mean for you, fellow reader? Very little. Laura is still donating $2 for every pre-order of Shared and Shield. In fact, she's donating even more now. So you can still pre-order and know that your money is going to a good cause. The fine print that I mention below just has a few additional lines underneath it to keep Laura from getting in trouble for trying to do a good thing.
There is some fine print, of course. Mainly that IJM is not a sponsor and does not have any connection with the event. They're just the ones that Laura personally found the most deserving to donate to. Also, she's restricting the physical grand prize to the USA only, since shipping can be prohibitively expensive at times.
So how do you enter? Just order your copy of Shard & Shield and send a copy of your pre-order receipt to Laura at preorders@lauravanarondonkbaugh.com . If you really can't pre-order, you can also send your local library a request to carry Shard & Sheild. In that case, just forward a copy of your request to the email above, as well. For those people who are pre-ordering the physical book, things can be a bit more difficult. Laura will be accepting pictures of your receipts for the physical book until the end of her release day, again on July 2nd. For audible fans, she suggests sending a request to your local library's since it can sometimes be a few days behind release everywhere else.
I suggest going to Laura's site and reading her post on this, and watching the video she put out as well. In addition to getting the full low-down directly from her, you can also sign up for her mailing list (if you're interested and not already a member there is usually a short story that you receive for doing so and as a member, I can promise that her emails are rare and not invasive). You can also look over the full list of her releases to see what interesting releases you may have missed.
I will be ordering my own copy this weekend. Will you?
