Avalon.ph Blog

Books depart from me all the time, sometimes they make it somewhat depressing. Last week, two of my personal favorites left my bookshelves.

Melinda by Neil Gaiman (Signed and Limited to 1,000 copies)

and

The Last Unicorn: The Lost Version by Peter Beagle (Signed and Limited to 1,000 copies)

I did get a significant monetary rate in return, but these are titles I do not expect to have again in my lifetime. Both are currently out-of-print, and very expensive in the collectible books market. Both titles appreciated in value immediately as they were released, and they were probably the only copies actually available for sale in the Philippines.

At the same time, buyer also bought these titles:

Coraline by Neil Gaiman & Dave McKean (Signed & Limited 1/1000)

and

Interworld by Neil Gaiman & Michael Reaves (Signed & Limited 1/500)

To the person who bought them (you will remain anonymous from others), love them, boldly display them, treasure them and most of all amidst the price, make sure your kids will read them. It is sad I never even read them, because of my intent of putting them up for sale I like to think even the first pass of actually reading the books should belong to you.

Below are additional images of Melinda and The Last Unicorn: The Lost Version. So if I have to reminisce, I just have to take a look here. Read more…

* For privacy of entries real names of entries via website purchase were cut using first 2 letters of first name, and 3-6 letters of last (as you can see some weird names listed above). No real names were submitted in the list randomizer unless you used your real name displayed on the website to submit your entry.

Congratulations to Ka(ren) Punza(lan) [name disclosed w/ permission]! She purchased 4 Moleskine Notebooks last September 10, received 4 entries and was picked by random.org’s list randomizer as the winner of the Neil Gaiman SIGNED book giveaway!

Thank you everyone for participating! Watch out for our next giveaway so keep checking our website, this blog or better yet, add us to your RSS feed.

Still can’t get enough of Neil Gaiman? Here is your chance to win a SIGNED copy of Neil Gaiman’s Adventures in the Dream Trade (trade paperback edition)!

SIGNED by Neil Gaiman

This giveaway is part of Avalon.ph (still) celebration of our 10th year online. We are one of the longest running online shopping websites in the country. You can read a quick history and timeline here.

Adventures in the Dream Trade is one of Neil Gaiman’s harder-to-find book locally. The book covers Neil Gaiman’s web log during the publication of American Gods, some essays, introductions, stories, poems and song lyrics.

Just how can you win this amazing signed book?

Complete this phrase: “Ten years ago……..”

Be creative, sentimental, funny or just be honest! Feel free to add images if you write your entry in your blogs. I reserve the right to disqualify tasteless entries.

So how to submit an entry?

Easy/basic:

a) Answering in the comments section below gives you one (1) point.

or

b) Answering in your blog, with a link back to this post gives you three (3) points. You must mention Avalon.ph in your blog entry. Note: one blog per person/entry.

On blog entries, I will award you one (1) extra point if I like your post. This will be purely based my personal discretion and I expect myself to be stingy with it.

Basically that’s it, you are now qualified to win this Neil Gaiman signed book.  But wait! Want to have more chances of winning? We are giving options to submit more entries that’s worth the effort.

Advanced:

- Twitter – one (1) extra point. You may also follow our Twitter account: avalonph. Twitter entries can be easily traced as long as you use the following tweet format:

RT @avalonph Win a SIGNED copy of Neil Gaiman’s Adventures in the Dream Trade! Exclusive giveaway only on www.avalon.ph #avalonph

I suggest you copy and paste before you tweet. Helpful comments before RT is okay, the rest must be entered once and as is during the contest period (Aug 26 – Sep 22). Please do not spam.

Sorry, no Plurk entries because their search system isn’t optimize to guarantee your entry gets counted.

- Purchases on Avalon.ph. For every valid purchase worth Php500.00 on Avalon.ph, you will earn one (1) extra point. This is valid during the contest period (Aug 26 – Sep 22) and must already be paid/fulfilled before the end of the contest period. There is no limit to the number of points to be awarded.

I’m tempted to include a Facebook point reward system but I believe that’s too much already. However, I will deeply appreciate if you “share” the contest details once it is posted in our Facebook Page. If you are not a fan of Avalon.ph yet, here’s our Facebook Page link: www.facebook.com/avalonph. We also have giveaways exclusive to our Avalon.ph Facebook Page Fans so make sure you add us up.

This giveaway will run from August 26 until September 22, 2009, 11:59pm Manila time. Raffle is only open for those with a Philippine-based address that’s serviceable by major couriers. Raffle will be through Random.org or other facilities that can handle random drawing.

Raffle winner will be announced before 12:00nn September 23. We will exert best effort to communicate with the winner within 5 days, but if efforts fail we will use our discretion in choosing a new winner either through a re-draw or pick #2.

As much as we want everything fair and square there might be unseen issues. Loopholes or oversights regarding rules- common sense applies!

So what are you waiting for? Good luck! Most of all, reminisce something in your life ten years ago!

www.avalon.ph

Avalon.ph will be giving away another exclusive item soon but we can’t decide which item to offer. Help us settle by voting!

Do you want to win:

Adventures in the Dream Trade by Neil Gaiman

Adventures in the Dream Trade by Neil Gaiman, Trade Paperback, hard-to-find locally

SIGNED by Neil Gaiman

or

Tori Amos signed photo, 8“x11”

Tori Amos Signed photo

Just comment “Tori” or “Neil” in this blog post, through our Plurk account or through our Avalon.ph Facebook Page.

One vote per person, everything will be tallied by August 10, 2009.

Tori or Neil! Leave a comment here, feel free to express yourself too.

Other voting sites:

Plurk voting: http://www.plurk.com/p/1f0zlp

Avalon.ph Facebook Page voting: http://bit.ly/Bld9a

Thank you very much!

There were 64 entries to the contest and the lucky winner of the Signed Neil Gaiman book is…

Read more…

This left my shelves a month ago, and I miss it. I strongly doubt I’ll have a copy again.

Neil Gaiman’s Snow Glass Apples chaplet, signed by the author. Nothing surprising as Neil Gaiman has been the most consistent top-selling author on the website.

Last few hours and the winner of the Interworld Signed book will be announced.

Make sure you have a valid entry! Good luck!