Proposed SFR Brigade Blog Hop

Some of you may or may not have seen or taken part in the recent St.Patrick's Day Blog Hop last week. I know a handful of Brigaders were participating, including myself. Liana Brooks suggested that perhaps the Brigade should host one of its own, and I've kind of volunteered to set it up. :-P

So I thought I'd put it up for a vote. I've suggested a Midsummer one, since this is an astronomical and mystical event that might tie in nicely with speculative fiction as a whole and allow us all a free range on the topic we'd like to post. First up, I'd like to know how many Brigaders are interested in taking part, how many are willing to offer a prize on their own blog and/or contribute to a grand prize, volunteers to help out (begging here!) etc. I've left the poll open so that you can choose as many responses as you need, and add further questions you think are relevant.




So the basic idea is - this blog will host the hop. A linky tool will be set up for all those wanting to participate (about a month in advance), into which you will need to enter your name, email and blog/website URL. All participants will be sent a copy of the code for the linky so we can all publish the list, letting visitors to our blogs hop to the next without having to keep coming back here. On the day, a post will go live here announcing the hop and with the list up so that everyone has somewhere central to come back to. Participants will write a short post on a topic of their choice related to Midsummer's Day (or maybe if you have a similar solar event or festival etc in one of your books, you can post a snippet), including whatever promotional links you'd like to add and listing your prize(s). Visitors will need to comment with their email addy for entry to your contest, and for one entry to the main prize if we have one. The more blogs they comment on, the better their chances of winning the grand prize. I'd like to suggest that it isn't a requirement for guests to sign up to newsletters/follow blogs etc as part of the conditions for entry, but that's entirely up to each participant.

Because of the time differences between some members I'm going to have to figure out some times, and how long the contest will actually run for - I'll have to get back to you on that. But, depending on the number of participants, I may need one or two peeps just to help me check all the links in the linky are up and valid - any that just seem to lead to an advert rather than a post or are broken may be deleted. At the end of the hop, I'll collect up all the entries and chose a grand winner. Each participant will be responsible for choosing and announcing the individual winner on their own blog. For an example of how blog hops work, you can check out Carrie Ann Ryan's recent St.Patrick's Day Hop here.

Now, Midsummer's Day is the 24th June which I know might be an issue for the Six Sentence Sunday peeps. But the actual summer solstice is the 20th June at 23.09. So perhaps Friday the 21st might be the best day to hold it? Or I could set it to start at the moment of solstice if everyone can schedule their blog posts to go live then. Any suggestions, thoughts etc are very welcome!