The instant I saw the HP USB thumb drive with a built in label, I knew I had to have one. Why? To give out autographed ebooks of course! I had seen articles about various hacks that allow authors/publishers to distribute ebooks with custom cover art, but it seemed a bit too labor intensive, both for me and the end user. But this gets back to the original. The USB thumb drive is the package, just like the paper book. So the package gets the autograph and the content is the same. The content? How about every ebook I’ve ever published? Eight novels and one short story collection, in ePub, mobi/kindle, and PDF formats?
Okay, now I have a prize for a contest. What should I do for the entries? In this case, a month long contest for November 2010, I’ll have people fill out a “Getting To Know You” form that will help me schedule new book signings and conventions.
So here are the rules. Go to the Getting To Know You form. Enter your name and email and your ideas about what I should be doing to promote my books. I’ll feed all the email addressed into a randomizer and choose one and at the end of the month, I’ll email the winner for a postal address to mail the prize. Simple enough? If it works out okay, I’ll likely do it again sometime.
On the E-book Community ML, someone mentioned a couple of other good sources of cheap flash drives: here and here. You'd probably have to apply your own label for autographing, though.