I am giving away my copy of “Contest Queen” by Carol Shaffer!
This is a great book with lots of info and tips on contests and sweepstakes! (one of my hobbies)
All you have to do to enter is submit a comment with a question for me to answer here on the blog and an e-mail address! The giveaway will end November 8th at noon! You may enter as often as you want, 1 question a comment. If I get more than 50 questions I will host another giveaway next weekend!
More Than A Number blog 
Hello and sounds like a great book…what got you started sweeping?
What do you think of sweeping through the internet now, compared to entries via US Mail?
What do you think of others who enter for their whole family? The rules usually state when entering you are entering for yourself- correct?
What is the biggest mistake people do when entering contests/sweepstakes but do not realize it?
Are you addicted- ok lets word this like this-
are you like oh ok another win when it comes or are you still excited like nuts when even small prizes come in?
What is the most useful item you have ever won besides cash or a car?
What’s your dream prize? Thanks for the contest. I would love to have this book.
Do mail-in entries give a bigger advantage than just another entry and do you send more than one?
Who do you hope for most to show up on your doorstep UPS, DHL, or FedEx? Me, I’d take any! Thanks for having such a handy giveaway!
what’s your biggest win ?
What’s the oddest/most “interesting” prize you’ve ever won?
Do you think entering online sweeps at a certain time of day makes you more likely to win?
On mail-ins, do you include a return address on the envelope and is it handwritten?
How much time do you spend on sweeps?
How long have you been “contesting”?
There are certain sites that have a very simple daily entry – to win monthly, and then they repeat the same the following month – indefinitely it would seem. Are these worthwhile, does anyone win?
How many years have you been contesting?
Do you think subscribing to newsletters even though it’s not required for entry helps your chances?
When contests state not to use any auto form fillers, do you know whether they can actually detect if we have? I don’t use Roboform but do use my browser’s autofill.
Some daily contests have a survey to answer which is time consuming, I generally only answer it the first day and then skip. Does this affect one’s chances of winning?
Contests usually say no purchase required yet ask for a bar code, isn’t this a bit contradictory? especially when such codes are often found on line.
(p.s. one of my questions has appeared twice – apologies, it didn’t seem to have gone through initially)
How do i increase my win frequency?
Can you recommend an Internet site featuring sweepstakes for international contestants?
Do you ever think sweeps are rigged?
Where can we buy your book?
Do you enter daily entries or just One time only?
What is the correct way to handle a 1099 for a prize that is over inflated?
Are mail in sweeps a thin of the past with the internet?
What is the oddest thing you’ve ever won? I won a free mammogram once!
Have you ever won any trips and , if so, to where?
Do you ever sell any of your winnings on eBay, or do you keep them all for yourself?
What prize that you’ve won are you the most proud of?
How long have you been entering constests and sweeps?
Do you share great contests with your friends, or keep them all to yourself to increase your chances of winning?
Do you more often win single entry contests or daily entry contests?
Have you ever refused to accept a prize that you won due to the income tax implications?
Do you enter contests more often for things that you need, or for things that you want but would never get for yourself?
Have you read the book, “The Prize Winner of Defiance Ohio”? If so, did you prefer the book or the movie? (book for me, by far)
Do you enter local contests, or just national contests?
Have you ever entered a contest and known, right then, FOR SURE…..that you were going to be the winner?
Have you ever won a new vehicle?
Do you ever feel that your contest-entering hobby has crossed over into a semi-addiction? 🙂
Does your family support your contesting hobby, or do they think you’re about half nuts?
What was your favorite win?
What is your most unusual win?
whats the best tip you can give to people new to sweeping?
Is it ok to enter a contest for a family member or friend?
Have you experienced periods of “bad luck” when you don’t seen to win as much?
Have you ever won a large prize online?
I wonder if you enter every contest you come across or only those that have a prize that you personally would like to win for yourself or for a gift.
Do you feel any particular method of selecting a sweepstakes winner is more fair than others? Especially with ones where you can enter online and mail-in (and maybe purchase) for entries.
What advice do you have for people when writing 100 word or less essays
Do you prefer daily, weekly, monthly, or single entry sweeps?
Do you enter many “walk-in” sweeps? If so, what is your luck with those?
Do you have any tips that you can give us newbies on how to be successful at local sweeps? How do you find them?
How long do you spend on sweepstakes each day?
What keeps you motivated when you aren’t winning?
Very cool contest! Question: For online entries, is there a best time of day to enter. (Please be sure to indicate ET, CST, etc if there is. Thanks.)
Do you prefer snail mail, online entries or some combination of the two? And, Best Wishes for the Holidays!
How do you keep track of what you’ve entered and haven’t entered?
How do you feel about shortcut programs like macros such as Roboform, etc.?
Have you noticed a decrease in promotional giveaways due to the recession? If not, should we expect that?
Is a thank you email acceptable for wins or is it best to send a thank you on paper?
Are online sweepstakes or mail-in sweepstakes more winnable?
How many prizes have you won since you began sweeping?
What do you love the most about sweepstakes?
Do you feel that plain envelopes are just as likely to win as colored or decorated envelopes?
I sometimes enter sweepstakes (like one from a soda company) in which you must choose how to allot your entries. If there are 5 prizes in a contest like that and you have earned 5 entries, do you think it’s a better strategy to put 1 entry in for each prize, or all 5 in for one prize, or split it some other way?
I notice you sweep on OLS…so, do you think we should keep it a ‘secret’?
New to entering sweeps as a retirement hobby, husband keeps saying if I do win
something big (car, trip, etc) we couldn’t afford the taxes and would have to sell it,
and then have to also pay taxes on what we sell it for…….is he right ? if so, would
you probably still come out a little ahead ?
Do you submit more than one entry in daily/multiple entry sweepstakes and, if so, what is the largest number of entries submitted?
Explain to me what “twitter” means in blogging
How many of these questions are answered in your book? For those that are not, do you plan to provide answers in your blog — assuming you have the answers.
What question(s) do you WISH people would ask you??? In other words, is there anything YOU would like to explore with your answers?
Have you ever googled to see if there is anyone else out there with YOUR name??
Since I’m a new visitor here, I have to ask — are people asking questions about entering sweepstakes because THEY know you enter sweepstakes, or because your PRIZE is a book about entering sweepstakes and they’re jumping to a conclusion??
Do you feel most people share your idea of “what is creative”??
Are there sometimes questions you choose NOT to answer, and are those because: “nothing new there to think about” versus “maybe some avoidance and denial” versus “generally just not an interesting direction to go”?
Would you agree that the human brain has mostly evolved as a pattern-detection machine?
Have you ever read Elizabeth Moon’s “The Speed of Dark”??
Do you prefer to listen to sounds and music (auditory focus) or look at pictures and art (visual focus)??
How many tidbits of personal information would it take to make a database “cloud” that could pass the Turing test in answering questions the same way you would?? You are MUCH more than a number, but could your inner beauty be “captured” and saved like an intricate mosaic??
Do you enjoy playing “out in left field”, as opposed to in “the middle of the road”??
I personally find it hard to tell, most times — have I made myself obnoxious yet? I usually prefer to stop before that point, unless I’m trying to MAKE a point somehow — but that isn’t pertinent here… This DOES contain a question mark — it should qualify…
What is the most time you have ever spent working on contests in a 24 hour period?
Have you ever won aythng that you wish you hadn’t?
Weirdest prize received?
Do you think the it is better or worse for you to enter on the internet versus snail mail if a contest has entry both ways?
Have you won more contest through snail mail, local, or internet?
What is your favorite method of entry?
Single entries? Daily entries, etc,… ?
How do you recover from a long cold spell without any wins?
What is the longest time you have went without a win?
How many hours each day to you dedicate to sweeping?
Winning so much there are bound to be things you win that you really have no interest in…do you sell the items you dont want?
What is the average number of sweeps you enter each day?
What is your secret to finding the ‘best sweeps’?
How often do you receive a win in the mail?
Do you ever do voting sweeps and if you do how do you rally people to vote for you?
Has anyone else in your family started sweeping due to your successes?
When you first started, how long did it take to start winning regularly?
Do you ever have ‘bad’ months or even years?
Are you more likely to win a one time only contest or a daily contest?
Is it better to time your snail mail entries to all arrive towards the end of a sweep or mail them throughout the sweep?
What is your typical day and how does it surround your sweepstakes entry.
What is your favorite food?
If you win a trip, but can’t fly because of medical problem, can you turn down the
airline part and just take the accomodations ? and if so, would you still have to
pay taxes on the airline tickets ?
Do you feel you spend too much time enterin sweeps and not enought with your friends ect.
Sounds like an interesting book, thanks for the contest. 🙂
How do you find sweepstakes that hardly anyone else knows about?
Do you enter sweepstakes through the mail? If so, do you do anything different to the envelopes (decorate, color, etc), and do you think that helps?
What ARV is too high for you to accept?
Have you ever turned down a prize because the ARV was too high?
Do your friends and family think you’re strange for entering sweepstakes?
do you enter contests and if so how have you done with them (recipes, photos, etc).
Do you also enter radio contests?
Do you freak out every time you hear a UPS or FedEx truck drive up the road?
You see all the sweepstakes on the internet offering fabulous prizes for filling out forms requesting information for companies and schools. How can you tell if a sweepstakes is legetimate?
Wish I know why the questions I have asked over the last 2 days don’t show up, they were basic questions about winning contests, I didn’t try to put in a lot to get to the magic 50 comment mark, I really wanted to know the answers and YES I also really wanted to win the book…oh well….1 last try…..have 2 basic questions……if you sell something you won to pay the taxes on it, do you have to pay taxes on they money
you get for selling it ? (if so, do you usually still come out ahead or can it get dicey ?)
& if you can’t fly for medical reasons, can you turn down the airfare part of a contest and just take the rest, and if so, do you still have to pay taxes on the tickets ?
If a sweepstakes has a snail mail and online entries to you think your odds are better to win if you enter though mail and online or does it really matter.
Is it worth it to buy stamps to enter by mail if there is an online option too.
Do you have any inside tips to increase chances of winning big ticket items eg. trips?
I recently started sweeping and haven’t really won too much yet. Do you have any tips for a newbie to increase my chances of winning?
Also, when you enter online contests, do you fill out the forms manually or use roboform/other form fillers?
Approx. how much time a day do you spend entering sweepstakes?
About how many sweepstakes do you enter per day?
How long did you enter sweepstakes before you won something?
How do you find sweepstakes to enter…do you use just one site or search around?
Do you enter even if the prize doesnt interest you?
QUESTION:
When the rules say “mechanically reproduced entries not allowed”, does this also include return address labels on the outer mailing envelope?
Thanks
Tammy OHagan
tammyohagan ~~~ AT ~~~westco ~~~ DOT ~~~ net
Do you think a certain type of envelope helps you win snall mail sweeps?
D you enter text sweeps?
Do you enter text sweeps?
Thanks for the great contest! What do you do with prizes that you don’t have a use for?
Have you gone to any Sweepstakes Conventions?
What is the first thing you won?
do you think that people actually win on the intouch sweeps and j-14 and life and style mag
how long did it take you to win a car
how long have you sweeping for
how do you win big items
how long doyou spend doing sweeps
where do oyu find all the sweeps to enter
are you going to answer our questions
and do you work? and if you do how do you find time to sweep
What are your favorite types of contests??
How would you classify your “favorite” thing to win?
Do you keep track of sponsors with any kind of “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” as far as having their act together (or not) on fulfillment issues??
Any thoughts you can share about some of the larger promotion-management companies you’ve eVer eNcountered??
What do you think about tools to help keep track of entries (like the structure some sweepstakes sites create, with flags and counters and public notes, etc) — any favorite approach you recommend?
Have you ever experienced Carpal Tunnel Syndrome from slinging that mouse around??
I always try to submit at least one entry for every contest that I can get my hands on that way I am pretty well spread across the board. I don’t enter contests for vacations since I run a foster care home for disabled adults and I just can’t get away for a vacation like I would like to. But…I am entering contests to win a trip to England when I find them. I have had a penpal for the last 30 plus years and we would just love to see each other again.The last time we saw each other was in the early 80’s when she came over here to the U.S. to see me, we joke, “Now it’s my turn to go visit her!” Wish me luck!!!
You ever wonder if people REALLY read the “The giveaway will end November 8th at Noon!” part of your post?? (Sorry, I really had missed it)…