Three days ago I’ve put together a new contest where I asked you to guess the time and place where these photos were taken.

We’ve had 10 guesses made (from the Great Lakes to the Black Sea) but only one was extremely close to the truth — EZM’s guess has almost hit the nail on the head! The correct answer is:

Location: Komarovo, Russia
Date (wasn’t required): June 26, 2011
Time: midnight

Surprised? No, there’s no typo there! The location was fairly easy to pinpoint if you’re following my tweets, and EZM obviously is, but the time was the tricky part of the contest. It’s that time of the year when the famous Russian “white nights” make St. Petersburg and its surroundings even more special. Some perceive them as romantic, others — as alarming… I personally belong to the latter group…

For you to be able to visualize this better, the arrow shows where exactly this place (Komarovo, Russia) is on the below map:

The original contest rules were:

The person whose answers end up being the closest to the reality will receive a free copy of my newest book, Affiliate Program Management: An Hour a Day…

So, congratulations to EZM (email me your mailing address for the book!!), and thanks to everyone who has participated. I hope you’ve had as much fun as I did.

It’s been a while since I have had a contest that didn’t require you to do much but post an answer to a question/riddle… So, I’ve decided to put one together for you today.

Below you will find three photographs which have been taken within a 10 minute period. You want to guess the place where they were taken, and the time… The person whose answers end up being the closest to the reality will receive a free copy of my newest book, Affiliate Program Management: An Hour a Day… So, here are the pictures:

IMPORTANT: Every participant may post up to 2 guesses. The winner will be announced as soon as the correct info is posted, or by midday (EST) of July 1, 2011, whichever happens/comes sooner.

Happy guessing!!

A month and a half ago I announced a photo contest for the best picture with my newest book, “Affiliate Program Management: An Hour a Day” [details here]. Thank you to those of you who participated. The day has come for me to announce the winners (based on the votes cast here).

……..and the winners of our awesome prizes are:

FIRST PLACE — Dan Herman from Florida with his “best affiliate marketing book at the best beach” picture:

SECOND PLACE — Stephen Daimler from Pennsylvania with his below baby alligator picture:

To both of the above guys: I’m honored that you have made me (or my book) a part of your vacation!

…and THIRD PLACE — Eric Nagel from New York state (I believe, Eric’s was actually the very first customer picture posted on my book page; so, thank you for starting it all!):

All winners, please email me to claim your prizes. We have some amazing ones there for you! Thanks again for your participation, congratulations, and see you at Affiliate Summit East 2011 in New York City!!

Many of you have already heard of my newest book, Affiliate Program Management: An Hour a Day, a step-by-step manual on setting up, launching, and managing affiliate programs. It has already hit bestseller lists, received a number of interesting reviews, and I am excited to see all of this…

However, to make things exciting not only for me, but also for my readers, I have gotten together some sponsors, and decided to put together a contest around the book. It’s gonna be a photo contest, and we’ll utilize Amazon’s capability of uploading customer images with a product in it:

The rules are simple:

1. Upload your picture with the book (try to be innovative!) by May 31, 2011.

2. The winner(s) will be judged by the number of votes received.

3. Voting will naturally begin on the day you upload the picture, but the winners will be announced on June 15, 2011.

The total prize fund exceeds $1,600 $1,700 (see the edit at end of post), and here’s are the prizes and how they’ll get distributed:

FIRST PLACE:

• Gold Pass to Affiliate Summit East 2011 (value:$279-$549)
• 2-year subscription* to Search Marketing Standard (value: $66.48)
• 1-year subscription to Visibility Magazine (value: $39.80)
• “Marketing with Social Media” Wiley book set, which includes 4 books from An Hour a Day series: Social Media Marketing, Facebook Marketing, Twitter Marketing, and YouTube and Video Marketing (total value: $80-$120)
• Autographed copy of any three of my books (value: $18-$20)
• A copy of Always Be Testing autographed by Bryan Eisenberg (value: $20-30)

SECOND PLACE:

• Gold Pass to Affiliate Summit East 2011 (value: $279-$549)
• 1-year subscription to Search Marketing Standard (value: $34.99)
• “Marketing with Social Media” Wiley book set, which includes 4 books from An Hour a Day series: Social Media Marketing, Facebook Marketing, Twitter Marketing, and YouTube and Video Marketing (total value: $80-$120)
• A copy of Always Be Testing autographed by Bryan Eisenberg (value: $20-30)

THIRD PLACE:

• 1-year subscription to Search Marketing Standard (value: $34.99)
• “Marketing with Social Media” Wiley book set, which includes 4 books from An Hour a Day series: Social Media Marketing, Facebook Marketing, Twitter Marketing, and YouTube and Video Marketing (total value: $80-$120)
• A copy of Always Be Testing autographed by Bryan Eisenberg (value: $20-30)

____________________
*All magazine subscriptions are U.S. domestic for print versions or digital editions for the rest of the world

Looking forward to your entries!!

[EDIT of 6:05 pm EST] Bryan Eisenberg, author of foreword to my book, has just tweeted that he’ll throw in a couple of signed copies of his bestselling Always Be Testing for the winners. Thank you, Bryan! Now, our prize fund exceeds $1,700!!

Today is the 300th day of 2009. My New Year’s resolution for this year was to produce quality blog content on a daily basis. Therefore, today marks the 300th day of my non-stop blogging (at least one post a day). To celebrate it I have decided to put together a contest.

The idea for the contest was born yesterday morning when I was enjoying breakfast in beautiful California with fellow affiliate marketers, Shawn Collins, Mike Allen and Sabrina O’Malone. We chuckled over how our kids are describing what their parents do. Some tell people that their parents just play the computer all day long, while others believe that money is not really earned, but received from cash machines when needed.

What do your children say about your work? Post these precious explanations (or views of our industry through kids’ eyes) of your children, grandchildren, nephews, etc below, and on October 30, 2009 I will pick three winners. The prizes to be awarded exceed $700.00 in value, and they are:

Prize #1

Thanksgiving Dinner for two from GourmetStation.com

and

Gold Pass to Affiliate Summit West 2009 (thank you, Shawn!)

Prize #2

$50 gift certificate from HalloweenMart.com.

$50 gift certificate from UpscaleLighting.com [added to the prizes on 10/29].

Prize #3

Any one of my two books — autographed.

Looking forward to reading your entries.