Book Giveaway Contest - Details inside

[fishfreek]

Princeton Architectural Press in conjunction with Aquarium Advice is proud to announce another giveaway for the members of AA. We will be giving away three free copys of the recently released book The Ocean at Home: An Illustrated History of the Aquarium By Bernd Brunner.


Below is a short synopsis of whats covered by the book.

The mysterious world beneath the ocean's surface has captivated man for centuries—the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and ancient Chinese all kept fish in their homes for purposes other than the culinary. But it was not until the nineteenth-century invention of the aquarium that the deep was truly domesticated, offering the curiously inclined a chance to invent their very own exotic sea world within their own walls.

In this fascinating history of the aquarium, Bernd Brunner traces the development of this most wonderful invention, giving insight into the cultural and social circumstances that accompanied its swift rise in popularity. Brunner tells a compelling story of obsession, beauty, discovery, and delight, from the aquarium's humble origins as a tool for scientific observation to the Victorian era's elaborately decorated containers of oceanic curiosity, to the great public aquaria of the twentieth century.
Bernd Brunner is a Berlin-based writer. A graduate of the Free University Berlin, he has written extensively for television and various print media.

Now that you’re interested lets go over how to enter and how we will go about selecting the winners.

Contestants will submit via e-mail a photo essay that will include a minimum of three photos and a maximum of six photos of your aquarium(s). Included in the essay should also be text that describes your tank as well as a description of how having your aquarium has affected you and/or your family's life. The submissions should be sent via e-mail to bookcontest@aquariumadvice.com. Images should be in jpg format and the text should be in Microsoft Word or Corel WordPerfect format. For submission purposes please do not put copyright notices on your images. After your submission is received we will remove all identifying text and give your submission a code. All submissions will be identified by this code for anonymity purposes. Only after our judging panel selects the winners will the author be made known. At that time we will contact the author and ask them if they wish to change their submitted images out with images that contain a copyright notice. The text part of the submission should be between one and three pages in length.

How will my entry be judged and who will do the judging? A five-member advisor panel has volunteered to judge each entry. Administrators and Advisors are exempt from participating in the contest. The judges will be evaluating each submission on the quality of the photos that have been submitted as well as the essay text. Submissions should go along with the sprit of the book. Descriptive information about the aquarium(s) as well as good clear text about how having an aquarium(s) in your house has affected your family and guests.

Three entries will be selected as winners and will receive a free copy of this book. By submitting an entry in this contest you give AA permission to post the entry in the forums and newsletter should the entry be selected as one of the winners. Each winner's essay will clearly mark who the original author is.

Each submission has a total potential point value of 30. The values are assigned like this. 10 points for photos, 10 points for description of tank and 10 points for description of how the tank has affected their lives. Each judge will read each entry and assign it a point value based upon the breakdown above. At the end of the judging the values will be added up for each submission from each judge and the three submissions with the highest point value will win.

Photos will be evaluated for the following criteria:

• Quality
  Focus
  Subject mater

The sum of the photos should give an overall representation of the member’s aquarium(s).

Description of tank will be evaluated on the following:

• Completeness of description
  Clarity of description

One should be able to develop a mental picture of the entry's setup based off the description. Descriptions should ideally include information about the size of the tank, the contents of the tank, filtration method, lighting method as well as what is done to routinely upkeep the tank.

Family and visitor interactions will be evaluated simply on how clear the member was in getting their statement across to the reader.

One submission per household is allowed. Since this contest encompasses all of the aquariums in your home those households that have multiple AA members should submit a combined entry where each member of the household is able to contribute to the entry as a whole.

Submissions will be accepted until 12:00am eastern June 10. Winners will be announced on June 24th.

For those who would rather purchase a copy of the book you can find it at Amazon.com

[revhtree]

This is going to be fun! Get your entries in all and win your family a very good hard back book!

[Billsgate]

Will you ship to Europe? (Belgium)
If not I won't enter!!! :P

[fishfreek]

How much would that be? I have all the books now so we will be the one shipping. The book is under 1lb in weight. PM me your shipping details and ill see what the costs would be.

[fishfreek]

Yes Ill ship to Europe.

Shouldnt be to expensive

The entry deadline is approaching so this is just a friendly reminder.

[fishfreek]

One final bump. Deadline for submissions is this Friday.

[fishfreek]

The submission deadline has passed. Good luck to all those whom entered essays. It will be a great pleasure to read each and every one of them during the selection phase. As is outlined in the inital post winners will be announced on June 24th. We will then contact all the winners for shipping addresses so we can get the books out to you.

[Jchillin]

Would asking what the response was like be too much?

[fishfreek]

We had a fair number. I would prefer to refrain from giving the exact number.

[Jchillin]

That's what I meant...no numbers, just an impression (good, fair, enormous, etc.).

Thanks!