Reading Local's July Contest Winners

August kind of snuck up on me.  I realized this morning that it was now the 3rd of August and I hadn’t yet announced the winners of July’s Reading Local Monthly Contest.  So without further ado, the winner is…Rose City Reader!!  For the fourth month in a row she has taken home the crown, this time by racking up a total of 16 points (click here to find out how simple it is to earn points), four more than runner up Spencer Cushing.  But as you may remember from last month’s announcement, the rules for July’s contest changed.  Now, instead of all the gift certificates going to the winner, the winner gets to choose which of the five being offered that they want, and then the rest are given out at random to the other participants.  Rose City Reader chose the $25 gift certificate to the bookstore of her choice, with her selection being the delightful Sellwood bookstore, Wallace Books.

So that left the $25 gift certificate provided by Broadway Books, a $25 gift certificate provided by The Title Wave Used Bookstore, a $25 gift certificate provided by Annie Bloom’s Books, and a $10 gift certificate provided by A Children’s Place Bookstore, to be divvied up amongst the rest of the contests participants.  I went about this the old fashioned way.  Pieces of paper representing each comment left put in a hat, holding said hat above my head so as not to peak, and drawing names at random.

Obviously those who left more comments had a better chance of being selected, and in the end it actually worked out this way.  The first name I drew was Spencer’s, the second was Bill Cameron‘s, the third was Sage Cohen‘s, and the last name drawn was Ali J‘s.

I then took out the remaining pieces of paper and replaced them with pieces that had the names of the bookstores on them.  Going through the same drill of holding the hat above the head, and drawing pieces of paper at random.

I paired each bookstore drawn with the name drawn in corresponding order.  For instance, the first bookstore I drew got paired with the first name I drew, and so on.  Did I make this way harder than it probably needed to be? Most likely, but it was actually kind of fun.  So here is how it came out:  Spencer won the $25 gift certificate provided by Annie Bloom’s Books, Bill won the $10 gift certificate provided by A Children’s Place Bookstore, Sage won the $25 gift certificate provided by Broadway Books, and Ali won the $25 gift certificate provided by The Title Wave Used Bookstore.

So there you have it! I would like to send out a big thank you to the contest sponsors, Broadway Books, The Title Wave Used Bookstore, Annie Bloom’s Books, and A Children’s Place Bookstore, for being such great supporters of the website!

You can earn a point for August’s contest by leaving a comment on this or any other point.  Read the full details of the contest here.  Good Luck!