Two Years of FiveCentNickel and a Big, Huge Giveaway

Guess what? FiveCentNickel is officially two years old! That’s right, I published the first post on this site on May 1, 2005. In the time that this site has been live, I have published a total 985 articles (check out the archives!) and received 5,574 comments. Thanks to all of you for your contributions!

If you’re new here, you might want to check out my welcome page, and you might even want to subscribe to this site — it’s free, and you’ll get every word that I write automatically delivered to you. No fuss, no muss. Just easy access to via either RSS or e-mail.

Anyway, in celebration of this milestone, I thought I’d give away some prizes. But this time, I thought I’d up the ante and give away something a bit more substantial than what I’ve given away in the past. So, without further ado, here are the prizes:

1. iPod nano (2GB)
2. iPod shuffle (1GB)
3. USB Microdrive (5GB)
4. Encyclopedia of Financial Planning
5. Time is Money (Here’s my review.)

There are two main ways of entering…

First, anyone that leaves a comment at the end of this post will get a single entry into the giveaway. You just have to promise to tell at least one friend about this site — I’ll just have to trust you on that.

Second, if you have a website of your own, you can earn three additional entries by sharing FiveCentNickel with your readers. Simply write a review of this site (including a link to the front page, my welcome page, and this contest announcement) or dig through the archives, pick out an article that I’ve written and write an article of your own highlighting it or responding to it (be sure to link to the front page, the article itself, and this contest announcement).

Once you’ve published your article, drop me a line using my contact form (or e-mail me directly if you happen to know my address) — and be sure to include the url of your entry. That’s it. Write an article and receive three additional entries. And just to add a bit more incentive, I’ll also link back to all submitted articles.

And please note that your review doesn’t have to be positive — while I like hearing good things about this site, I want your honest opinion. Likewise, you don’t have to agree with me when you highlight or respond to one of my posts. Call me out if you wish. It won’t hurt your odds of winning.

So… You can earn multiple entries; one for leaving a comment and three more for publishing a review/response — note that you can publish multiple reviews/responses if you have multiple websites, and you’ll receive three entries for each.

Oh, and I’ll be accepting entries for the next ten days, through 8PM EDT on Friday, May 11th.

Just to keep it interesting, I’ve decided to throw in a booby prize, as well… One lucky (?) participant will receive a box of bricks shipped to their door in a USPS flat-rate shipping box (if it fits in the box, you pay the flat rate no matter how much it weighs!). But I won’t tell you which prize you won until AFTER you give me your shipping address…

The Rules:
1. Only one comment entry per person – I’ll be watching and will delete your entries if you cheat
2. Review/response entries must:
– come from established websites with substantial content
– be standalone posts of at least 100 words in length, not daily links, weekly roundups, etc.
– include links to the appropriate pages (see above)
3. You must notify me via e-mail if you choose to enter by writing an article
4. All entries must accompanied by a valid e-mail address
5. You can’t win more than one prize
6. U.S. mailing addresses only (don’t post it; I’ll contact the winner and ask)
7. While I promise to send the prizes, I can’t guarantee their safe arrival
8. I am judge, jury and executioner — all disputes will be resolved by me alone
9. This list of rules might grow, shrink or change at my discretion
10. Entering this contest implies agreement with these terms