The first of May. Four months and counting.

I did the countdown, too. It's irresistible.
How about a 'guess the weight of the manuscript' contest?

Shit, you took my answer.

One Rick or Lisa can win!

A filking contest? Limericks? Zombie haiku?

A music video to one of your songs.

A music video to one of your songs.

Now we're talking awesome ideas. (I wouldn't stand a chance, of course, but I'd get to see the results...)

How about a "post an LJ or Facebook note about Rosemary & Rue and win!"
Linkage required for verifacation, and X numbers of winners drawn from all verified entries?

And incidentally, I think anu suggestions you do use should have a chance at a copy.

And yes I am stacking the deck.
I have a copy on pre-order already, but if I can get an early copy through nefarious schemery, I will.

A caption contest for a strip of "With Friends Like These"?

What about a 'Who or what is October Daye?' contest (could be Rosemary and Rue, or Toby, or whatever) with the person with the most wrong answer winning a book? As in everyone has to try and think of the most wrong answer. That sounds more confusing than it is.

Story or poem? Reverse iron poet perhaps?

Most delicious Seanan friendly recipe contest? Icon contest?

I think a "make a book trailer" contest would be good, as well as creating many opportunities for future marketing.

Someone else said "structured poem" - I forget the name for that type of poem of which the Rev. Dodgson was so fond, the one where the first letters of each line spell stuff out?

the one where the first letters of each line spell stuff out?

Acrostic poem?

I enjoy a good caption contest, such as you posting a picture of your cats and letting the Internet go wild with LOLcatting it. Bonus if the LOLcat has something to do with your books and/or fairy and folklore.

Flash fiction contests are also cool, perhaps provoked by an enigmatic question or sentence. This also gives you more opportunities to connect them thematically to your forthcoming books. Something like "What would you face, what difficulties would you surmount, what adventure would you win through, to purchase a copy of Rosemary and Rue?" where the more fantastic a flashfic is the better. Or, "Picking up the newspaper, I saw the Zombie apocalypse had already consumed the Northeast..." etc.

Of course, the difficult thing here is in judging such contests. As you've said, you're swamped with a crazy amount of things to do in the next couple of months. You might want to delegate judging, have a panel who picks finalists and then you pick the winner.

Huh. I thought I was the only person who noticed mathy things. It can be a distraction at times, and really no-one else wants to know that hey, that collection of numbers which just got shoved together over there are not only all squares but their square roots form a perfect right-angled triangle...