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Want to win millions of $$$ simply by reading a book?
Want to win millions simply by reading a book? It’s an intriguing concept and one that Australia’s most connected man (according to LinkedIn) and business author, James Evangelidis is hoping will launch his first fiction novel. A thriller eBook entitled Maze of Keys will give the reader the chance to share in the book’s sales and potentially win millions simply by reading it and solving a puzzle.
The minimum guaranteed prize value is US $10,000 regardless of how many books are sold overall. The real head-turner is that there is no maximum prize value – the more books sold, the higher the cash prize. James will also be giving a chunk of the winnings to three charities – World Vision, Crossroads and Hands Across The Water.
“If we sell 1 million books, which is my personal goal, the prize value will be US $3 million to the winner with a further US $1 million for charity,” says James.
Global accounting firm Ernst & Young are the official independent auditors of the entire process.
HERE IS AN INTERVIEW WE HAVE DONE WITH JAMES
Maze of Keys
Tell us about your background.
I'm a self-employed business consultant to professional services firms (think accounting and law firms). I have written six business books: two being self-published and four being published commercially by Thomson Reuters. In spite of the years of hard work, research and promotion my books had only sold in the hundreds. My income from book sales was negligible. Like the majority of business authors, my real income came from consulting, training and speaking. Although my authoring had created a body or work which I could leverage to build my business I had often wondered how a John Grisham or a Nora Roberts felt when they wrote a book and it sold millions!
Can you explain the concept?
It's really simple. There is an online puzzle that can only be solved by reading the book Maze of Keys. In the text of the book there are clues that are used to work out the puzzle. Only one person can win. For the winner there is a guaranteed minimum cash prize of US $10,000. There is a twist - the more books we sell the bigger the cash prize for the person who is able to solve the puzzle. All details can be found on www.mazeofkeys.com.
Why did you start this competition?
Although I've written business books over the last few years, I wanted to try my hand at writing a novel. In any one year there are over 100,000 English fiction books published around the world. Sadly less than 1% of these books sell in any significant number. So if my book was to ever get any profile I needed to come up with an idea to get it noticed. Hence the Maze of Keys puzzle competition was born. On top of that I wanted to donate a big chunk of my profits to charity and make a difference that way.
How are you promoting this idea?
You name it we are doing it! Everything from pitches to television networks in the United States to social media from interviews on country radio stations to video promotions we have tried and will try every means at our disposal to get the word out.
Tell us why you chose the charities to support.
Each of the charities supported, to my way of thinking, make a huge difference in their respective areas. World Vision in fighting the ravages of poverty in much if the world, Hands Across The Water in their ongoing work of helping child victims of the Tsunami in Thailand and Crossroads Foundation connecting those with excess goods & equipment with people who need them around the world.
So the minimum prize is $10K but could go to $3 million and $1million to charity? How does that work?
Again it's really simple. As mentioned above, the more books we sell the bigger the cash prize to the winner If we meet our goal of selling one million eBooks globally by the end of October, then the cash prize increases to US $3million with another US $1million donated to the three charities we are supporting. If we blow our target out of the water and sell five million eBooks the cash prize to the winner becomes US $15million with another US $5million to charity. Whichever way you slice it Maze of Keys is the biggest book competition in history!
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