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Hodder has said it received 600 entries for its social media competition to offer a Stephen King fan the chance to read his new novel before publication.
The winning entrant, Myles Macdonald, won the competition to be the first fan to read the The Shining sequel Doctor Sleep (to be published on 24th September). MacDonald, who got to read the book - alone, in a hotel room, within 24 hours - said he he "absolutely loved it", and that it was "an unforgettable experience".
To enter the competition, fans had to comment in no more than 650 characters why they deserved to be the first UK fan to read Doctor Sleep. The competition was pushed across Hodder's online estate, including the Stephen King newsletter and the author's UK Facebook page. The publisher said the Facebook page likes rose by 6,000 across the competition period and over 2,000 fans signed up to receive the competition details.
Just over 600 entries were received, which Hodder called "a brilliant number for a mechanic requiring deeper thought and skill than the standard competition".
Lead judge Philippa Pride, Stephen King's Hodder editor, said: "We could hardly put a cigarette paper between some entries and we delighted in all all of them—from entries with inventive sentences which played with King's book titles to stories about reading their first King novel under the covers with a torch."
The winning entry can be read at https://www.facebook.com/stephenkingbooks/notes.
Twenty runners up received a limited edition poster each.
Hodder worked with digital marketing agency THINKJAM on the competition, and a partnership was brokered with London's Langham Hotel, which provided the luxury room and breakfast for the winner and supported the competition via its own social media.