Milestones: are they necessary takings of account or meaningless attachment to round-ish numbers? I am soon to reach such a milestone — the seemingly effusive number 200,000 tweets. A gloomy sort might say ‘And how many novels would that be?’ but I figured out that the things that end up in tweets are the sort of musings and news items that would be cut from the novels anyway, so it’s just as well they’re displaced.

So I’ve decided to give away a prize to commemorate my volubility: four out-of-print editions of my books. They are the original Tease edition of The Mangrove Legacy, the Aino Press edition of Unikirja (soon to be released with new stories as Dream Book from Fox Spirit – yay!), the print edition of Pelzmantel from Immanion and the handmade chapbook of The Willimantic Frogs (second edition, there are no more firsts!). I will sign them all and personalise if desired. How do you win?

You must be on Twitter.

When my official Twitter profile shows I have reached 200,000 tweets or more, tweet me a joke within 24 hours of my reaching that count. This will assure that there’s a good chance to participate around the globe.

I will give the prize to the person who tells the funniest joke. I am the sole and capricious judge of ‘funniest’ so you can probably aim toward my known weaknesses of nonsense and absurdity.

I will update this page when the contest begins (though perhaps not immediately as I will doubtless forget or be busy).