Hispanic Fanatic

I’ve been remiss. For the last few months, I’ve been babbling away about my new novel, Barrio Imbroglio, a dark-comedy mystery. But I have neglected to tell all of you how you can snag a copy for free.

Well, I’m correcting the situation.

If you would like a free e-book version of my novel, all you have to do is be the first person to email me at hispanicf@gmail.com with the message “I want a free copy of your book.” And just like that, I will email you a download code. Don’t worry, I never share my readers’ email addresses with anyone.

Now, if you’re old school, and you’re not really down with this whole e-book trend, you can hold out for a genuine paperback version. That’s coming soon.

But you can hook a free copy of the paperback version, before it’s even published, by entering my giveaway at Goodreads (you can do that by clicking here).

So that’s two ways for you to get Barrio Imbroglio, both of them for free.

There are no strings attached, although I hope that if you win either contest, and you like the novel, you will be kind enough to spread the word via social media and/or post a positive review on Amazon (you can do that by clicking here).

In any case, let me know what you think of Barrio Imbroglio. And thanks.

Congratulations to JZelewski and MadKat, who won passes to see Unbroken, the new movie from Angelina Jolie coming out on Christmas Day. She directs the movie, and I’m pretty sure she doesn’t appear in it. But if she does, I hope she looks like this.

Considering much of the movie is set in a Japanese POW camp in World War II, she would create quite a stir.

Congratulations to Electric Siesta, who won the contest to see Halley, a new Mexican zombie movie.

We hope to receive a review from Electric Siesta about how much he liked the movie. That is, assuming that a zombie doesn’t bite a chunk of his flesh off, thereby turning him into one of the undead and sending him lumbering across the countryside in search of fresh victims.

That would really suck.

Actually, two people shall pass. Ana in Miami and Janee in Los Angeles won the contest for tickets to see The Hobbit.

I hope Ana and Janee enjoy the flick. I plan to catch the movie myself soon, probably sometime between second and third breakfasts.

Changes are coming to the way we do business here at Hispanic Fanatic world headquarters. Before I get into all that, however, let’s squeeze in another movie contest.

All you have to do is comment on one of my posts (including this one) and you’ll be entered for the chance to win passes to the upcoming Ben Affleck movie Argo, which will be screened in the following cities:

Dallas, TX

El Paso, TX

Houston, TX

Los Angeles, CA

McAllen, TX

Miami, FL

Phoenix, AZ

San Antonio, TX

San Jose, CA

Based on true events, Argo is about a life-or-death covert operation to rescue six Americans during the Iran hostage crisis in 1979. And best of all, the lead character has a Latino name (Mendez)!

If you win, I’ll email you the passes. By the way, I won’t make your contact info public, so don’t worry about that.

I’ll announce the contest winners in the next week or so. In the meantime, let’s get those comments flying.

Congratulations to Deacon Nick, who won this week’s contest for the Expendables 2 prize pack. I hope he enjoys the movie and the swag.

And to the makers of the action-movie franchise, let me just ask, “Would it kill you to have a Latino member of the squad in Expendables 3?”

Just a thought.

Here at Hispanic Fanatic world headquarters (which is basically me and my computer), we’re wilting under the summer heat. So we’re going to lighten the mood with another contest. This one is a little different. Rather than give you free passes to a movie, I’m going to send out what the Hollywood studios call a “premium prize pack” tied to the release of The Expendables 2.

The premium prize pack includes the following items:

1 t-shirt

1 temporary tattoo

1 DVD of The Expendables

1 dog tag

1 poster

All you have to do is comment on one of my posts (including this one) and you’ll be entered for the chance to win. Once again, your comment can be about anything, and if you’re stumped, just tell us why you would want to be a member of this multiracial crew of mercenaries.

If you win, I’ll send you an email requesting your name, address, and phone number so I can send the items. By the way, I won’t make your contact info public, so don’t worry about that.

I’ll announce the contest winners in the next week or so. Until then, keep working on your flippant one-liners to taunt the bad guys.

So here’s a shot of a few exceptionally talented and rather good-looking Latinos.

The occasion is the release of the new Oliver Stone movie Savages, which features the quartet of Benecio Del Toro, Salma Hayek, Demian Bichir, and Sandra Echeverria, seen above. There’s some guy named Travolta in it too.

To celebrate the fact that so many Hispanics are appearing together in one film, I’m offering you fine readers the chance to win free tickets to see the movie in one of the following cities:

Chicago

Dallas

Houston

El Paso

Los Angeles

Miami

New York City

Phoenix

Sacramento

San Diego

The film is about a pair of California dudes who create some kick-ass marijuana, but then get in over their heads when the drug cartels want in on the action. Apparently, the film escalates into “a series of increasingly vicious ploys and maneuvers in a high-stakes, savage battle of wills.” And I’m betting that there is at least one joke about having the munchies.

All you have to do is comment on one of my posts (including this one) and you’ll be entered for the chance to win free passes to the film. Once again, your comment can be about anything. The only thing you have to include in your comment is the city in which you intend to see the movie, so I can plan accordingly.

If you win, I’ll email the passes to you. By the way, I’m the sole person who will see your email addresses (unless you specifically want to share it in the body of your comment), so don’t worry about that.

I’ll announce the contest winners in the next week or so.

So get to commenting, and good luck.

So we’re plummeting headlong into 2012, the supposed year when all of us will meet a fiery end because my Mayan ancestors made a creepy prediction centuries ago (actually, they did no such thing, but that’s another story).

If we’re all going to succumb this year, we might as well have fun. So I’m happy to announce another contest for movie tickets.

The movie in question is Contraband, a new thriller staring Mark Wahlberg.

What’s it about? Well, apparently Wahlberg is a former smuggler who is forced to get back into the business to save his family. He runs contraband and journeys to Panama to settle his brother’s debt before his son and wife are targeted by both the cops and hit men.

And I’m assuming there’s a car chase in there somewhere.

In any case, I will be giving out tickets to readers in one or more of the following cities:

Chicago
Dallas
Houston
Los Angeles
Miami
New York City
Phoenix
San Antonio
San Diego

All you have to do is comment on one of my posts (including this one) and you’ll be entered for the chance to win free passes to the film. Once again, your comment can be about anything, and if you’re stumped, just tell us your favorite Mark Wahlberg movie (personally, I’m going with The Departed).

The only thing you have to include in your comment is the city in which you intend to see the movie, so I can plan accordingly.

If you win, I’ll email the passes to you. By the way, I’m the sole person who will see your email addresses (unless you specifically want to share it in the body of your comment), so don’t worry about that.

I’ll announce the contest winners in the next week or so.

Until then, take Mark Wahlberg’s advice, and try to refrain from smuggling anything.

Happy New Year.

Congratulations to Jules, who won the latest Hispanic Fanatic contest. She won copies of Raul Ramos y Sanchez’s latest novel, House Divided, as well as his earlier book, America Libre.

And all Jules had to do was comment on one of my many long-winded posts. What a deal…

Thanks to everybody who entered. We had a much better turnout to this contest than to the initial giveaway. This implies either that most of you are high-falutin’ literary types, or you just really don’t care for Nicolas Cage that much.

But now that we’re on a roll — two contests in one month — maybe I’ll throw another giveaway in there soon.

Until then, stay tuned for more rants.

And by the way, now you can catch some of my posts on the Being Latino site.

Click here to check out some of the other writers for this great project.