Better Than The Book NEEDS YOUR HELP to meet Linkin Park + more news updates

Hope you've all had a good week. This week I've been busy with more Fun Station 4 Kids animation work, which I hope to be able to share with you all soon (It's looking and sounding grand!). Also as of yesterday, I'm back in Sussex and JabunAudio's original studio for a few weeks to sort some stuff out and transfer more things, as well as to see family and friends! It's been great to play bass again (one big thing I've missed music-wise in the past weeks), and last night I went to the Brighton Odeon midnight premier for "Suicide Squad" (the new DC comics film) which was awesome. It wasn't as packed as the Captain America: Civil War premier unfortunately and certainly not as lively, but it was still a great night out! Anyway, other than that I only have one main thing to say in this update, but it's HUGE, I need your help with it, and there are some big prizes to be won for supporting too, so I hope you like it. Lets get started!

So what is this big announcement? Well this week I entered "Hearts Racing" from the Better Than The Book - Two Years On album into the biggest songwriting competition I've ever competed in, a huge event organised by OpenLabs and the band Linkin Park. There's a lot to explain with it, but the short of it is that they're holding monthly songwriting contests this year (from March 2016 - 2017), and giving out some huge prizes for the best entries. Each month focuses on a different genre: Rock, Electronic, Hip Hop, and Wildcard (any Genre), rotated on a 4 month basis, and for each month the competition goes as follows:

1. *People submit their entries and the public votes on them*
2. The top 10 entries of the month go to a round of judges which scores them on a number of criteria
3. Monthly 1st and 2nd place prize winners are selected, and the rest of the top 10 are granted runners up prizes.

The monthly prizes include items such as new computers, audio equipment and Linkin Park Underground memberships, worth $1000s of dollars so certainly some substantial stuff!

BUT that's not all: 

At the end of the 12 months, the monthly 1st place entries are sent to a further team of judges including Linkin Park themselves, and from those 12 entries a Grand Prize Winner will be selected to:

Fly over to the USA for a mentoring session with Linkin Park in the studio!!!

If that's not a once in a lifetime prize, I don't know what is!

Now's the part where I need to ask for your help. In order to stand any chance of competing against the other entries (and there are some great ones) I need you to vote me into the top 10 entries for the month. I don't often ask for much, but I would love to even have a chance of Linkin Park listening to my music. Linkin Park, and their members are undoubtedly some of my biggest inspirations , and it would mean the world to me if you could help support me in meeting them so please, head over to this page and VOTE for Hearts Racing (You can vote once a week too). There is unfortunately the hassle of signing up to be able to vote, but hopefully this will be balanced by the fact that for every vote you make, you'll be entered into a weekly sweepstake to win prizes yourselves, including, new desktop and laptop computers as well as other goodies.

I can't express how much it would mean to me for you to support and vote for me in this contest and as we come to the end of the first week, I can safely say the "Hearts Racing" remains in the top 10 out of 63 entries so far this month. As to whether it remains there, that's all in your hands so please spread the word and click the link below to cast your vote. Thank you so much for the support.

Vote here: ​http://contest.openlabs.com/contestants/hearts-racing/

That's about it for this week. As for next week I'm aiming to finish this round of Fun Station 4 Kids work and make the most of being down south in terms of the equipment I have access to as well as who's around, so I'm sure it's set to be a busy time. Hope to be sharing some more Fun Station 4 Kids animations with you soon, so stay tuned in the next few weeks. Until next time, I hope you have a great week and please be sure to send in your votes and support for Better Than The Book in the OpenLabs songwriting contest (fingers crossed for you winning some sweet gear too). Thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio and my audio projects, take care and see you next week!