Choosing the winner wasn't as straight forward as it should have been. My rules were simple ... leave a comment, and be sure that your comment includes your contact information.
It took FIVE tries for me to draw a winner that I could contact directly. Selections 1, 2, and 4 chose comments from people who do not have their email visible in their blog profile, and who did not leave their email address in the body of their comment. For each of these, the return address on their comment was the dreaded "noreply-comment @ blogger.com" (Selection 3 chose Comment #6, which was my own comment ... it would be weird for me to win my own giveaway.)
Out of 37 comments/entries in the jam giveaway, 13 turned out to be ineligible. This gave much better odds of winning to the folks who played by the rules.
I am one of the many bloggers who is on a quest to politely ask everyone to PLEASE do whatever you can to wipe out "noreply-comment @ blogger.com". Most of the folks I approach about this aren't even aware that they ARE noreply bloggers. Others have the idea that hiding one's email will make them less of a target for email spam ... not true, from my experience.
It is frustrating beyond belief to receive a comment or a question from a reader, and to have no way to answer that person directly. I am hesitant to answer comments publicly in the comment section ... I don't know the chance of the original commenter seeing my response, and I may want to give info in my response specifically intended for THAT commenter.
Using the Old Blogger Interface, it's a simple matter to make one's email visible in one's blog profile. (If you use the new Blogger interface, see below.)
Click on the Blogger B button to access your Blogger Dashboard.
Click 'Edit Profile' on the left side of the page.
In the Privacy section, check the box that says 'Show my email address". Type your email address into the Identity section, if it's not already there.
Scroll to the bottom of the page, click the orange 'Save Profile' button, and your done!
For new Blogger interface users, there are no instructions on how to do this because Google has apparently removed this option in the switch to the new interface and Google+ profiles . I spent a very frustrating half an hour in the new interface trying to figure it out. My genius computer guy husband looked for it, too, and it's not there.
As far as I can tell, the only way for a new Blogger interface user to make their email address visible would be to make a temporary switch to the old interface to make the change as outlined above ... then you can switch back. To access the old interface, click the Gear icon at the top of the new Dashboard page, select Old Blogger Interface from the drop-down menu, and you're there.
Speaking of the new Blogger interface ... I'm going to hold out and use the old interface as long as I can. Google is going to have to drag me kicking and screaming to the new interface when the time comes for them to eliminate the old one. It's not that I don't like change ... I don't mind change most of the time ... I just that don't see any of the supposed benefits that Google/Blogger is talking about with the new interface ... this sounds like the subject of a rant for another day.
Anyway ... back to the original subject of this post ...
Congratulations, Kelly!!
I know you'll love your jam.
