Just an FYI for all those who haven’t entered, today is the last day to enter to win a Kindle! Click here for entry details. Winner will be posted March 4, 2011.
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Archive for February, 2011
Last Day to Enter!!
Monday, February 28th, 2011
March Madness means St. Patrick’s Day Giveaway
Saturday, February 26th, 2011I’m giving away more books! Click image below for entry details.
Friday Funnies
Friday, February 25th, 2011
Lose a cat, anyone?
And the winners are…
Friday, February 25th, 2011The 2 winners of
THE HEIRESS
A LOT LIKE LOVE
SURRENDER TO ME
PRIMAL BONDS
are…
KATI
&
ARIEL BURNZ
Congratulations, ladies. You both win 2 (two) books a piece. It’s first come, first pick, so email your 2 picks and your snail mail address to me at contests at theseasonforromance dot com as quickly as possible. You have one week to contact me to collect your books!
Julia London gives us A Light At Winter’s End
Thursday, February 24th, 2011The Bond of Sisterhood
I had two older sisters whom I adored from my earliest memory. I thought they were the coolest people on the planet, even when they had shut me out of their rooms and told me to go away. As we got older, the relationships matured, and we became the best of friends. There was nothing I wouldn’t tell my sisters. They were the two people on this earth who accepted me exactly as I was and still loved me. They understood me like no man could ever do. We had each other’s back, we trusted each other completely.
My oldest sister died unexpectedly in 2009, and it was only after she passed that I learned from my other sister that there had been a fairly traumatic conflict between them when they were in high school and I was still trying to find my locker in middle school. It had to do with a boy and with trust and it was, apparently, a Big Event.
I was stunned by this revelation. I couldn’t believe it had happened, or that neither of them had ever told me in all those years. But mostly, I couldn’t believe that they had gotten over it and had become as close as they were. I always knew the bonds of sisterhood were pretty darn thick and full of muscle fibers, but this proved it. The bond between my sisters was tested, but it did not snap. It was severely sprained, but with some rest and care, it healed and was stronger than before. In the thirty years that followed, my sisters were each other’s best friends. And my surviving sister, like me, was devastated with third leg of our three-legged stool broke off and disappeared from our lives.
In a Light at Winter’s End, two sisters are engaged in an extraordinary conflict when one leaves her baby with the other and disappears. That is some pretty heavy stuff, and even though I wrote the book thinking how grateful I was that I’d never been through anything like that with my sisters, I thought the Fisher sisters would probably be okay, because that’s how strong the bond is. I don’t know this for sure, because I don’t get that far in the book. But I am pretty sure that if they could survive what I put them through in this book, they could survive anything. That’s what sisters do, I think.
~~~
Click to purchase from Amazon
Holly Fisher opens her door one day and finds her estranged sister Hannah standing there with a glassy look and her nine-month old baby on her hip. Before Holly knows what is happening, Hannah has left her baby with Holly and disappeared. Three months later, fresh out of rehab for addiction to painkillers, Hannah shows up sober, contrite, and wanting her son back. But Holly is in love with the baby and not willing to give him up to the mother who abandoned him.
Into the middle of this extraordinary conflict between two sisters walks a lonesome cowboy, Wyatt Clark (Summer of Two Wishes) who knows a thing or two about childcare and fractured families. He’s had his own troubles and has stayed away from women the last couple of years, but he can’t resist Holly and the baby. But when Holly is delivered a devastating blow and returns the baby to his mother, Holly is too distraught to continue her relationship with Wyatt. It will take an extraordinary turn from Hannah to bring Holly and Wyatt together so that they both may find the happiness that has eluded them.
Do you have a sister? Would you say your bond is stronger than anything life can throw at you, or have you had a rupture that won’t heal? Have you and your sister bounced back from conflict?
One lucky commenter today will win a signed copy of Summer of Two Wishes (featuring Wyatt Clark)!
Julia London is the New York Times and USA Today best selling author of more than a twenty romantic fiction novels. She is the author of the popular Desperate Debutante and Scandalous historical romance series, as well as The Year of Living Scandalously, the first novel in the Secrets of Hadley Green series. To learn more about Julia, you can visit at her website: www.JuliaLondon.com
You can catch more flies with honey…
Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011Twitter me this and Follow me that.
As a new author, I have found social media to be not only helpful but essential to get my name and books out there. And given the ever growing popularity of digital books, authors would be wise to tap into this market of online readers.
As I stated in my post last week, Twitter is one form of social media that I use. I really would not have use for it if I wasn’t an author and didn’t run The Season site and blog. As it is, I don’t think I would have as many visitors to my sites if not for Twitter. Twitter and sites like Facebook and Goodreads have help spread the word and for that I’m very happy.
But for some of these social media platforms there definitely seems to be a sense that the power rests in the tweets of that person being followed. And the more followers you have the more popular you are because people want to follow you, right? And the less people you follow and the more followers you have make you even more popular. The thought–and reality–is that you must be worth following if you have all these followers following you and you’re not even following them back. You might not want to see what they have to say but they want to see your tweets.
Ashton Kutcher has more than one million followers–or so I’ve heard. Does anyone expect Ashton to follow all his followers. No, that’s kind of absurd, right? If Ashton follows more people do you think that will compel them to go see his movies? Nobody knows right? But Ashton is super well known and is extremely high profile. He’s a different kettle of fish. Now for authors, bloggers, artists trying to grow their following, I see following someone back just a smart thing to do marketing wise and here is why:
- Followees are more likely to retweet the tweets you most want retweeted. Got a new book out? Here I’ll retweet it for you because it makes me feel important that you’re following me.
- Word of mouth. It can help to sell a decent number of goods or send visitors to your site. Do you think you have enough? Could you stand to have more? LOL. EVERYONE wants more readers, visitors, clients.
- It evens the sense that there is a power hierarchy and that followers not being followed are on the bottom. No one likes to feel that they’re not important.
- You can catch more flies with honey.
So do I mean that everyone should go out and follow every spammer that’s following them? No, of course not. What I am saying if the sense of being followed and not following gives you a sense of power, I don’t think you’re using Twitter to its full potential. If you can get x amount of followers and you’re not following that many people in return, imagine how many followers you could get if you were. And when is that last time you went looking for followers? I’m sure there are many people in the Twitterverse who don’t know you, don’t know your work and are in your target audience.
Facebook used to have fan pages. Some people don’t want to be fans–even if they like your work. Being a fan to many, connotes overzealous people whose name might be Annie Wilkes (Misery - Stephen King) who tie you to the bed and chop off your foot! Many of us don’t want to be associated with people like that. Now Facebook has the Like button. So much more innocuous don’t you think. I assume they found many more people are likely to Like you than be your Fan. I bet you I know what else they discovered. They found people have egos–some of which are very fragile and that good marketing means you sometimes need to appeal to that ego. 
**Twitter etiquette – Reply to a tweeter when they ask a question or reply to your tweet with something that requires a response.
So that’s what I’ve learned in the last several months. What about you Twitter users, do you want to be followed back when you follow someone, or doesn’t it matter to you? Facebook users, were you a Fan or do you prefer the Like button? Would you rather Friend an author you like or be their Fan?
Comment and enter to win Lisa Kleypas’s STRANGER IN MY ARMS–don’t you love the beautiful new cover–and J.D. Robb’s TREACHERY IN DEATH.
Click for book details and buy links
Click to read review & book details
The March issue has arrived!!
Monday, February 21st, 2011A day late. Not bad in the scheme of things. Boy this month flew by fast didn’t it? The good news there is that Spring is almost here, which means the layout must change. I won’t think about that now because that will be for the April issue. In the meanwhile check out all the fabulous March releases. In the notable–which means Top Picks–category we having the following must-reads:
Historical
WHAT I DID FOR A DUKE – Julie Anne Long – Click title to read the 10 Topper Review
TREASURE ME - Robyn DeHart - Click title to read 10 Topper Review
HIS ENEMY’S DAUGHTER - Terri Brisbin – Click title to read 9.5 Star Review
Paranormal
THIS SIDE OF THE GRAVE – Jeaniene Frost - Click title to read 9.5 Star Review
PRIMAL BONDS - Jennifer Ashley – Click title to read 9 Star Review
Okay, so now it’s time to give away some March releases. Just comment to win. Two winners, two books each! Check out the new issue here!
And the winners are…
Monday, February 21st, 2011The winner of the entire set of Laura Lee Guhrke’s Girl-Bachelor Chronicles is…
Michaelene J.
~*~*~
Congratulations, ladies. Please email your snail mail address to me at contests at theseasonforromance dot com and remember to include the titles you won. You have one week to contact to claim your books!
What does a bankrupt Borders mean to you?
Friday, February 18th, 2011I’m sure you’ve all heard the news by now, Borders has filed for bankruptcy protection Tuesday, February 15, 2011. If you want to read the announcement, here it is. To most of us, this isn’t a surprise at all, the news of a floundering and financially strapped Borders has been bouncing around for some time now. To tell you the truth, I expected them to file bankruptcy last year.
Borders plans to close 200 of their 600 “superstores”, which will mean thousands of layoffs and many vacant buildings. They owe the top publishers upwards to the tune of 230 million dollars. What are the implications of all of this? It trickles all the way down and not only is it not good, it’s devastating.
- Since Borders hasn’t been paying publishers for their inventory, publishers won’t ship to them so while customers will have many less Borders to go to, they will a vastly reduced selection.
- Print runs will plummet. What does this mean? This means in an economy and time publishing houses and authors are seeing print runs drop due to ebook sales, hundreds of less Borders to ship to means less homes for an author’s books. Less distribution is simply that, less places to sell your wares and therefore less money to be earned. Expect mid-list and new authors to be hit the hardest by this. With bookshelf space at a premium at places like Walmart, Target, the warehouse stores and the like, these stores tend to only stock books of big names authors or authors getting a gigantic push from the publisher. If an author doesn’t fall into either category, they will see a drop in sales and subsequently will probably less in terms of advances.
- Aspiring authors will find a much tighter market to ‘break’ into. Which isn’t to say you ever give up. For most of us, writing is in our blood–we can’t help but write–but I would have your feet solidly on the ground when it comes to expectations. ‘Breaking’ into writing has really never been an easy feat but it’s about to get a bit tougher. My suggestion is to not rule any particular avenue out. There’s more than one way to get your stories out there so I’d urge aspiring authors not to close off their minds or doors to new opportunities.
- More people looking for work affects the entire economy. In some way shape or form, everyone pays, whether it’s in higher priced goods and services. I checked my home insurance premium the other day and boy is it way up. Even for those who have jobs, we’re paying–some of us simply haven’t noticed or quantified it yet.
- Expect to see an increase in the cost of print books. It’s almost inevitable. How are publishers going to make up for lack of print distribution? Isn’t that the reason we have trade books? We pay higher for a product that doesn’t have that ‘mass’ distribution. Have you ever noticed that AA (African American) books are priced higher than their counterparts in mass paperback? They are for precisely that reason.
This is only some of the fallout from a bankrupt Borders but I’m sure it won’t end here. We’ll just have to wait and see how this all pans out.
What are you thoughts on Borders current financial woes. Will you be directly impacted? If you’re a Border’s shopper will you continue to shop there? If the Borders near you is closing where will you go to purchase your books? Where do you think Borders lost its way?
Win Katy Madison’s TAINTED BY TEMPTATION or Nalini Singh’s ARCHANGEL’S CONSORT
Click to read Top Pick review!
Click to read review & book details
And the winners are…
Friday, February 18th, 2011
Congratulations, ladies! Please email snail mail address to me at contests at theseasonforromance dot com. Winners of Lori Brighton’s books, please send me an email using the email where you’d like the books emailed to you. Also, please remember to include the title of the book you won. You have one week to collect your prize.
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