HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

Give thanks, be happy, eat lots, drink responsibly and be safe.

Welcome to our 2nd day in The Season’s 3 day long Thanksgiving Giveaway. Rules for contest are in the prior post. Here is page 1 of 7 pages of fabulous books. Entering is as simple as commenting with your genre preference.  :)

Now I’m going to ask a favour. If you haven’t commented already, please please help raise money for RAINN, a most worthy cause that brings awareness and help to sexual abuse victims, most of whom are children. This is a silent epidemic that destroys childhoods and lives.  The Season will contribute $.50 for every comment.

3 of today’s winners will be selected from the above post (RAINN).

The books being given away in The Season’s Thanksgiving MEGA Giveaway are up. Finally!

This time, I’ve separated them out by genre.

The giveaway begins Wednesday and runs until 11:59 PM on Black Friday.

Rules and instructions on how to enter will be posted here on Wednesday.

Ariana Masiuk

Congratulations, Ariana! I’ll be contacting you about getting your new Kindle.

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And if you didn’t win the Kindle, I have another fabulous prize I want to give away, however, this prize is conditional.

The Prize:  A Kindle Fire

Condition: When my novella, ALL’S FAIR IN LOVE & SEDUCTION, free downloads reaches 250,000.

How to Enter: Once AFILAS reaches its goal, I’ll post the entry on this blog on my personal site. One comment enters you to win. If you promoted the freebie giveaway on your blog or any reader-oriented site, you will receive 50 entries.

As of today, free downloads for ALL’S FAIR IN LOVE & SEDUCTION is 64,872. I’ll post a bi-monthly tally of its progress.

YAY!!! I’m over two months overdue with the release of ALL’S FAIR IN LOVE & SEDUCTION but it’s finally here! Up and available on three sites so far. The relief is staggering. The anxiety is nerve wracking. LOL.

So to celebrate, I’m giving away a $15 eGift Certificate from an online etailer of the winner’s choice. Comment to enter to win. And since I’m so late with this book, I’m extending the date for entering to win the Nook from July 1 to July 8. So if you haven’t entered to win, there’s still plenty of time.

You can purchase the novella at 33% off  for $1.99 here on The Season site. You will automatically receive 6 additional entries to win the NOOK and be entered to win a $50 Gift Certificate. Winner will be posted July 8th.

$2.99
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
All Romance eBooks
Goodreads

***PERMISSION TO FORWARD***

Spring is here.  And for GRW all the buzz is about the Maggie!

This year, not only is the Unpublished Maggie Award for Excellence electronic, we’ve added a new category – Young Adult.  We’re very excited to include this fast growing subgenre in our contest, and hope you are too.

Each entry is a maximum of 35 pages (synopsis and chapter(s) combined).  Entries will be sent to judges by June 17 and are due back by July 31.  Maggie Award categories are:  Single Title, Historical, Contemporary Series Romance, Paranormal, Inspirational and Young Adult.

I understand how demanding and complicated an author’s life can be, but the time and effort you put into judging may very well make entering the Maggie contest a life-changing event for our entrants.  What a powerful way to pay it forward.  I encourage you to please make time this year to judge the Unpublished Maggie.

If you are interested, contact me at DCrowderWrites@gmail.com with your category preferences and contact information.

I look forward to working with you.

All the best,

Darcy Crowder

2011 Maggie Chair

Today I just posted my April Contest (see the books I’m giving away below and click image or entry details to enter), so I thought I’d what other contests are out there.

Julia Quinn, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Teresa Medeiros, Lisa Kleypas, Eloisa James, Christina Dodd and Connie Brockway have teamed up for a A KISS FOR  YOU Round Robin Giveaway of their signed books! Click the image or link for entry details.

In April, Vanessa Kelly is giving away a total of 20 books, 10 from various authors and 10 will win copies of her SEX AND A SINGLE EARL. Click her cover for entry details.

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Anyone up for a piece of jewelry? Suzette Stone is giving away a Bella Luce Sterling silver locket. Click cover of her latest for entry details.

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If you want to double your chances of winning Anna Campbell’s MIDNIGHT’S WILD PASSION, she’s giving away 6 autographed copies! Click cover below for entry details.

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Self-published author Rose Pressey is giving away an iPad 2! A purchase of her book HOW TO DATE A WEREWOLF will get you an entry. Click cover for further entry details.

So there you have it! Books, jewelry and an iPad 2. What more could you ask for?

The winner of the St. Patrick Day’s Giveaway is…

Darcy Crowder

Congratulations, Darcy. Please email your snail mail address to me at contests at theseasonforromance dot com. You have two weeks to contact to collect your prize!!

My March Contest is up on my site! This month, I’m doing a Book-A-Month for a Year Giveaway. It will work something like this, the winner will receive a list of 15 books every month to choose from, and they will select 1 (one). I will then send them whichever book they select  every month for an entire year, totaling 12 current releases. I will initially ask winner what their genre preference is before I send them the selection choices. Click here to enter.

The contest I’m most excited about this year, is The Season’s Annual Unpublished Writing Contest.  For the past two years, I’ve tried to get unpublished authors’ manuscripts in front of agents and editors, which was lots of fun. This year, given the popularity of digital books and self-publishing, I’ve decided to do something different, and hopefully for participants, just as fun and helpful. This year the winner’s book will be self-published with The Season’s total cooperation.  The winner will receive:

• A professionally designed cover that author has 100% input.
• Editorial assistance.
• Promotion and Marketing (blog tour, ad spot, newsletter mailing, reviews)
• Author keeps ALL the profits
• uploading book onto Amazon, B&N and Smashwords etc.

I will be begin accepting entries June 1, 2011 (pitch letter, first 3 pages and synopsis). Genres included are romance (all sub-genres), cozy mystery and YA (young adult). As the time draws closer, I’ll be posting more information about the contest.

Before I launch into Downton Abbey, I have more exciting news to share. I made a bestselling list! Okay, it’s not the New York Times, USA Today or even Bookscan but it’s a list and I’ve never made a list, so I will take this with both hands out quite happily. I’ve posted the verbiage and link below!

Nine days after the release of her second novel, Beverley Kendall has made it onto BooksOnBoard’s Top Five Romance Authors list; A Taste of Desire debuted at number seven on last week’s Bestselling Romance eBooks list, and this week has attained the number one slot. “Kendall’s debut novel, Sinful Surrender, also did well when it hit the virtual shelves on January 1, 2010—but A Taste of Desire has blown Sinful Surrender out of the water,” said Project Manager Mindy Erickson. “There are going to be a lot of impatient fans out there if Kendall takes another full year to release her next novel.”

http://www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp?aId=129847

Needless to say, I got nothing done on Saturday, save doing very necessary food shopping after been holed up in the house all week with my son. The joys of snow and ice in Georgia.Good news always means I need to give something away. Since I’ll be chatting about the new Masterpiece Classic series Downton Abbey, one prize will be the DVD.  And since it was BooksOnBoard that made my Saturday, the other prize will be a $15 Gift Certificate for BooksOnBoard.  Two winners, two great prizes, just comment to enter to win!

Now speaking of Downton Abbey, talk about love at first sight! It’s now my new obsession–and I can’t tell you how much I absolutely love it! You can stream the first episode on PBS.org Masterpiece. I’ve embedded it below if you’re interested in taking a sneak peek.

Watch the full episode. See more Masterpiece.

Here’s the summary I’ve taken right off the website.

The Downton Abbey estate stands a splendid example of confidence and mettle, its family enduring for generations and its staff a well-oiled machine of propriety. But change is afoot at Downton — change far surpassing the new electric lights and telephone. A crisis of inheritance threatens to displace the resident Crawley family, in spite of the best efforts of the noble and compassionate Earl, Robert Crawley (Hugh Bonneville, Miss Austen Regrets); his American heiress wife, Cora (Elizabeth McGovern); his comically implacable, opinionated mother, Violet (Maggie Smith, David Copperfield); and his beautiful, eldest daughter, Mary, intent on charting her own course. Reluctantly, the family is forced to welcome its heir apparent, the self-made and proudly modern Matthew Crawley (Dan Stevens), himself none too happy about the new arrangements. As Matthew’s bristly relationship with Mary begins to crackle with electricity, hope for the future of Downton’s dynasty takes shape. But when petty jealousies and ambitions grow among the family and the staff, scheming and secrets — both delicious and dangerous — threaten to derail the scramble to preserve Downton Abbey. Created and written by Oscar-winner Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park), Downton Abbey offers a spot-on portrait of a vanishing way of life.

The story prompts for ‘TIS THE SEASON WRITING CONTEST is now up on the website. If you plan on entering, feel free to move about the cabin–or start writing, whichever you prefer.

Click here for Story Prompts.