I Get Interviewed by Cat

As part of the Magic Appreciation Tour, I was recently interviewed by Katharina "Cat" Gerlach who thought I might have something interesting to say about writing and books in general. Check out the interview and decide for yourself whether or not I'm worthy of her kind confidence. (Thanks, Cat!)

Win a Copy of Urchin King

As part of the Magic Appreciation Tour, I'm very pleased to be hosting a book giveaway for author Katharina Gerlach's historical fantasy novel , Urchin King. The giveaway will run for two weeks, starting on Wednesday 3/7 and ending on Wednesday 3/21. Katharina is providing three Smashwords coupons as prizes and asks me to let you know that Smashwords is offering her book at a substantial discount until 3/10. 

UPDATE: I included a link to Katharina's blog in her bio.

UPDATE TWO: GIVEAWAY OFFICIALLY CLOSED. Katharina has generously decided to award four Smashwords coupons for her book. Congratulations to our winners:  Brian Clopper, Aldrea Alien, Ami Hendrickson, and Daniel Marvello. 

Win me!

About the Book

For fourteen years, street-urchin Paul's miserable existence has kept him safe from an ancient law that sentences all second-born twins to death. When he learns he is the younger twin of the mentally handicapped Crown Prince who's in danger of being killed for his disability, he agrees to play the role of the miraculously healed royal heir. Paul struggles to learn how to act like a born ruler, but finds that his greatest skill, getting by unnoticed, is now his greatest liability. He knows if he is discovered, he will be executed like all second-born twins. 

Katharina Gerlach

About the Author
Katharina Gerlach grew up in the middle of a forest in the heart of the Luneburgian Heather. She enjoys writing Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Historical Novels for all age groups. At present, she is writing her next project in a small house near Hildesheim, Germany, where she lives with her husband, three children, and a dog. 

Giveaway Rules

Leave one (1) comment with your e-mail address and the title of your favorite fantasy book on this post by Wednesday 3/21 at 11:59 p.m. PST. This will enter you in a drawing to win one of three Smashwords coupons for Urchin King.

The day after the giveaway ends, the comments will be numbered and three winners will be chosen using a random number generator. Katharina will be sent the winners' contact information and will be responsible for sending out the coupon codes. 

Good luck, aspiring giveaway winners!

We Have a Winner!

Congrats to Eric Schwartz of Kentucky for winning a signed copy of Dragonfriend in my Goodreads giveaway. I'll be mailing out his copy later this week along with some bookmarks and postcards.

(Side note to authors: I highly recommend trying out this gratis Goodreads feature. It's an inexpensive way to generate some interest in your book (basically, your cost on a hardcopy and the necessary postage). I had 790 people sign up for the giveaway, many of whom also put the book on their "to read" list. Nice!)

Savor this sweet victory, Eric, for the gods of logarithmic randomness are not always so kind.

Campaigning It

I'm doing Rachael Harrie's excellent Writer's Platform Building Campaign for the second time. I met so many nice people the last time I did it, I just had to participate again. Here's the deal from Rachael's site:

"Basically, the Campaign is a way to link those of us in the writing community together with the aim of helping to build our online platforms. The Campaigners are all bloggers in a similar position, who genuinely want to pay it forward, make connections and friends within the writing community, and help build each others' online platforms while at the same time building theirs."

If you're an author/blogger, who wants to make some new like-minded friends, I highly recommend going over to her site and signing up. The deadline to register is February 15 and the Campaign runs through March 17. Do it!

Special "Year of the Dragonfriend" Book Giveaway

I've decided that another Dragonfriend giveaway is in order since this is the Year of the Dragon in the Chinese zodiac. Yes, add "clever marketing genius" to my list of attributes. Yup, that's what you should do all right. Sigh. Anyhoo, feel free to click on the link if you'd like to win a free copy of the book. It'll take you over to Goodreads where you can sign up and enter.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Dragonfriend

by Roger Eschbacher

Giveaway ends March 03, 2012.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Dragonfriend Book Trailer

Trend slave that I am, I've decided to join in on the book trailer craze by asking my twelve year old to put one together. I think she did a wonderful job, especially considering she was working with a budget of $0 (some of the fancy ones I've seen must have cost many thousands with impressive graphics, animation, sfx, live action, etc.). She used Windows Movie Maker, public domain photos (except for the cover), and creative commons licensed music.

I'm not convinced that book trailers "work," nor, obviously, that it's a good idea to spend a lot of bucks producing one, but I do place them squarely in the "It couldn't hurt," column.

What do you think about book trailers? Help? Hindrance? Meh? Has a book trailer ever tipped the scales in favor of you buying the book? Let us know in the comments.

Dragonfriend Postcards and Bookmarks

Hot off the presses, these beauties arrived early last week. Designed by the excellent Mike Wykowski, I love how they turned out and look forward to giving them out at readings and signings. Penguin sprang for a bunch of postcards for my picture book, Road Trip, and I was surprised at how helpful they were in terms of generating reader interest. I mailed them out to bookstores and left stacks of them at places where there were likely readers -- libraries, bookstores, schools, churches, etc. -- and received invitations to read/sign from these places as well as some mentions of postcard inspired purchases on my website.

Naturally, I had to have some postcards for Dragonfriend and, as publisher, made the savvy executive decision to have some bookmarks printed, too. Yeah, that's me, savvy.

Got any promotional suggestions you'd like to share? Please leave them in the comments.