GIVEAWAY: Ebon Black and the Seven Dryads

There are 7 (!) SIGNED copies of Ebon Black and the Seven Dryads being given away as part of the Goodreads First Reads program!  Contest ends September 30th, so head on over to http://www.goodreads.com/ and enter now!!!

Additionally, there is a direct link on this blog's main page, or you can just click 'n' go here!  :)

BOOK LAUNCH: One Week To Go!!!

One week from today I will be selling and signing copies of my new book for kids, Ebon Black and the Seven Dryads!  I will be in person all day at Wordstock in Collingwood, ON, but I'm also organizing a virtual launch online to coincide with the in-person event!  There will be some goodies here, and a bunch more on my Facebook page.  There is currently a giveaway happening over at Goodreads, as well.

My hope is that people will interact with the Amazon page, this blog, and the Facebook page...and maybe even buy the book (which is available for the Kindle and as an e-book, as well)!  ;)

I plan to blitz the world with Ebon all at once, and hope to gain some notice, while giving people like YOU a chance to have a little fun in support!

There's even a word search - in the shape of a happy face, no less!

A contest will then be underway, in which people will be able to create their own artwork for the book, submit it to a special email address, and have a shot at winning a free copy of the 1st anniversary Kids' Edition, which will have the winners' full colour illustrations included, as well as their names in the credits!

It's a bit of a different approach, and my hope is that readers will get as excited about the possibilites as I am!

So keep an eye out here and on Facebook, for more and more information and goodness will become available as we approach September 10th!

Hope to see you there!

Until soon,

S.A.M.

PS

 

Vote For Carving The Light!!!

It has to be a write-in vote, of course, but how fun is it that you can actually vote for it as your Favourite book of 2010?  :)

You can also vote for it in Fiction, as well.  What the heck, right?

In fact, you can get away with writing it in for Debut Author, Goodreads Author, and Cover Art, to boot!  I would encourage you to vote for Timothy D Rideout's Cherubs in the Mystery & Thriller section, as well. 

Go vote!  No matter what you vote for, it's good to get people thinking about books, for a change, so get to it, folks!

Until soon,

S.A.M.

Reviews For Carving The Light!

Thanks in no small part to the Goodreads.com community, I have finally started receiving reviews for my book online!  They are all visible on my book page, but here are some of the highlights thus far:

DangerGirl says: 

Have tissues at the ready.


Ms. Maynard is so apt at creating characters that are both vivid and complete that you are immediately drawn into their lives and empathize with their struggles and their joys. She has knit together a journey that truly will have you laughing out loud with tears rolling down your face.


Arliss writes:

I enjoyed this story of three sisters who endured a tragic event during their childhood.


Ms Maynard allowed me to travel with the sisters, feel their painful experiences, and know the secrets they kept from each other. Through her writing I laughed, I cried, I cheered, and I pitied these girls as if I too was part of their family.

I look forward to her future writings.

And Delilah feels:
 
I thought that this was a great book. It spoke from the heart and was a very true account of the feelings of guilt people can carry around with them. It is so true about the fact that if more people would talk about their feelings it would avoid so many misunderstandings. I would highly recommend this as a goodread.


I will be posting individually on Goodreads, probably later this evening, but I wanted to say overall how grateful I am to each of those women for taking the time to post their thoughts about Carving The Light.  And I am REALLY happy that people are enjoying it!  The Collins girls and the fabulous people in their lives became very important to me while I was writing their story, and I suspect that they will always occupy a special place in my heart.  So, thank you, to everyone who's taking the time to look at my book, or to pick it up and read it, and to those who spread the word and let others know (and me, too) how they feel about it, or how it's affected them.
 
And if anyone feels like posting similar thoughts on Amazon, please feel free to do so!  lol
 
In OTHER news, we are now just mere weeks away from the beginning of the Ryerson Chang school's winter ad campaign, and I can not wait!  I got an update email from them today, letting me know that they will be submitting materials to other print publications and such, as well, so that is outstanding...I'd love to see where else I turn up!
 
I've started putting together small prizes for the contest, too, so get ready to keep on the lookout!  I just got a cute little Carving The Light totebag in the mail the other day, and there will be much more to come!  Pictures to follow, but for now, this is what the ad will look like. 
 

 
Watch out for it all over Toronto via the TTC, starting November 29th!
 
Until soon,
 
SAM

Join my Author Q&A on Goodreads.com!

I've started a Q&A group on GoodReads.com, and I will be around fairly regularly to answer questions and join discussions as they crop up.  I'm hoping we'll be able to talk about everything from my first novel, Carving The Light, to participating in NaNoWriMo, to the experience of self-publishing with CreateSpace, to non-spoilery bits of information regarding my next project, Ebon Black and the Seven Dryads!

I'd love to interact with people who've read the book, or want to, other writers, readers, and anyone who has an interest in the industry at all.  I think it'll be fun, and I am looking forward to hearing what everyone has to say, so come join in when you can!

I'd also love to have that as one of the online spots where things like the contest I hope to run during the Ryerson ad campaign could be discussed.  I'm up for suggestions as to what would make my prize ideas even better, not to mention thoughts on other contest ideas that could be run in the future!

So, basically, anything goes.  Come sign up and join the fun today!  :)

Until soon,

S.A.M.

Book Review: No Hope For Gomez! by Graham Parke

I loved this book! Gomez Porter is an instantly likeable character, and he draws the reader ever further into his (sometimes off-balanced) mindset through the openness and honesty of his blog entries. As a test subject in an experimental drug trial, Gomez is told to update his blog entries as regularly as possible, and record everything and anything, especially that which could be considered strange. Soon, however, Gomez starts to find pretty much everything in his world strange, and thus the reader is pulled into Gomez's messed-up internal reality, even as he struggles to make sense of it all for himself.


I was fortunate enough to win a copy of this book through a FirstReads giveaway on [...], and I am so happy that I did. The pace is fast and action-packed...from the first page, author Graham Parke takes his readers on one of the strangest, most hilarious rollercoaster rides of the psyche that they are ever likely to go on, and he doesn't let up until the end which, incidentally, just leaves you wanting more.

The story is compact, fun (I laughed out loud more than once while reading this), and while it may have you looking at the world a whole different (and possibly very askew) way, once you've been inside the mind of Gomez Porter, if you're like me, you'll find that you don't mind that one single bit!

Maybe there is no hope for Gomez, but after reading this hilarious, twisted little novel, I personally hope for MORE Gomez very very soon!

Updates and Musings

OK, first off, I should mention that I just got back to work from my first appointment with an eye doctor, to make sure that my injury from a few weeks ago is healing and that no further damage was done.  So, one eye is dilated a ridiculous amount, I am uncomfortable and can't see out of it, and I just want to go home and sleep it off.

Typing ain't easy, either, naturally, but there was some stuff I wanted to talk about, while I have a chance!

Congratulations!

First off, congratulations to all of the winners of the Goodreads.com giveaway!  Five lucky folks were drawn from over 700 entries, and each of them should be receiving a signed copy of Carving The Light in their mailbox sometime soon!  I shipped three copies out today, and will do the other two tomorrow, hopefully.  I'm just waiting a but longer to hear back on whether they would like it personalized, or not.  :)

Carving The Light Giveaway At Goodreads!

Enter to win a FREE AUTOGRAPHED copy of my first novel, Carving The Light!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Carving The Light

by Sue A. Maynard

Giveaway ends October 21, 2010.




See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

A Couple Of Quick Things

Sorry for my recent silence...this work week is killing me, and to top it off, I am trying to land a very specific apartment in a very specific building, and that scrambling process has taken up a lot of my time.  Along with seeing movies (still hoping to write up a quick A-Team review, to go along with my spontaneous podcasting session with The Mad Hatter, and possibly seeing Toy Story tonight)...things have just been keeping me very busy lately, it seems!

Carving The Light on Goodreads.com

Starting to build the community love there, too, if I can!

Carving The Light

ALSO, I am up to #518 284 on Amazon.com's sales rank!  lol

And there are more buying options to come, which will be available shortly.  Today I went Pro on CreateSpace.  :)

Enjoy the day!

SAM