Saturday, December 26, 2009

holiday happyness

 Happy holidays everyone! Don't eat too much... ah. Too late. Never mind. Hope it tasted good.

It's a sunny, balmy Boxing Day here, and the cricket's about to come on. This is a yearly ritual observed with much solemnity. The family must congregate around the television amongst piles of discarded wrapping paper, observe Tony Grieg (a tall and balding Englishman with a much-parodied South African accent) poke his car keys into the MCG pitch, cheer when Australia wins the coin toss (as we invariably do) and say 'ooh!' when the first ball is bowled.

The fact that we are playing Pakistan this year imbues the occasion with uncertainty and dread -- for it could be a rocking series, but it could also be a whitewash. Aussies want their team to win (of course!) but they want the opposition to go down fighting. Unless it's the mother country, England. In which case they can roll over and die all they want :)

So without further ado...
Day the Sixth (and last!)

Today we have not one, but TWO books to give away. Yay! Conquering the world, one giveaway at a time. Or something.

Today's winner of SHADOWFAE is... ... cherrymischievous !!

And the winner of the fabulous SHADOWGLASS ARC (book not released until March, you lucky thingy!) is... ... Leontine !!!

Congrats to all winners.

And thanks so much to everyone for playing! Welcome to everyone who's joined my newsletter or followed me on LJ or Twitter. I'll try not to be too boring.

And, stick around early next year for some more giveaways, of my books as well as some other fab authors {twiddles fingers mysteriously...}

Friday, December 25, 2009

shady day five

 
Day Five

 
...and the Day Five winner is... ... @whatinabox !!

Congrats! You won a free SHADOWFAE, complete with succubi, hawt fairies and a nasty vampire or two.

Tomorrow I'm giving away the last copy, and the Speshul Christmas Holiday Prize, a SHADOWGLASS ARC!! So leave your comments, tweet, blog etc.. You can check out the original contest post here to see how to enter.

{Psst! It's actually already Christmas here. Balmy...

But because there's three hundred million of you and only twenty million of us, what say we pretend?
 
Only one more sleep...


 

Thursday, December 24, 2009

shady day four

 
Day Four


And the day four winner is ... ... iokijo !! 

Congrats! I'll get your book out to you soon.

Only two days to go, two more free books. Still time for you to enter, retweet, blog, social network it up. Original contest post here for details.

And don't forget that on Christmas Day, I'm giving away a SHADOWGLASS ARC.

Meanwhile, in the interests of equal opportunity:

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

shady day three

 
Day Three

And without further messing about, the day three winner is... ... elnice !!

Congrats! I'll get your book out to you soon.

Winners are random, in case anyone's wondering :) those random numbers have no mercy. And rest assured, I'm collecting all your comments and tweets and blogs, wherever they may be...

But there's still time. Still three shady days of Christmas left. Still more books to give away. Original contest post here.

P.S. Posting a little early today because we're travelling. Normal service will resume as soon as possible. In the meantime, let's go to the beach:

shady day two

 
Day Two

A sultry 31 degrees C in Newcastle this morning. It's shaping up for a scorchin' hawt Christmas Day. And the day two winner is... ... ... mamma_d !!

Congrats! Your SHADOWFAE is on its way. Don't feed it after midnight. I warned you.

Only four shady days left. Only four more signed copies of SHADOWFAE, and one fabulous SHADOWGLASS ARC. 

These books are cluttering up my desk. They have to go. The need is urgent. The danger is real. Get these books out of my house!! ... or out of my agent's office, as the case may be.

You still have time to enter, or do more entries if you haven't won yet. Tweet me, blog me, the usual. Contest details here.

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

on the first shade of christmas...

 

Day One
 

And the Day One winner is... dum dum dum... jacabur2008 !!!

Congrats, Jackie! You've won yourself a signed copy of SHADOWFAE. That was easy, eh?

Only five more shady days to go. Only five more free copies of SHADOWFAE. But there's still time. Here's the link to the contest post, but you know the drill: blog, retweet, show me some social networkin' lurve, and you'll go in the draw.

And you know what? About this SHADOWGLASS ARC...

People like shiny new ARCs. Yes, indeedy they do.

And bless me if it didn't seem fair to exclude the people who've already won SHADOWFAE from the chance to win the ARC.

So here's what I'll do. Even if you've already won, you can stay in the draw for the ARC on Christmas Day. Yes! That's the sort of kind, compassionate soul I am.

So keep blogging and tweeting and telling everyone -- the more you harp on, the more entries you get.

Right. I'm off to actually do some writing {gasp! shock! horror!} for a change. Won't be surprised if I don't remember how...

Sunday, December 20, 2009

six shady days of christmas

...and we all know that Christmas means summer, right? Not snowdrifts or holly or yule logs, whatever they are. I'm talking the beach, barbecues, prawn cocktails, sunburn and the cricket on TV the next morning.

Time to give away some hawt books for free. Just because that's the kind of generous soul I am. So welcome one and all to:



Each day up until Christmas (starting today, that's Sunday for all you weekend blogreaders), I'm giving away a signed copy of SHADOWFAE to one lucky person who drops by.

And (yes! but wait, there's more) on the last day, the winner will also receive my very first SHADOWGLASS ARC! Be the first person in the WORLD to read my smokin' hot March 2010 release... well, except for my agent. And my editor. And my cat (he loved it, of course). And possibly a pile of reviewers... But you can be the first REAL person to read it. You know what I mean.


Look at them. They're gorgeous. You know you want them. Even just to look at the pretty covers.

And you know the drill. One of more of the following, folks:

1) Tweet the contest (or RT my tweet) and leave a comment here to let me know
2) Mention the contest on your blog -- take the palm tree pic if you like -- and leave the link in a comment here
3) Read my free short story, Hellcursed, on my website. Like it? Blog or tweet about it, and leave a note here.
4) Friend me on LJ (right here!)
5) Follow me on Twitter (I'm @ericahayes)
6) Subscribe to my (mercifully infrequent) newsletter here
7) Any other cool social networking thingy you can come up with and tell me about.

The more you do, the more entries you get. Each day I'll pick a random winner, and remove their name from the draw. The rest will stay in, ie. your entries don't expire. So don't be afraid to repeat yourself :) and the sooner you get the word out, the more chances your Internetz Friendz will get to win :)

Contest open worldwide (yeah, that includes the US. Especially the US. Wouldn't want to neglect all y'all).

Non-LJ-ers: please leave your name in your comment, and a Blogger address, email or Twitter where I can ping you if you win.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

agent appreciation day...

...well, it was on Friday. I kinda missed it. I've been moving house. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

New house is good. Stuff -- and who knew we had so much of it? We move regularly and I'm always amazed by how much bloody STUFF we've got -- stuff is put away, mostly. Pets are relocated. Cat none too happy about having to spend the next few days inside so he won't walk 'home'. I am relaxing, sipping a cold drink, surveying my domain.

And now, I can regale you with the wonderful-ness of my agent, Marlene Stringer of the Stringer Literary Agency.

Marlene does everything an agent's supposed to do. I mean, you'd think that would go without saying, but apparently not. M (like James Bond's M, only better) responded to my manuscript (the first one, and each subsequent) with enthusiasm that made me all starry-eyed and dopey, but also with realistic expectations that made me confident she knows what she's doing.

(Aside: see that tricky thing with the tenses there? Mixing them up in the same sentence? My manuscripts are riddled with this, in some strange effort my brain makes to be 'conversational'. M never complains. She leaves editorial stuff to the editor. Bravo.)

She sold the ms. Again, this tends to go without saying -- people assume that once you have an agent, your first sale is only a matter of time. But it ain't so. Plenty out there take longer to sell, or don't sell at all, and I credit a lot of my good fortune to M's knowledge and tenacity.

And then, she sold more, before the first lot even came out. I'm still not sure how this happened, and I don't care. But I'll give M the credit.

M always answers my questions, even when they're dumb. I send her ideas for wacky books I haven't written yet and she doesn't tell me to get on with the real stuff. She bugs my editor about stuff I'm too chicken to bug her about myself. When I do really dumb stuff with copy edits and waste loads of the publisher's time and get upset, she says, whatever, just send them the corrections and forget about it.

It's just nice to have someone on my side. I mean, the editor is on my side too, because if the books don't sell, she wears it. Same with the marketing people, and the sales people, and everyone else. But M sees the stuff that they don't see.

She sees me whining and worrying and wandering around the house muttering and banging pens on my forehead... well, maybe she doesn't actually see that last one. I try not to lay too much of my necessary creative angst on her. But no doubt she can read my exasperation in my emails -- did I mention we email? Me Australia, she Florida, phone no cheapy. Because of me, M has to spend more of her time typing. She doesn't mind.

The point (yeah, there is one) is that M is my professional makeover. Make-up for the writer. The publisher always sees me fresh and painted, even when I'm dumpy and creased and disorganised underneath. When you look like me (figuratively, of course...) this is priceless.

So far, nothing 'bad' has happened yet in my writing career.

('Bad', of course, is relative, and two hundred fifty thousand tsunami victims don't care if I get a cover I don't like or a copy editor who hates my commas or cover copy that sounds like porn. They certainly don't care about my contracts or royalties or sell-through.)

Still, nothing 'bad' has happened yet. But when it does, I'm confident Marlene will be there to help. And I can't ask more than that.

Thanks to Jen K Blom for alerting me to Agent Appreciation Day. Head over here to see who else is posting... um, posted like two days ago while I was up to my eyeballs in boxes and dust.