Facebook Giveaway

Just a quick post today to let you know that Penguin Teen just started a fan page on Facebook and they're giving away a deluxe Nightshade ARC. Check it out!

Also, if you're on Facebook and you'd like to be my friend I'm happy to add you. Just send a request :)

Haiku FTW!

You guys really outdid yourselves with the first annual PARANORMAL HAIKU contest. I've had so much fun reading all the entries. I've also been left with quite the knot in my belly trying to pick winners. Angst! Angst!

Here's how it's going down. I've selected my top three entries in the following categories:

Best Drama
Best Comedy
Best NIGHTSHADE relevance

+ Stephanie's incredible array of Buffy haiku gets her name in the hat. My personal faves:
Death? Survived it twice.
I'm Buffy. You're History!
Hellmouth? N.B.D.

She even incorporated a Spike quote:
Going out to eat
Vampires never dine alone
Happy Meals with legs

THE NOMINEES ARE:

Best Drama:

Yvonne
A night bird twittered
at the window, tapped the sill.
A chirp then a claw.

Bigfoot
Airplane disappears
The Bermuda Triangle
Doesn't leave a trace

Lynsey
leaves fall from the trees
and make rainbows on the ground
for me to walk on

Best Comedy:

KD Bryan
There's a poltergeist
Living in my upstairs bath
Shower's always cold.

Voidwalker
Pirate etiquette
Yar, before argh scallywag
or else walk the plank

Dani
Zombies can eat brain
I wish I was a zombie
Instead I eat cake

Best NIGHTSHADE relevance: (I picked four here, since Lynsey's name will already be in for best drama)

Tricia
heads thrown back, ears flat,
wolves howled the moon loose from its
mooring in the trees

Lynsey
There will be a war
and i will lead from the front,
yellow eyes burning

Sara M
Invading my dreams
Hiding in the shadows, my
demons never leave

Hannah*
"I will find you, girl"
Menacing demons whisper
Oh wait, that's my mom
*This haiku is relevant to NIGHTSHADE because it's exactly the kind of joke Calla would make about her mother

Now we have our very own Sorting Hat.


Of these 10 I have drawn 1 random name!



THE WINNER OF THE FIRST SIGNED NIGHTSHADE ARC GIVEAWAY IS:
Congratulations, KD Bryan! Email your address to andreacremerwrites (at) gmail (dot) com and I'll send an ARC to you!

Watch the blog for many more chances to win a signed ARc - and in ways other than writing haiku - prior to the October 19 release date. Thanks so much for your entries!

Before signing off I need to give a shout out to a lifelong best friend whose haiku really put me in stitches! Honorable Mention and Happy Birthday to:

Katie
No pet unicorn,
for the millionth and last time.
He will poke someone’s eye out.

My sandwich is gone!
From the huge footprints I’d guess
the sasquatch got it.

Broken lawnmower
is making me money from
crop circle tourists.

Surprise!

My awesome editor, Jill, sent me a surprise package in the mail. The REAL ACTUAL WILL-BE-ON-THE-HARDCOVER jackets for NIGHTSHADE!

Here is the front:
Here is the jacket on a real (though not NIGHTSHADE, obviously) hardcover book. I hadn't given much thought to all the different shapes and sizes books come in until I tried to find a book that was the right size for this jacket. It took at least half a dozen tries 'til I got the right fit!!
Here is the back jacket on a real book:I'm so thrilled! They are beautiful. I keep holding them up to different light to see the way the colors change.

Can't wait until October!!!!

Remember still two days left to enter the Paranormal Haiku contest and win a signed ARC!

Can't Wait Contest!

My ARCs arrived and I couldn't share them...


I thought I would have to wait until April to start giving away ARCs in blog contests.

It will be spring, I thought.

It's a new month, I thought.
But the fabulous reaction to Nightshade's cover and book trailer have pushed my already impatient self over the edge.
So the first contest begins NOW.
You can win the first signed Nightshade ARC giveaway by entering my first Annual PARANORMAL HAIKU CONTEST!

What is a paranormal haiku?

Haiku is a Japanese poem form which follows a 5 syllable, 7 syllable, 5 syllable format
Making it paranormal is just a matter of adding the appropriate content.

For example:

Vampire angst erodes
the moment love trumps bloodlust;
how long can it last?

OR

Can mummies find love?
Passion knows no bounds, but still
dust is a turnoff.

Entries accepted until Wednesday, March 31! And to answer Dani's question - yes, I will accept multiple entries - send all the haiku your heart desires!

Winners!

Thanks for all the great entries! And huzzah for loves that should have been!
Winners (selected at random - I pulled numbers out of a hat) are:

Liyana
JeannyGrey
Trini

Please email (andreacremerwrites@gmail.com) your mailing address book of choice from this list:

Josh Berk The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin
Cynthia Jaynes Omololu Dirty Little Secrets
Kristin Walker A Match Made in High School
Suzanne Young The Naughty List

Despite the morose Bleeding Hearts Countdown theme, I hope each of you had a lovely Valentine's Day!

CONTEST! Questioning Cupid

It's here: Valentine's Day! Run!!
But WAIT there's a CONTEST, so stick around!!

As the Bleeding Hearts Countdown was dedicated to undercutting the value of this holiday, the contest let's you take over - it's your turn to rule the realm of love.

Here's how it works:

As most of you probably know, Twilight brought about the fierce rivalry of Team Edward vs. Team Jacob and I'm sure that Breaking Dawn rendered Camp Jacob despondent. But Twilight isn't the only story with romantic choices at stake.

To enter the contest use the comments to change love story history. What doomed couple would you save, who would ride of with who in the sunset? Nominate your couple that should have been and tell us why their love should have beaten the odds. Couples can be literary, film, television or anything else you come up with.

Winners (chosen at random) will be able to select one of these awesome 2010 debuts:

Josh Berk The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin
Cynthia Jaynes Omololu Dirty Little Secrets
Kristin Walker A Match Made in High School
Suzanne Young The Naughty List

Looking for your wistful what might have beens (ranting and raving also warmly welcomed)!

Bleeding Hearts Countdown: 5! Heart Break

There seems to be consensus that February is a rough month. In honor of universal grumpiness, I've decided we need to have a countdown. And this countdown will culminate in a CONTEST on Sunday, February 14.

I'm pleased to present you with the inaugural Bleeding Hearts Countdown, also known as What Do To When it's February and You Don't Like Valentine's Day. Each day of the Bleeding Hearts Countdown will be dedicated to love on the rocks and wicked holiday alternatives.

Please note: I love romance. I am lost to romance; hopeless, swooning. My books have lots of romance. I even feel a little guilty about my Bleeding Hearts Countdown because my husband always does really nice things for me on Valentine's Day. But this is the point: my husband does really nice things for me all the time (that is why is he an awesome husband). Valentine's Day bothers me because of its high pressure, romance on cue dynamic. In my mind, romance is best left to its own devices. The culture of Valentine's Day as it exists now kills true romance and instead leaves us with vengeful gender stereotypes that produce awful Super Bowl ads, which endanger my television as I threaten to smash it.

Romance can't be forced. Romance happens. And it is wonderful.

Valentine's Day is a romance tyrant. Let Bleeding Hearts Countdown start the revolution!

So what's your take on Valentine's Day? Love? Loathe? Meh?

Winners!!

Once again, Happy New Year! I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm beyond thrilled to be in the third day of 2010. And what great slogans you dreamed up to get us off on the right foot!

And I did reach 110 followers (WOOT!); however, #110 didn't sign up until January 2, so rather than giving 2 books each away, I'm compromising and adding a 4th winner to the contest. Happy for me, because I loved all the entries and picking winners was a challenge!

It was tough, but I've selected the four winners for the 2010 slogan contest:

Dani - "2010: The Year We Go Broke (from buying too many books)"

TeamMagnusBane - "2010, when the girls are obsessed with sparkly men, men try to be like Edward Cullen, and when the Nerds out shine them all."

SuzyHaze - 2010 "The Year The People Rediscovered The Book" In an odd turn of events humans and otherworldly things began flocking to bookstores and libraries, large and small, in order to sniff the glue binding and escape reality, only to find out that BOOKS ARE WONDERFUL and they escaped into the words (instead of the glue) by the billions

Krista Ashe - "2010,The book biz's best that's ever been The year authors are really gonna win Making all those readers heads spin With Tales of Zombies, Vamps, Angels, and furry kin First love, first lust, and MC's showing some skin. Ah, 2010, authors pick up those pens!"

Winners send an email to adrcremer (at) gmail (dot) com with your mailing address and your choice of 1 book from the top 9 o'nine list and I'll post it to you stat!

Thanks again for participating in my inaugural blog contest many more contests to come in 2010!!

I Won, I Won!

At what has become my favorite blog post of the week, the lovely Laura, weekly guest poster at Eric's fantastic Pimp My Novel has taken to challenging her readers to creative contests. The first contest: write the first line of an Amish vampire novel. Awesome and hilarious.

Last week's contest: invent a new fantasy weapon.

And my entry won!

The weapon: Blesions - blessings from fallen angels that strike victims down with apolcalyptic-style boils.

Thanks, Laura :)