Blog Tour Contest Winner!

Well, life does have a way of side-swiping, doesn't it? I feel like I've been on the losing side of a 100 to 1 snowball fight. But things are doing better and I'm catching up.

Brandlwyne   # 6997
The winner of the glass necklace and ebook from 1Romance Ebooks! Fortunately for me this time, I actually have her contact information so I don't have to go hunting for it.

And for the others who posted comments on the blog, I will arrange a 50% gift coupon for any of my books on 1Romance EBooks. I am right now setting up my contact page again in such a way that the spam monsters can't find either you or me, and all you'll have to do is send me contact info through that.

Change in Blog Stop #31!

Blog Tourists: There's been a change in the next blog stop, #31. I couldn't get online to change my post or inform anyone, so I apologize for not getting the new URL posted, Here it is Author Raine Delight:
http://rainedelightbooknook.blogspot.com/2010/07/happy-anniversary-1romancecom.html

More later. moving on to the condo and joining visiting family. Happy Blog Tour, everyone!

Delle

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO 1ROMANCEEBOOKS.COM!

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO 1ROMANCEEBOOKS.COM!
(INTRODUCTION TO BLOG, INCLUDING LINK TO PREVIOUS BLOG) Thank you for my stop on the 1RomanceEbooks.com one year anniversary blog tour!

This is blog stop # 30, following  #29, J.M. Snyder, URL:  http://jmsnyder.com/
The link to the next stop will be found at the end of this post.

While this is not exactly the trip from Hell, it does have some of those characteristics. The Swan is a lovely hotel, but the room is problematic. Little things: We asked for a cot, and after many hours had a rollaway delivered when we were at dinner. But I am not very good as sleeping vertically, so I did request that somebody come back and place the bed parallel to the floor. Other little details along the same vein, yet the place is pleasant and nice at the same time. Naturally a personal family crisis had to hit at the same time and getting back home early doesn't seem to be a workable option.  On the bright side, the scary part of that has passed, and friends are stepping in to help out.

I'm actually writing this Tuesday night, in case I can't Wednesday night. Tomorrow I'll be meeting with about a hundred other authors who write Regency-set romances, with workshops aimed at historical information, improving writing skills, market and sales, and so on. And food. The food is spectacular. Tomorrow night, we'll have a "soiree" with a lot of us coming in Regency costume and performing real English country dances. Regency style gaming.  And food. More great food.

What I'm going to try to do tomorrow is take several photos and then just add them to what I've writter here. rather than try to re-write in the middle of the night when I finally get back to my room. But the very fact that I will be too exhausted to write anything  more should tell you what I great time I'm having!

As a prize I'm giving away 2 things: a copy of  winner's choice of any of my ebooks on 1RE- including the award-winner I'm going to put up after I get back home, HIS MAJESTY, THE PRINCE OF TOADS. In addition, there will be a beautiful hand-blown glass  necklace. And maybe, just for a whim, I'll add a little souvenir from Harry Potter-land or Disney World Depending on what I find.

Please leave a comment to enter the drawing to win!  Maybe a question about Disney World or something about writer's conferences or this special interest one which will be the day before the huge Romance Writers of America conference starts. In my spare time. I'll try to answer.

Yah, sure, you say.  Okay, just post your comments, then., and maybe you'll win the Grand Prize, the fabulous Sony Touch EReader. Remember: the more comments you leave on the tour, the better your chances of winning the grand prize.  
***
The next stop on the anniversary tour is #31, Claire Thompson, URL:   http://clairethompsonauthor.blogspot.com/

UNVEILING THE SECRETS OF THE CAPTCHA Part 3

Like me, you no doubt have puzzled many times over the meanings of those strange Captcha words you have to re-type before posting comments on blogs. You know- the ones that look so much like words, yet aren't any words you've ever seen before? It's  one of my lifelong ambitions to unravel these riddles, so I have been collecting them and piece by painstaking piece uncovering their true meanings. Alas, I fear the task is never-ending: more of them appear every day. But here are some of them I've managed to decipher:

Lumanoc: n. Singular of a wild ox that comes out only by the light of a full moon. Grows long fangs to replace its ruminant teeth. Feeds on werewolves.

Whors: n. an archaic spelling for a long legged quadraped that munches grass. (Surprise! You thought it was something else, didn't you?)

Redigrab: n. First conceived in a laboratory with the intention of producing a viable competitor to Cling Wrap, Redigrab was discovered to have such gripping power it was found to be most useful to law enforcement for detaining criminals instead of handcuffs. Unfortunately it had the same effect on the arresting officers, while those of the criminal persuasion quickly learned the only antidote was peanut butter. Therefore, by slathering their wrists with peanut butter in preparation for the commission of a crime, the criminals pre-disposed themselves to escape, leaving their would-be captors bound instead. Hence, Redigrab has been outlawed in all civilized countries and is now used only in Somalia, where nobody knows who's in charge anyway.

Icksatly: adv. Pig Latin corruption of sickly. Sometimes mistaken for NASA-Speak referring to a malfunctioning Mars satellite.

Prorn: n. Clearly, this is text-speak for professional porn.

Bustsos-- uhhhh..... Several implications for this word have been uncovered but all have turned out to be false leads, and its true meaning continues to elude me. If anyone has seen this word used in an appropriate fashion or has knowledge of its roots, it is imperative that you report it to the proper authority (me) immediately.

Leervows: v.  That's when one of those really tiny passenger jets promises to get you off the ground and even safely back to earth. Really. Honest. Fixed that hole in the fuel tank. Put a really stout Band-Aid on the one back by the tail section. It'll be perfectly safe. No need to report it to the FAA.

Pedrapid: n. A pedophile on foot after his 1978 Plymouth ran out of gas in the desert. A condition that happens all too rarely.

Depical: n. A putrid pink medicine you take by the spoonful to cure bouts of depis, a skin disease with hiccups and spells of ADD. Don't believe me? Watch my grandsons.

Terrific Blog Tour!

Happy Birthday to 1Romance EBooks! They're celebrating with a fabulous Blog Tour from July 15 to 31, over 30 authors, up to 2 a day, participating! GRAND PRIZE is a Sony reader TOUCH edition, selected by drawing from all participating and REGISTERED readers who comment. Every comment during the tour earns another chance for the reader, so you have lots of opportunities to win. Every author is giving out a prize too, so that's 34 more chances to win a prize. http://1romanceebooks.com

My day is July 29th, when I'll be in Orlando at RWA and the Beau Monde conferences, so I'll share my experiences with you. And I'll be giving away the winner's choice of an ebook from 1Romance EBooks, plus a beautiful hand-poured glass pendant necklace.

You MUST register at 1Romance EBooks before any of your comments will count, so get busy and sign up. It's free, and you'll get a chance to get to know a bunch of authors, all who write romance. You can earn more points, too. Just go to their site and read the rules. And have a great time touring with us!

Randy Ingermanson on the Future of Publishing

I just read this article from Randy Ingermanson's blog called The Future of Publishing. If you are interested in publishing and what your future is in the big flow of the mighty rivers within it, read this article. It's extremely insightful.  http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/blog/2010/07/07/the-future-of-publishing/

 It's  long and very detailed, 9 specific predictions, looking at the broad expanse of publishing and how it will change. I'm inclined to agree, although I don't see anything in this article about how Amazon and other e-distributors will fit in. I think those things, which will ultimately determine the income of published authors, are in great flux right now, so certainly I would be reluctant to make such a prediction.

I'm guessing anyway, though. Apple's iPad is making a huge play for the ebook market. Sony, Barnes & Noble and many small distributors are also diving into the melee. Amazon's Kindle intends to own the whole show. But now Google is headed toward the skirmish pile. Then there are all the small ebook publishers. Will they be squeezed out by self-publishing in e-form? Well, I think the strong and innovative will stay strong. The weaker, poorly organized companies will miss too many opportunities. And in the end- or perhaps only the immediate end- Amazon will not rule the world after all. Sorry, Amazon. To use a parallel in nature: The mighty Amazon River flows into an ocean- the Atlantic Ocean. And the ocean is bigger.

Retro-Geek Triumphs Again!

I am discovering more and more every day about using The New Blogger as a website. Except that I don't think I'm even going to bother to call it a website. It's a Multi-Blog? I don't care.

What's new?

1. Linked the pages and related secondary blogs, and back-link to home blog. Need BUTTONS instead. I'll work on that.

2. Completed the Mexico photo blog on The Most Beautiful Place on Earth. Go check it out. Next is England, then the Mediterranean.

3. Getting the Books blog in shape. New posting on my newest coming release, LADY WICKED. I would still like to post the stories of how each book came to be. 

4. Added a Fan Page, but don't know how I'm going to organize it. Can't use my previous design- it won't work here.

5. More to do- no link to my videos, no reviews of books posted. 

Most important (for me), a new idea:

6.I don't have enough blogs! I felt like I needed a private place, to could organize myself, rant if I so pleased, keep all my notes handy and so on. I've used GMail's calendar and task list but it feels like I'm shoe-horning myself into their mold. So I designed a blog that really works for me.  A Day-Planner and Journal combined. The way I've used spiral-bound notebooks for years.

In the center is the blog part with titled postings. The documents, etc. On the left column is a dated list of things not to forget. Bills, tasks, appointments. On the right, a current shopping list, and links to sites I'm likely to need quickly. I want to post a small calendar because I've always found it helpful to visualize how much time fits between now and an event. The one I have found does link me directly to my Google GMail age calendar, which is nice, but 'd rather have it right on the blog. And I don't like the ad, but don't want to pay to remove it. So I will likely just put up my own link to the GMail page, and find an updating calendar for visual.

For me, this is a major success. As visual as I am, I'm always forgetting what is not in sight. And the organizer stuff I've seen for computers seems to fit a world that is a step beyond my reach. This blog does it my way! It's pretty, and it's elegant, and it's just mine. No one else can find it. Voila! Victoire! (Can you tell I don't speak French?)