Blog Tours by Krazy Book Lady?

So, I have found that I do indeed miss the blog and very much miss the interaction with all of the authors and book bloggers. I would love to revive Krazy Book Lady (especially since it is getting so many hits still, even when there is no new material), but I still do not have the huge amount of time to invest that I once had. Therefore, I am considering posting the occasional review, guest post, or interview but also offering blog tours and book blasts.

I am well aware there are lots of sites already offering blog tours, so I was wondering if there is any interest if these services are provided by Krazy Book Lady.

What is in it for the authors?
I would set up blog tours or book blasts for you on established blogs with a good following. Once things got going, I could be more specific about what that means, but each blog would need to already have a certain number of followers and/or be blogging for a certain amount of time before being included on your blog tour. Your book and tour would be advertised on Krazy Book Lady and promoted through all of Krazy Book Lady's social media.

What is in it for bloggers?
Each month I would hold a giveaway, for perhaps a $20 gift card, and each time you hosted a blog tour would equal one entry. So if you hosted two, you would have two entries and so on. I would also hope to have a tour wide giveaway attached to each blog tour. Your post on your tour day would be heavily promoted through all of Krazy Book Lady's social media.

Before I get everything set up, I was wondering if I could see if there was some initial interest from authors who would be interested in having a blog tour set up by me and bloggers who would be interested in hosting by putting up a review, guest post, or interview.

Please fill out the form below and let me know what you think. 

Romance Scavenger Hunt Giveaway - Win Your Choice of Books

I know I haven't posted anything in awhile, but I am amazed that Krazy Book Lady still has so many loyal followers. Even with no new posts, this blog is still getting hundreds of hits per day. 

So, since this month is Valentine's Day, almost everyone at my house has a birthday this month, and I'm so thankful for so many great readers, I'm in the mood for a giveaway!

What's up for grabs? One winner will receive $20 in romance books! (These can be in print form from The Book Depository since they offer free shipping or can be ebooks from Amazon.)

How to enter:
Scavenger Hunt!
For each one of the questions you answer correctly you will get one entry into the giveaway. So answer all 10 questions and you receive 10 entries!

All of these questions relate to books reviewed on Krazy Book Lady. You can see a list of all reviews posted here by hitting the Reviews link above.

(Note: Please write down your answers so that you can enter them all at once. You will not be able to go back to enter more answers once you hit submit.)

Giveaway details:
Giveaway is open internationally (as long as The Book Depository ships to your area or you can receive ebooks from Amazon). Giveaway ends at midnight on February 28, 2013. Must be 13 or older to enter. Winner will be decided using random.org. Winner will be emailed and must respond within 2 days or new winner will be selected. 

Sorry! Giveaway is now over.

Winner: Delilah

What Happens Next by Colleen Clayton - Review

What Happens Next
by Colleen Clayton
October 9, 2012
Poppy (Little Brown Books for Young Readers)

How can you talk about something you can’t remember?

Before the ski trip, sixteen-year-old Cassidy “Sid” Murphy was a cheerleader (at the bottom of the pyramid, but still...), a straight-A student, and a member of a solid trio of best friends. When she ends up on a ski lift next to handsome local college boy, Dax Windsor, she’s thrilled; but Dax takes everything from Sid—including a lock of her perfect red curls—and she can’t remember any of it.

Back home and unable to relate to her old friends, Sid drops her college prep classes and takes up residence in the A/V room with only Corey “The Living Stoner” Livingston for company. But as she gets to know Corey (slacker, baker, total dreamboat), Sid finds someone who truly makes her happy. Now, if she can just shake the nightmares and those few extra pounds, everything will be perfect... or so she thinks.

Witty and poignant, Colleen Clayton’s stunning debut is a story about moving on after the unthinkable happens.

My Review:
From reading the blurb of this book, I really didn't realize what happened to Sid. Call me slow or whatever, but I simply didn't make the connection. During the first chapters of this book, I was enjoying it but wasn't really invested yet. Then suddenly, bam. I was hooked. For some readers, this is a controversial event that may make you not want to read this book, but Colleen Clayton handles it delicately and with no actual details of what happened. This is simply about Sid "before" and Sid "after."

What Happens Next portrays very powerful emotions, and Sid is a character who tugs at your heart and makes you empathize with her. This may be centered around an event that people don't like to read about and don't want to think about, but unfortunately, it does happen. This is the story of how someone goes on with their life when everything suddenly changes. What do you do when the people you thought were your friends aren't there for you but someone you didn't expect is? What do you do when your entire life changes in an instant? Don't be turned away by the controversial event that this book is based on because it would really be a shame if you didn't read this.

An advance copy of this book was provided by the author and the publisher for review.

About the author:

Colleen Clayton grew up in a small, suburban town just outside of Cleveland, Ohio. After graduating from Kent State University, she worked as a social worker in residential treatment centers for troubled teens and as Program Supervisor for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Mahoning Valley. She currently lives in Ohio with her family and recently received her MFA in fiction writing from the Northeast Ohio Consortium (NEOMFA). She teaches fiction writing and composition at Youngstown State University.

Find out more at ColleenClayton.com and on Twitter. 

Surviving the Indie Publishing Explosion: Why Book Clubs Matter - Anderson O'Donnell - Giveaway

Surviving the Indie Publishing Explosion: Why Book Clubs Matter

Guest Post by Anderson O’Donnell

I’m about to write something I never thought I’d think, let alone type: With regard to publishing, particularly in the digital era, it’s not just about the numbers.

I realize that, for some, this realization might not be particularly earth shattering. But when I was researching whether to self-publish, statistics were everywhere: Downloads. Amazon ranking. Page views. Indie fairy tales with a six-figure ending. E-readers market share. Decline in print sales.

Every one, it seemed, was talking about devices and distribution, consumers and downloaders. But what about the readers? In the mad dash for visibility and platform creation, some writers seem to have forgotten that not only does our long-term success hinge on cultivating relationships with readers—as opposed to consumers—but the stories themselves depend on devoted readers.

Sexy Statistics

There are a number of indie publishing prophets tossing around a lot of sexy statistics. For example, did you hear about Amanda Hocking’s deal? I bet you did, and hey, it’s one hell of a deal—exactly the sort of fairy tale that can make toiling away in a dark, damp basement seem worthwhile.

In fact, I have a confession to make: When I first waded into the indie publishing waters, I thought that my number one priority should be getting as many copies of KINGDOM onto as many e-readers as possible. Free downloads—that was the ticket. And through Amazon KDP free days and the like, 15,000 or so people downloaded KINGDOM. But lately I’ve been wondering: how many actually read it? The most majority of downloaded copies are probably languishing alongside a hundred or so similar freebies. The sheer glut of content generated by these promotional giveaways is staggering; how many books are being snagged then forgotten?

While these numbers might yield some sort term gain, in the long run, our stories will suffer. After all, when a story gets published, its not actually done; it’s just moving to the next stage in an on-going creative process. By devouring their favorite stories, readers often reveal elements of the characters and story that surprise even the author. Literature needs to be discussed and dissected. It needs to be loved; it needs to be loathed—visceral is always better than lukewarm. If your story is sitting on an e-reader along with 100 other indie books, odds are this will never happen.

Find Your Readers

The fascination with numbers, rather than readers, is understandable; the numbers are seductive, and all writers dream of during their hobby into a profession. But it’s critical to not allow the numbers to get in the way of engaging readers.

So what’s the antidote to all this? Rather than focusing on numbers, let’s concentrate on finding as many ways to engage readers as possible. This month, for example, I’m participating in the Book Club Bash, where reading groups get together and dissect several new indie novels, including my baby, KINGDOM. I’m thrilled, because events like Book Club Bash are going to help authors distinguish themselves from the current glut of indie authors chasing the numbers. Indie publishing is about building relationships, reader by reader.

So the next time you come across those headline grabbing indie statistics, take a deep breath. There are quite a number of writers taking the self-publishing plunge at the moment, and the ones who survive the inevitable culling will be the authors who ignore the numbers and focus on what truly matters: the reader.

About the author:
Anderson O’Donnell lives in Connecticut with his wife and 2 sons. His debut novel, Kingdom, a dystopian, biopunk thriller, is now available in paperback and ebook format. Kingdom is the first part of the Tiber City Trilogy. Look for part two, Exile, in the summer of 2013.

Find out more at tibercitynoir.com.

Synopsis:

In a secret laboratory hidden under the desert, a covert bioengineering project—codename “Exodus”—has discovered the gene responsible for the human soul.

Somewhere in the neon sprawl outside the nation’s collapsing economic core, a group of renegade monks are on the verge of uncovering a secret that has eluded mankind for centuries.

In a glittering tower high above the urban decay, an ascendant U.S. Senator is found dead—an apparent, yet inexplicable, suicide.

And in the streets below, a young man races through an ultra modern metropolis on the verge of a violent revolution....closing in on the terrible truth behind Exodus—and one man’s dark vision for the future of mankind.

Welcome to Tiber City.

Purchase at Amazon for Kindle or in Print.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Can Those in a Coma Hear Us? - Lenore Skomal - Giveaway

Can those in a coma hear us? 
Guest post by Lenore Skomal

It’s the pivotal question that launched BLUFF. Not a revolutionary or new question, but one that persists and is debated in the medical community, for one, and the world at large.

In doing the research for BLUFF, I spoke to many physicians and caregivers, and my straw poll indicates the group was evenly divided. While most doctors acquiesce that they don’t rightly know, their druthers list toward the “no, not likely.”

While my mother wasn’t in a coma, technically, she was in a deep, morphine sleep toward the end of her life, thanks to a losing battle with bone cancer. She drifted in and out of long periods of consciousness, and it had me wondering, perhaps obsessively so, about what exactly she was aware of. Her primary care doctors were sensitive about not talking about her condition in front of her, even when she was snoring. I appreciate this more than they will ever know. There was a level of respect that I bow to.

After I wrote BLUFF, an in-law of mine was admitted to the hospital and kept in a medical coma for a month. When I asked him about it later, he wasn’t comfortable discussing it, other than to say, “I don’t remember a thing.”

Others who have come out of comas have had similar responses. But they are not the norm. Actually, there are those documented cases of coma patients who do remember, and can even recall the offhand words of a careless doctor or insensitive nurse telling loved ones that they’ll never come out of it. Those cases are what keep the right to life movement fueled, especially in desperate cases where there is no hope. Oddly, however, there are no numbers to prove the case either way.

By creating this dilemma for my protagonist, I wanted to push the envelope and explore not just the idea that a comatose patient could hear, but much more. I wanted to know what it might be like to be trapped in one’s body, with no visible means of communication. And not just be trapped, but forced to face the decisions you’ve made and live with those outcomes while not being able to defend or explain yourself. My protagonist, Jude Black, finds herself in that position. And as she lies there, immobile, some strange things happen. One of them is that she actually finds herself communicating and developing a friendship with someone she loathed in her waking life.

As with most of my writing, this unusual outcome underscores something much larger and pervasive—a human frailty—basically, our tendency to judge one another. When everything is stripped away—social setting, class-consciousness, petty differences, toxic gossip—sometimes that’s enough to truly see someone. And find a commonality that can create a relationship, a bond. I played with this theme in the book, and I think you will agree that the unlikely friendship that transpires between Jude and Mary Shannon is not just poignant; it’s heartfelt and true.

To be certain, the question about just what someone in a coma can experience won’t be answered definitively by BLUFF or by me, that is unless I find myself in a hospital bed one day in a persistent vegetative state. And if that happens my friends, you can rest assured—I will get back to you about it.

About the author:

Lenore Skomal is the author of the recently released novel Bluff. As an author, Lenore wants you to eat her books. She wants you to chew them in your teeth, savor them on your tongue, breathe them in, and feel her words in your skin. Her passionate desire is to touch your heart, inspire you, and luxuriate in the world of the written word. Winner of multiple awards for blogging, literature, biography and humor, Lenore Skomal’s catalogue spans many genres. With 30 years of writing experience, over 17 books published and a daily blog, the consistent themes in her work are the big issues the human experience and adding depth and voice to the intricacies involved in living a multi-dimensional existence.

Find out more at LenoreSkomal.com.

Synopsis:

"To the medical world, I was a host body, surviving only to bring a new life into the world. And while I wanted to die more than anything in the world, I never wanted this. No, I never wanted to cease to exist. This was the worst death of all.”

Jude Black lives in that in-between, twilight place teetering on death but clinging to life in order to bring her baby into this world. Only she knows the circumstances surrounding her mysterious fall off the bluff that landed her in the hospital being kept alive by medical intervention. Only she knows who the father of her baby is. In this poignantly crafted literary novel, the mystery unfolds and the suspense builds as the consequences of Jude’s decisions threaten to reveal everyone's deceptions, even her own. Bluff offers a sensitive look at essential questions such as the value of human life, the consciousness of those in a coma and the morality of terminating life support. At the core is the story of a tragically misunderstood woman who finds peace, acceptance, understanding and even love on her deathbed.

Buy on Amazon for Kindle or in Print.

a Rafflecopter giveaway