I just received the audio CDs for DELICIOUS in the mail yesterday. Now I feel like a rock star, or at least like Diane Settlefield, whose book The Thirteenth Tale, was the last book I listened to on audio. The narrator is Virginia Leishman, who also narrated Possession by A. S. Byatt for Recorded Books. Boy, does she make me sound like Masterpiece Theater. And it’s got a great cover. (My camera is broken. I’ll see if I can’t take a picture of it with someone else’s camera.) I’m wondering if I should do a giveaway. This would be the perfect romance conversion item, cuz your quarry wouldn’t even have any idea s/he was listening to romance, until it’s too late of course.

I’m running a contest on my website, giving away an autographed copy of Shana Abé‘s Smoke Thief, the first book in her Drakon series, in honor of her upcoming new release, Treasure Keeper. I’ll interview Shana Abe and give away Treasure Keeper on my e-newsletter on the day of her release, March 24. I’ll also be posting the interview here. There is an absolutely hilarious story which I’d never read anywhere else on how she came to write about those dragons. Stay tuned.

If you haven’t read GQ‘s feature on Robert Pattinson (ya know, the guy who plays Edward Cullen in the Twilight movie), you are missing the year’s best comedy. I was rolling in the aisles. It is the most hysterically funny feature article I’ve read in a long, long time. The thing is, you have this clueless dude who comes into this mania completely blind. He is the anti-Edward, a beta male (a child, really), he doesn’t smell good, he’s insecure, completely flummoxed, and cannot stop talking earnestly and semi-coherently. I felt like making him tea, knitting him a pair of socks (I don’t know how to knit), and maybe getting a girlfriend to have pity sex with him just to tell him it’s alright. He’s a nice kid. I hope he comes out of this okay.

The only movie I want to see right now, The Young Victoria, is, alas, not yet playing in the U.S. I usually don’t go for costume dramas–surprising I guess, given I write costume dramas–except for Pride and Prejudice. But this one, I’m dying to see, cuz they’ve captured Victoria and Albert as real people, young, passionate, flawed–and hot, omg hot.

And last, but not least, I finally have a proposal accepted. Change of plans. It won’t be THE IDEAL GENTLEMAN, for now. But a new one, THE PERFECT DECEPTION. When I’m further along in the writing I will make a page for it and post excerpt. For now, I’m still grappling with elements of the story. Suffice to say, it was inspired by Meredith Duran’s upcoming book Written on Your Skin. Go read an excerpt. She is going to be one of the greats in our genre.

I recently chucked over a $25 Christmas bonus to my web designer, Frauke Spanuth of Croco Designs (whose latest showpiece is the Dear Author overhaul). And Frauke, as fabulous a woman as she is a graphic designer/code master, offered me a $25 X-mas voucher to giveaway.

What can you do with a $25 design voucher? Well, you can get yourself a set of banner/badge ads designed for All About Romance, for instance, which she has done for me recently. I think my bookmark design was for about that much too. Throw in a bit more cash, and you can get yourself a web template, which I got at the beginning of 2008 for $75, if memory serves. (Of course prices are subject to change without prior notice, etc.) And if you don’t have a webpage, she does great myspace layouts too–I’m going to have her do mine next year.

(I host my newsletter through Frauke’s other company, Janus Portal, and let me tell you, a more economical deal on e-newsletter hosting I couldn’t find.)

Sooo, what do you have to do for a chance to win this fun little prize? Well, since I’ve recently said that I should do more for my publisher, I’m going to do just that. Tell me about your favorite Bantam author(s) in the comment. (And since this is already my blog, you can leave me out.)

I’m going to start.

First up Shana Abe, one of the most lyrical writers working today.

Mary Balogh, who’s going to have 4 books out back-to-back early next year.

Sarah Addison Allen, whose debut Garden Spells I enjoyed very much.

Linnea Sinclair, a fellow Nelson Literary Agency client, is published with Bantam Spectra.

Jill Sorenson will have her Bantam debut released January 27, 2009.

Sharon Page will have her Bantam historical debut released February 24, 2009.

And my agent keeps telling me that if I want to do a big martial art epic, then I need to read Diana Gabaldon‘s Outlander–and of course, Gabaldon is a Bantam Dell author too.

Wow. Pretty darn good covers one and all.

Now it’s your turn. Tell me which BantamDell authors rock your world. And if you have testimonials of Frauke’s fabulous work, feel free to gush also.

Updated to add: The winner will be picked on December 25, of course.

Good luck!

::Picks self off the floor::

And today I got notice that the bidder paid. I’m not sure I believed she would but she did. I’m stupefied.

::Tells self that it is a beautiful, beautiful box of chocolates. And comes with an ARC of Delicious too::

Congratulations to the winner and my baffled and enormous gratitude too. And thank you also to everyone who bid on the chocolate truffles.

In other news, this time there are no chocolate truffles involved, but Romantic Times is giving away 5 signed ARCs of Delicious on its website. So go forth and enter and win yourself a free book. And I was still noticeably editing the book during the page proof stage (after the ARC was printed), so if there’s anything you don’t like in the ARC, just think that it was fixed in the end.

And to help it along a bit, I’m having a multi-prize contest. To participate in this contest, purchase a copy of Private Arrangements in the first 2 weeks of its release (3.25.08—4.7.08). Send me a scan of your receipt to writer sherry thomas at gmail dot com, with the subject “ARC Contest”, or send me a physical copy of your receipt to Sherry Thomas, P.O.Box 201372, Austin, TX 78720-1372. Three winners will each receive an advance copy of Delicious, my August 2008 release. And three more entrants will each receive, as a consolation prize, a beautiful Private Arrangements t-shirt.

The drawing will be held on May 1, 2008.

And now, the victim winner of the query consultation contest is–drum roll please–CM. Please contact me at writersherrythomas at gmail dot com to claim your prize. (And please be a little patient with me as I must wrap up copyedits on Delicious in
the next couple of days as well as a number of other PA publicity-related items.)

• Nobody ever sold a novel on a query letter. (Yeah, I know somebody must have somewhere, but most of us don’t get struck by lightning.)
• Since I could write a seductive query letter long before I could write a book worth reading, I always encourage people to obsess more about their manuscripts than their query letters.
• A query letter need not be perfect, only effective.
• However, in the process of crafting an effective query letter, we might hit on certain major deficiencies in your manuscript. For example, if we can’t synthesize a good hook, it might mean you do not have good hook for us to synthesize.
• Eventual success on any level not guaranteed.

Okay, that said, a query letter is important. I hereby offer a snark-free e-mail consultation. You must have a query letter already written for me to critique–I won’t write it from scratch. I don’t need to read your manuscript or even a partial to help you, but chances are I will need you to fill out a questionnaire after I’m done reading your query letter to help me hone in on the set-up and the conflict.

If you only have half a book, but want to enter in the hope that you might be able to use a consultation later, that’s fine with me. Just be aware that right now I have a bit of time, later I might be on deadline again.

Notice: I don’t go easy on my critiques. Sometimes it’s important to hear that you are doing fine. Other times it’s more important to get it right.

This contest runs until March 25.

Totally unrelated but have to share: I just got an awesome review from The Romance Reader, one of the most venerable romance review sites around. I think my jaw is still bouncing around on my kitchen floor somewhere. Get this, Camden, my male protagonist from Private Arrangements is said to rank “right up there with Jamie Fraser as a hero for the ages.” I don’t know about you, but for me that was a “Holy @#$%!” moment. Jamie Fraser? Holy @#$%!

ETA: Let me know in the comments if you are interested in the query consultation. One victim winner drawn on the 25th.

But anyway, if you want, go put your name in the hat. Usually these giveaway posts get 70 or so comments. So it’s like almost a 1/3 chance of getting something. Pretty darn good odds, I’d say.

And if you’ve already read PA, and want to say what you think, this is your chance too.

Full disclosure: I am good friends and critique partners with Janine of DearAuthor. But this review is by Jane, who does know me from Adam, but not much more than that.

ETA: The contest runs through 12 am CST, Friday, which means 11:59 pm CST Thursday, I guess.