Friday, December 18, 2009

Windswept Shore by Janice Seagraves


Windswept Shores by Janice Seagraves
$3.50
Coming Soon 02/04/2010

Windswept Shores by Janice Seagraves
Cover Contest Winner erotic contemporary romance novella
(approx 25-30K)
price $3.50
Cover Art by Pink Petal Books with assistance from Winterheart Design
ISBN# to be assigned

BLURB: The sole survivor of a plane crash, Megan is alone on a deserted island in the Bahamas until she finds a nearly-drowned man washed up on shore. Another survivor, this time from a boat wreck.
With only meager survival skills between them, will they survive and can they find love?
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Yup, this one is mine.
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I wrote it two years ago, and when I saw the cover contest at Pink Petal books I liked the second cover, and thought it would be perfect for my ms Windswept.
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So I polished it up and sent it in. I wish I could say I turned my mind to other things. But . . .
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The truth is I felt a little ill, lol.
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It was the first time I have ever sent off a full book length manuscript off. Well it wasn't just like that, I had to make up a submission package first. That's the first three chapter which have to be perfectly edited, the blurb, and the synopsis.
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But I did it.
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Then I got a request for the full manuscript, then after a two week wait I got the word . . . a contract offer on my book. I had to read the email several times just to make sure I wasn't seeing things, lol. I think a lot of writers have that same reaction.
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I have a lot of good people to thank who gave the courage to enter this contest. All the good puppies at Avoid Writer Hell yahoo group. My Mentor Faith Bicknell-Brown she calls us her puppies, and hits us with a rolled up newspaper when we're been bad. Tess McKall, her second in command.
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My writer friends Lisa Griffin, Connie Wood, and Brenda Weaver who I bugged constantly for advice. Which one reads better--one, two or three?
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My first beta reader Gaynor Lewis, who read my baby when it was just a dream and a couple of chapters.
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And the first person to read the whole thing Connie Wood.
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She Beta read the full ms, and gave me lots of great advice. You see my hero is from Australia, and so is Connie.
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I will forever be indebted to her for her encouragement, and her help with the Aussie slang. She also helped me nail down who my hero Seth is, and where he grew up. We decided that he grew up in Sidney Australia, and learned how to surf at Bondi beach.
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It was a lot of fun doing the research for my book. I did tons of web-searches, bought books on how to speak Australian, and on the Bahamas. I also bought a film made by a Bahamian featuring one of the main islands, and another with just film footage of the beaches called Waves. I like to hear the sound of the waves don't you?
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Did you know that there are something like three hundred islands that make up the Bahamas? And only about eighty are inhabited? The water is a natural teal color, and an iridescent purple at night. The sea is somewhat shallow and reefing by boats is a real hazard. That's why I had my hero's boat get reefed.
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My heroine Megan, was heading to the main vacation spot Nassau when her plane went down, she was the first one to the island and had to figure out how to stay alive.
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But life isn't easy on a deserted island, they face dangerously brittle trees, cannibal crabs, meat eating boars, unpredictable weather and even pirates.
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But will they find love?

Sunday, December 13, 2009

All Romance eBooks

All Romance eBooks Offers Over 50,000 DRM Titles to Readers on the iPhone Online eBook (http://omnilit.com) retailer All Romance eBooks™ (ARe) now carries thousands of DRM titles in the eReader format making them available to iPhone and iPod Touch users of the Lexcycle Stanza app.
Palm Harbor, FL (PRWEB) Dec! ember 10, 2009 -- ARe announced today a move to include the eReader format as an option for their eBook downloads that will increase the number of titles available to Stanza users from 10,000 to over 50,000, including protected DRM files on both their All Romance and OmniLit mobile sites.
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"Many of our titles are only available in formats which include DRM (digital rights manager), a form of encryption," explains ARe's founder Lori James. "Now with the addition of the eReader format, we can offer a solution to our mobile readers who want to buy titles such as Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol, Stephanie Meyer's New Moon, or Lora Leigh's Bengal's Heart."
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ARe and Lexcycle, the company behind the critically acclaimed Stanza electronic book reader, joined forces and began offering eBooks to iPhone and iPod users last November. The titles from both of ARe's sites, including fiction, non-fiction, and romance eBooks (http://allromanceebooks.com) are accessible for reading on Stanza. Stanza is available from the iTunes App Store for free.
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About Lexcycle and Stanza Lexcycle strives to bring the digital reading revolution to readers around the world. With over 2.7 million users in 75 countries, Lexcycle's Stanza is one of the most popular electronic book readers for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch. To learn more, visit http://www.lexcycle.com.
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About All Romance eBooks All Romance eBooks, LLC was founded in 2006, is privately held in partnership, and headquartered in Palm Harbor, Florida. The company owns All Romance, which specializes in the sale of romance eBooks and OmniLit, which sells both fiction and non-fiction eBooks.

Friday, December 04, 2009

News Bites from the Copyright Alliance

News Bites from the Copyright Alliance
December 4, 2009

Dear Copyright Advocates,

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and beginning of this festive holiday season!

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Find us on Facebook! The Copyright Alliance has a Facebook page. If you're not already a fan, take a minute to connect with us there!
Resources for educators.The Copyright Alliance Education Foundation has a variety of free resources for educators to use in K-12 and college classrooms. Check them out today!
Enjoy the blogs below and have a great weekend!

Lucinda
The Consequences of Movie PiracyBy Patrick Ross, Executive Director, The Copyright AllianceThere remains a stubbornness out there among some Internet users, a sense of entitlement to enjoying someone else's creativity without payment to the creator. Read more >>

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Pirates AhoyThis blog was written by Michelle Gagnon, a crime fiction writer. The blog was originally posted on The Kill Zone, and is reprinted with permission from the author.

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I received a Google alert last week for a website called, "Plunder.com." I clicked on it, and lo and behold, it led to a file sharing site. And there were all three of my books, in their entirety, available for free download. Including THE GATEKEEPER, which was just released two weeks ago... Read more >>

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Stuff Infringers LikeBy Patrick Ross, Executive Director, The Copyright AllianceWe write a lot on this blog about the puzzling ability of those who are able to rationalize their acquisition of a creator's work without permission or compensation. Some of those logic-twisting rationalizations are debunked in our piece, "Critiquing Copyright Canards." We're not the only ones who have observed this, and picked up on how silly the rationalizations are. Let me introduce you to the "Stuff White People Like" blog by Christian Lander... Read more >>

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Technically, Parasites Take and Don't GiveBy Patrick Ross, Executive Director, The Copyright AllianceThere is a lack of understanding of the creative process and the motivations of potential present and future payment that drives creators to create, and of the role copyright plays in that motivation. A columnist in the U.K.'s Guardian newspaper - my general read of choice when I lived in England - gets that this lack of understanding about creativity is truly troubling... Read more >>

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Infringement is Real, Ignoring it is UnrealBy Patrick Ross, Executive Director, The Copyright AllianceIn rhetoric, there's an old trick - begin with a true statement, and then follow with an argument that does not naturally follow from the true statement. When challenged, ignore the criticism of the argument and instead defend the true statement.

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Here's an example. True statement - "We'll always have copyright infringement. You can never completely eradicate it." False following argument - "Copyright owners should accept infringement as a reality and pursue other paths for compensation." Read more >>

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Debunking the Crazy, Lazy, Hazy Artist MythBy Lucinda Dugger, Director of Outreach, The Copyright AllianceWhy is it that people think that in order to be an artist, you have to be this crazy, lazy, ungrounded person that lives in a hazy do-what-you-will, when-you-want state?

Truth be told, most successful artists are not this way at all. [Side note: when I say 'successful' here, I mean artists that are making a living off of what they do, not just the most famous of artists.] Read more >>

Tuesday, December 01, 2009

Winter Festival : Pink Petal Books, Because Love is a beautiful thing

Winter Festival : Pink Petal Books, Because Love is a beautiful thing: "Winter Festival

Welcome to the Winter Festival at Pink Petal Books. While we understand that our readers celebrate different holidays and have different traditions, one thing we can all agree on is that we love to receive gifts. So, from December 10-23 we'll be featuring participating authors. When you purchase that author's book(s), you'll receive a gift.
Gifts will be given to the first twelve customers on any day, and only one gift per customer, per day.
Winter Festival Schedule
December 10 - Sandra Cox is offering a snowman clip refrigerator magnet, perfect for your lists and reminders, with the purchase of her book Flower Power.
December 11 - As a thank you from Pink Petal Books, we're offering jingle bell bracelets.
December 12 - Jessica Quinn has beaded wreaths for customers who purchases her book, King of Cats.
December 13 & 14 - It may be snowing, or it may not. However our customers will receive a snowflake ornament with their purchase.
December 15 - Connie Wood brings us beaded evergreen trees for customers who purchase her book The Veteran.
December 16 - Let it snow! There are more snowflakes for our customers.
December 17 - Lex Valentine has snowman 'I <3 Reading' bookmarks for readers who want to enjoy her Tales from the Darkworld series.
December 18 - And it's a final day of snow today.
December 19 - Karenna Colcroft has a beaded snowman pin for customers who purchase Beginner's Luck.
December 20 - It's getting close to the holidays. Today is a Winter Surprise day.
December 21 - Angelia Sparrow has moose ornaments for customers who purchase her book Shell Shocked.
December 22 - It's Winter Surprise Take 2. Who knows what you'll receive? Well Mary does, a"

Bad Sex prize awarded to American author

Bad Sex prize awarded to American author
For his crude portrayal of sex, Littell wins the award given to fiction writers

updated 8:01 a.m. PT, Tues., Dec . 1, 2009
LONDON - A cringe-inducing passage which compares a sexual encounter to battle with an one-eyed mythological monster was awarded Britain's Bad Sex in Fiction Prize on Monday.

The editors of the Literary Review magazine said best-selling American author Jonathan Littell won the prize for describing a sex act as "a jolt that emptied my head like a spoon scraping the inside of a soft-boiled egg."

The offending passage compared female genitalia to various Greek fiends, including the mythical monster Gorgon and "a motionless Cyclops whose single eye never blinks."

Littell beat other shortlisted authors including Paul Theroux and John Banville to the prize, which celebrates crude or ridiculous descriptions of sex in modern literature.

Littell's book, "The Kindly Ones," is a 900-page epic narrated by a fictional Nazi officer. Originally published in French, the international best-seller won France's top literary honor, the Goncourt Prize, in 2006.

Last year, the magazine gave the annual prize to British writer Rachel Johnson for a passage in her satirical novel "Shire Hell." John Updike was awarded a lifetime achievement award after he had been shortlisted for the prize four times in its 17-year history.

Literary Review said Littell's editor accepted the prize, but the author himself was not available for comment.