Leelou Blogs: Welcome to Day 3 of Leelou's Favorite Things Givea...

Leelou Blogs: Welcome to Day 3 of Leelou's Favorite Things Givea...: "Welcome to Day 3 of Leelou's Favorite Things Giveaways. I take my absolute favorite things from the year and give you a chance to win them! ..."

Author Marjorie M. Liu Release Party and Contest LIVE at BBB

Visit Bitten by Books today for a great Release Party and Contest with Marjorie. Trust me you don't want to miss this one.

Author Lisa Desrochers Interview and Contest LIVE at BBB

Lisa is at Bitten by Books answering questions and hosting a great giveaway. Dont miss it.

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Happy Thanksgiving!!

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Sparkling Reviews Nook Giveaway

If you liked Sparkling Reviews last Kindle contest you will not want to miss this one. This time they are giving away a Nook Color. But they have to reach 1100 followers first. Go here, follow and enter. Dont miss your chance!

Gratitude Giveaways Ends 11/28

If you havent seen it theres currently a great event going around called Gratitude Giveaways. They all end on 11/28. Below are a few of my favorites that I have found. (In no particular order)

The Happy Booker
Knitting and Sundries
Blkosiner's Book Blog
Murphy's Library
Cuzinlogic
Musings of a Reader Happy
Bitsy Bling Books
Missy's Reads & Reviews
A Little Hope

Review - To The Limit

To the Limit by Cindy Gerard

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I loved Cindy's Black Ops series when I found it over the summer. After reading those I had to start the Bodyguard series. The first in the series was good but this one was so much better. I loved it and didnt want to stop reading. If you are looking for a good romantic suspense this is definitely one you have to pick up. While I also am one of those that doesnt read a series out of order, you really dont have to read the first Bodyguard book to read this one.



View all my reviews

Review - Indulgence in Death

Indulgence in Death (In Death, #31) by J.D. Robb

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I really never thought I would still like a series this much after 31 books. But this is another excellent case in the Eve and Roarke world and if you liked the ones previous you need to pick this one up asap.



View all my reviews

Contest Links for 11/21

November Debut Contest - Ends 11/26

Win The Sapphire Talisman - Ends 11/26

Maeva's Birthday Giveaway - Ends 11/27

Elisabeth Naughton Book Giveaway - Ends 11/28

Blogoversary Giveaway Win a CSN Giftcard - Ends 11/30

Win the Monstrumologist - Ends 12/3

Thanksgiving Contest - Ends 12/6

Loud Words & Sounds: Thanks to the 1st Event

Loud Words & Sounds is having a fun event until the end of the month called Thanks to the 1st. Check out all the events here.

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Contest Links for 11/17

Win The Sapphire Talisman - Ends 11/19

Cem's Book Hideout 100 Followers Contest - Ends 11/21

Rick Yancey Book Giveaway - Ends 11/21

Vampire Book Club 500 Follower Giveaway - Ends 11/22


Addicted 2 Novels Blogoversary Giveaway - Ends 11/25

What's on the Bookshelf Book Giveaway - Ends 11/26

Book Rat November Thankfulness Giveaway - Ends 11/30

Ivy's Reads 100 Followers Giveaway

Sparkling Reviews Amazon Giveaway

Sparkling Reviews is not only having an awesome Kindle contest. (Dont forget to enter and soon, ends 11/18!) They are also offering up 2 $25 Amazon Giftcards to try and get enough followers for the next level prize as well. But hurry this ends on 11/20. Enter here.

The Book Depository 10% Off

Spread the Christmas Love from The Book Depository.

If anyone would like a 10% voucher from The Book Depository leave a comment with your email below and I will send one out.

Thanks! Lets spread the love and buy books for the holidays this year!

Guest Post - Scott Nicholson and Kindle Giveaway Blog Tour

The Writing Life
By Scott Nicholson
http://www.hauntedcomputer.com/

If you read too many writing blogs, you might get the impression that writers sit around in coffee shops all day discussing “Bird By Bird” and the hermeneutic elements inherent in Wolfe’s Look Homeward Angel.

I don’t know how other writers do it, but I’m working by the seat of my pants. Butt in chair. Stealing moments that are probably better spent on family and community. But I reconcile it with the notion that I am sharing ideas that help us learn about the world—sometimes the message isn’t pretty, but we’re here to survive, not look good.

So as I sit here in my little in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, 12 miles from the nearest gas station, I can tell you what you support when you buy my books, and why I don’t “need” your money.

The two biggest purchases I’ve made in the past year are a beat-up 1985 pickup and a chainsaw. Sure, I’ve made a little extra money on books this year, but I paid down on the house and I gave a little away. I don’t really like money that much. The universe always delivers when an expense arises, almost in perfect concert with the need. In 1998 my son needed braces. At the same time, I won a big crash prize in the international Writers of the Future contest. My daughter will need braces next year. Disintegration became a Kindle bestseller. Who can argue with the synchronicity of such things?

What do I do when I am not writing? I cut firewood. I tend my organic garden. I save seeds, which is more than just a blooming sideline business—I have a mission of preserving rarer strains, particularly a few Cherokee varieties indigenous to the area that moved West on the Trail of Tears during the forced displacement of the tribe. I take care of my chickens. I don’t kill them, though I eat their eggs, but I feel that’s a fair trade for protecting them for all those beasties out there who like things that taste like chicken.

I work as a newspaper reporter and have won press association awards. I have a reputation of being fair and accurate. I respect the people I write about, even when I disagree with their positions. I go to lots of different churches but I am a small-T taoist. I’m a small-L libertarian, but my political and moral philosophy falls under what I call “compassionate self-reliance”—take care of yourself but do just a little extra for the next guy who might not be so fortunate.

When you buy my books, you’re doing more than just trading me money for my time and ideas and talent. You are investing in this approach. If I were whoring and doping and investing in polluting industry, I’d be ashamed to ask for your support. I am not arrogant or smug about it, but I try to do good wherever I go, as best I can.

Sure, sometimes I fall prey to ego or desire or fear. And when I do, it usually goes right into a story and flushes itself out. And I write the next sentence and turn the next page. I don’t know anything about the “writing life.” This is the only life I know.


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This week’s Scott special is As I Die Lying, 99 cents for a limited time.


Scott Nicholson is author of 12 novels, including the thrillers Disintegration, Drummer Boy, Forever Never Ends, The Skull Ring, Burial to Follow, and They Hunger. His revised novels for the U.K. Kindle are Creative Spirit, Troubled, and Solom. He’s also written four comic series, six screenplays, and more than 60 short stories. His story collections include Ashes, The First, Murdermouth: Zombie Bits, and Flowers.

To be eligible for the Kindle DX or Kindle 3, simply post a comment below with contact info. Feel free to debate and discuss the topic, but you will only be entered once per blog. Visit all the blogs on the tour and increase your odds. I’m also giving away a Kindle 3 through the tour newsletter and a Pandora’s Box of free e-books to a follower of “hauntedcomputer” on Twitter. Thanks for playing. Complete details at http://www.hauntedcomputer.com/blogtour.htm

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Guest Post - Vincent Zandri

Writing Advice for Newbies
By Vincent Zandri


Lately, a lot of interviewers have been asking me to lend some advice to newbie writers, especially young people just starting out. So for better or worse, here it is:

1. Stay in school. No writer who has to work three jobs as a dishwasher just to pay his rent ever managed to write the great American novel. Course I could be wrong here.

2. Read everything you can, starting with the classics, the Hemingways, the Faulkners, the Fitzgeralds, the Mailers, the Conrads, the Tolstoys…Skip the Dickens except for Tale of Two Cities. Especially read novels in your favorite genre. If you love noir, read all the Parker, Hammett, Spillane, Huston, and Zandri you can get your hands on. Then read some more.

3. Write like crazy, even if its just character sketches. Learn to pack the biggest punch using the least amount of words possible. And always keep a notebook with you at all times.

4. Be a newspaper reporter first. Write for an editor who demands timely, terse, 100-300 words pieces twice a day. Pieces that require a beginning, a middle and a resolution in the smallest amount of space possible. The job should be extremely low paying, and extremely high pressure. But do it anyway. Not only will you build up clips, but you will learn to work under pressure, when you don’t feel like it, when you’re hung over, when you’ve just found out your girlfriend is sleeping with your best friend behind your back, when an asteroid is approaching planet earth… Trust me, even Hemingway will tell you there is no better training for a would-be novelist.

5. Don’t be a newspaper reporter for too long. 3 to 5 years max. Then become a freelance writer and split your creative time between articles for magazines and newspapers, both online and paper (by 2020 it will be all online), and writing fiction. Write some short stories and try and get them published. Then start your novel. Don’t stop writing the novel until you have a complete draft, even if it’s crap. You can always edit or start another one.

6. Don’t get married or have children. You won’t be able to afford it. Also, for ten years or so, your writing will be both spouse and mistress. You're legal sig other won't be able to compete. have a boyfriend/girlfriend instead.

7. Share an apartment with friends if you can and don’t buy a new car. By a beater.

8. Get a passport and travel to as many destinations as you can. Never stay home for more than a couple of months at a time.

9. Live in Europe for a year. Europeans are different from Americans. They don’t place as a high value on making money the way we do.

10. Persevere, even when the dream seems impossible. Never give up! Because what do you call writers who never give up? Published!

Vincent Zandri is an award-winning novelist, essayist and freelance photojournalist. His novel As Catch Can (Delacorte) was touted in two pre-publication articles by Publishers Weekly and was called “Brilliant” upon its publication by The New York Post. The Boston Herald attributed it as “The most arresting first crime novel to break into print this season.” Other novels include the bestselling, Moonlight Falls,Godchild (Bantam/Dell) and Permanence (NPI). Translated into several languages including Japanese and the Dutch, Zandri’s novels have also been sought out by numerous major movie producers, including Heyday Productions and DreamWorks. Presently he is the author of the blogs, Dangerous Dispatches and Embedded in Africa for Russia Today TV (RT). He also writes for other global publications, including Culture 11, Globalia and Globalspec. Zandri’s nonfiction has appeared in New York Newsday, Hudson Valley Magazine, Game and Fish Magazine and others, while his essays and short fiction have been featured in many journals including Fugue, Maryland Review and Orange Coast Magazine. He holds an M.F.A. in Writing from Vermont College and is a 2010 International Thriller Writer’s Awards panel judge. Zandri currently divides his time between New York and Europe. He is the drummer for the Albany-based punk band to Blisterz.


His latest book is the bestselling thriller novel, The Remains.
You can visit his website at www.vincentzandri.com or his blog at www.vincentzandri.blogspot.com.

____________________________________

Thanks Vincent for the great guest post and Pump Up Your Book for allowing me to be a part of this tour. I am really looking forward to reading The Remains. Look for my review on December 17th.

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Contest Links for 11/4

1787 Followers Giveaway - Ends 11/10

YA Bookie Monster 100 Follower Contest - Ends 11/10

Story on a Page Blogoversary - Ends 11/14

Unread Reader Followers Giveaway

Wolf Signs Winner

Congrats to Sarah for winning a copy of Wolf Signs.

Contest Links for 11/2

Win The Dead Boys - Ends 11/4

Win 3 Doomsday Brethren books - Ends 11/5

DB Reynolds Book Giveaway - Ends 11/5

Win Venom - Ends 11/5

Win Branded by Fire - Ends 11/5

I Heart Monster Smart Chicks Giveaway - Ends 11/5

Iron Fey Giveaway - Ends 11/5

Win Blood Trinity - Ends 11/5

The Giveaway of the Undead - Ends 11/6

Win a Blood Lines novel - Ends 11/7

Trick or Treat Contest - Ends 11/7

Win Deadly Intent - Ends 11/7

Win Extraordinary - Ends 11/13


Win Radiance - Ends 11/14

Fall Into Fantasy - Parnormalcy/Firelight - Ends 11/15

Devon Monk Interview and Contest at BBB

Devon Monk is at Bitten by Books with a great interview and contest. Trust me this is another one you dont want to miss.

Author Caridad Piñeiro Release Party and Contest LIVE at BBB

Dont Miss It! Visit Bitten by Books here. Ends 11/2/10.