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Filed in: Announcements | blog | conferences | signings Tags: NJRW | release month
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Wouldn’t you know it that my camera was out of batteries?
There were plenty of other cameras at the meeting so I’m asking around for some pics. The picture of Jim and Shannon Butcher with their fortress of books is something to behold. I had something more along the lines of a sandcastle, but it was still a lot of fun.
The Q&A with the Butchers was very engaging. They both have such different styles and approaches. I’d have to say my approach is much more along the lines of Shannon’s engineer-style method.
This week is Butterfly Swords’ last week on bookshelves as the new Harlequin Historicals go on the shelf next Tuesday. I have a couple more guest blogs to go and of course I’ll be at the New Jersey Romance Writers’ conference this Friday and Saturday. I’ll be signing at the NJRW literacy fair on Saturday, October 23 from 4:00 to 5:30pm. This time I’ll have the camera charged!
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Filed in: Announcements | blog | giveaway Tags: annotated copy | giveaways | launch celebration | schumy330
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First, the twin “butterfly” swords showcased at RWA 2010 as part of my costume:
And the winner is: Stephanie Hyacinth
Second, the color poster of schumy330′s original Butterfly Swords artwork:
And the winner is: Anne Wijaya
Third, the one-of-a-kind annotated version of Butterfly Swords:
And the winner is: Desere of South Africa
Thank you everyone for joining. I meant it when I said that this experience has been beyond my wildest expectations. I will continue to give you updates via the newsletter. Next month’s edition will have the first sneak preview of the sequel, THE DRAGON AND THE PEARL, so don’t miss out!
BUTTERFLY SWORDS will continue to sell on bookshelves for the next two weeks only so grab a copy quickly. And if you liked Butterfly Swords, take a look at THE TAMING OF MEI LIN, a linked short story from Harlequin Historical Undone full of sword fights and romance.
Congratulations and thank you everyone for your support!!
To the winners: Winners can contact me here. I also have your e-mails and I will be in touch by the end of the weekend. If any of the winners would rather have a nice print copy of Butterfly Swords for your reading pleasure, let me know and I’ll happily exchange. If any of the winners opt out, the items will be donated to the next Brenda Novak online auction for diabetes research or a similar charity.
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Filed in: Announcements | blog | events | giveaway | promotion Tags: book signing | butterfly swords grand prizes | giveaways | launch celebration
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Blog Tour: Blogging at The Burton Review about my Tang Dynasty muses. I’m the guest author this week at Unusual Historicals and you can comment up until next Sunday to be entered to win a copy of Butterfly Swords. Also blogging about Mashups and Crossovers with pics of my inspirational Fast Draft collages.
Review Round-Up: A C+ Review for Butterfly Swords from Vagabond. One shining spot is the reviewer is interested in Adrian and Miya’s story. Also a pair of reviews from Poisoned Rationality. One for The Taming of Mei Lin and one for Butterfly Swords. The Romance Reviews is launching their new book portal site and featuring a giveaway for Butterfly Swords on the site.
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We’re reaching the mid-point of October, so I can definitely say the Butterfly Swords Launch is underway. Fly little book, fly…
This is the last week to enter for the Grand Prize giveaways. I’m quite excited about the prizes as they’re very special to me:
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 The “butterfly swords”
from my costume
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 Color poster of
Wendy Wang’s artwork
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 Butterfly Swords
with author commentary
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I realized, however, that there are some people who are entered multiple times and fans of Butterfly Swords. There are others signed up who may not have read it yet. So if any winner wants to opt for just a nice clean copy of Butterfly Swords to read, instead of the geeky annotated version, I’ll happily make the switch. I figured I’d then put any traded prizes up in next year’s Brenda Novak auction or some other worthy cause.
There is also another pretty cool Butterfly Swords contest going on, hosted by Bria Quinlan, YA author and one of my trusted readers. The pictures so far gave me a good laugh. I hope there will be a couple more entries. It’s always good to smile.
I’m tempted to enter a picture of my Asian books collection because…I got some game there. Though, of course, I’d be ineligible to win.
Two more signings this month! This Saturday at the Crestwood Barnes & Noble right down the street and then next Saturday in New Jersey at the NJRW Conference. Here’s the road show. Shortly after that, Butterfly Swords will be flitting out of bookstores and only available for order online.
You can still join the celebration and enter the drawings by blogging, tweeting, and getting the word out. I’ll draw the names October 15 and post on October 16 before I head out to the MORWA meeting and my signing.
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Filed in: Announcements | blog | friends and family Tags: world teacher day
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Blog Tour: Casting for the BUTTERFLY SWORDS movie at VauxHall Vixens. For fun only, there is no movie in the works other than in my wildest fantasies. Also blogging about Guy-friendly romance at Thoughts in Progress.
Review Round Up: Medieval Bookworm wrote up a nice review for Butterfly Swords. Also 4 1/2 Flowers of Love review for Butterfly Swords at Diva Bookcase.
Book Club Vote: Thanks to Daz for pointing out that Butterfly Swords is a candidate for Book Club pick for October. I really would love to discuss Trial by Desire for it’s atypical romance hero, so that’s the one I voted for, but take a look and vote for the title that piques your interest. The Season October Book Club.
And in case you missed it, I’m joining the Dear Author online book chat on Butterfly Swords this Saturday from 7pm to 9pm EST. Drop by any time. No link yet, but here are some details.
***
In a surprise request, SOS Aloha interviewed me for World Teacher Day. I was very humbled and had to tell Kim that I was no longer a teacher, but she insisted that once a teacher, always a teacher. That’s true in part, but I can’t claim to be a teacher now that I’m no longer in the trenches. At the same time, she’d read in my bio that I started writing while teaching high school and she wanted to feature teachers who wrote romance in today’s blog.
I re-read the interview and saw that the other interviewee quoted Carl Jung whereas I provided two quotes from a guy named Joshua Hartford. I thought for a moment that I should have quoted someone like Paulo Freire or Gandhi. I mean, I had a decent collection of inspirational quotes about teaching from my master’s program way back when.
But I think I have to stick by Joshua Hartford. He played a influential role in teaching me how to teach. Don’t you get WTD double bonus points for teaching a teacher? And though I realize those two quotes might make no sense out of context, they’re the words of advice that stuck with me.
In short: “Get it done. And it’s going to hurt doing it, but that doesn’t mean you’re not on the right track.”
I’d have to say, after teaching in South Central and having the experience of starting a charter school, this writing gig sometimes seems like cake. Rejections are merely paper cuts, revisions par for the course. A rejection can’t hurt worse than a student failing a course after you’ve worked so hard to help them. And how many times did I revise every lesson I taught?
Joshua Hartford is now the principal of Animo Pat Brown in Los Angeles. It’s a school started by some of the finest people I’ve ever known on this earth and earned a California Distinguished School Award only four years after inception.
Happy World Teacher Day APB teachers. Keep on fighting the good fight.
Hartford is that bloke sitting in the lower right hand corner.
Say hello and thank you to one of your past teachers in honor of World Teacher Day.
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Filed in: Announcements | blog | event
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Launch Celebration: The October 1 drawing was delayed because I was traveling to Seattle! I sincerely apologize. I will randomly draw the winners tonight and post them tomorrow. Thank you everyone for your support!
Review Round Up: Amber of Buried By Books reviewed Butterfly Swords with a C+/B- grade. Another review by Goodreads reviewer Jean Marie Ward, who I believe won the Goodreads giveaway, and one more from book blogger Mala on Bad Necklace. Hope I didn’t miss anybody.
The Pink Heart Society has selected Butterfly Swords for their October Book Club . Come back there October 26 to discuss the book. Speaking of book chats, I’m gearing up for the book chat on Dear Author next Saturday from 7pm to 9pm EST. I’ll definitely be there and will post details about joining the chat as I get them.
***
Some people are surprised and probably wonder why I re-tweet and post less than stellar reviews. Two authors I respect, Stacia Kane and Joanna Bourne, link and acknowledge every review good or bad. And, frankly, I don’t think they’re awful reviews and I just like that people are reading and talking.
I’m still at the ECWC conference. I’m having a fabulous time. I got to attend Kristina McMorris’ “Selling the Hard Sell” workshop and scribbled notes furiously. Wonderful info on marketing. I hope we get a chance to merge our two talks together at RWA 2011.
My first book signing was AWESOME! I got to chat with many new faces and I was overwhelmed that so many people wanted to buy multiple copies to do giveaways on their blogs. Butterfly Swords sold out early, but that meant I could get up and speak with some authors. 
I got a chance to pick up The Iron Duke by Meljean Brook as well as Kris Kennedy’s The Conqueror and The Irish Warrior. I’ve been waiting to get my hands on hers for a while now. I also grabbed Rose Lerner’s In for a Penny which looks fabulous.
And here’s a bit of fun. Kung-fu Action Theatre posted a audio reading of the opening of Butterfly Swords. I believe there’s a podcast as well. I had to do a lot of takes and I’ve decided I don’t have a great voice for radio. Next time, I must find a narrator with a sexy voice…preferably with an English accent.
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Filed in: Announcements | blog Tags: book chat | dear author | free ereader | kobo books | promotion
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Huge thanks to Jane from Dear Author and to Kobo Books for setting up this special promotion for Butterfly Swords. In an effort to support the book, she contacted Kobo and the organization has offered to give away one free Kobo reader to a random customer who purchases Butterfly Swords any time between October 1 and October 31.
According to Jane:
“I wanted to promote Butterfly Swords, not only because it is a good book, but because it is a book that is set in a non European locale with non European characters. Not that I don’t love a good UK set romance. I do, but there is a plethora of them. And given all the struggles that authors have had trying to bring multiculturalism to fiction (think of the passing by big chains of Cindy Pon’s Phoenix Rising), I think it’s quite brave of Harlequin to buy this book, put some marketing muscle behind it (it was the only Harlequin Historical offered at NetGalley), and place an in-your-face Asian chick on the cover.” Entire blog post here
In addition to the giveaway, Dear Author is also hosting a book chat on Saturday October 9th from 7pm to 9pm EST. I’m very excited to attend. I apologize that the time doesn’t work for many overseas readers, but I believe the transcripts from the chats are usually released afterward.
The Kobo Books Butterfly Swords link will go live October 1. I am tempted to buy a copy myself….but that wouldn’t quite be fair.
I’m going to go and let this all sink in for a moment. Looking forward to meeting some readers at the book chat on October 9th!
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Filed in: Announcements | blog Tags: release date | shelved | walmart
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Author buddy Maisey Yates sent me this safari picture of a Butterfly Swords spotting in the wilds of Walmart:
And I’ve also received e-mails letting me know that the book has been shelved at certain Borders. So I guess I was wrong. Butterfly Swords is already on shelves this weekend. *bounce* *bounce*
Maisey’s North American debut, His Virgin Acquisition, from Harlequin Presents is also on the shelves. I’ll have to go out and hunt for a copy later today–and distribute bookmarks. I said I’d be rid of them by October and, doggone it, they will be out of here!
I remarked that “release date” doesn’t seem to mean what I thought it meant, but then Little Sis educated me that the release date is when bookstores can promise buyers they’ll have the book available. They receive the shipment before the date and can be shelved at any time.
One more day to win an autographed copy of Butterfly Swords from Goodreads as well:
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Filed in: Announcements | blog | book reviews
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Guest blog: Forgot about that UK time difference thing. My Call story is up at the Pink Heart Society. Anyone curious about how it all happened.
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Advance reviews are always coming out and, I confess, I hungrily search for them. I’m weak…
I never know whether to respond or not, but I liked Stacia Kane’s take on it. Good or bad, acknowledge the review and thank them for their time. It does take a lot of time and effort to read through the book and then to put your thoughts together coherently.
I’m making it my policy to not comment on reviews other than a nice thank you and I will not show up on any review sites to comment or reply. If you ever see me doing so, smack me upside the head and send me away. But I can acknowledge the reviewers here on my blog.
For Butterfly Swords:
Romantic Times
★★★★ Review
You need to be a subscriber to view this early. Otherwise it will be available in October.
Monkey Bear Reviews
A- Grade Review by Sarah
Sonoma Lass (x-posted on Dear Author)
A Grade Review by SonomaLass
The Romance Reviews
★★★★★ – Review by Carol
And various reviewers from GoodReads
Range: ★★★ – ★★★★★
For The Taming of Mei Lin:
The Season
9 stars out of 10 – Review by Katrina
Dear Author
B- Review by Jane
Various reviewers from Goodreads
Range: ★★★★ – ★★★★★
Thank you for everyone for reading and reviewing!
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Filed in: Announcements | Asian fantasy | blog Tags: giveaway | launch celebration | newsletter | warrior women month
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Thank you to all that subscribed to the newsletter!
In the wide, open landscape that is the internet, it’s hard to know who you’re broadcasting to. I like to connect with people on a more intimate level if possible. Though an e-mail is hardly the most personal of measures, this newsletter update is the best way for me to stay in touch with readers and I’ll continue to offer promotions that are exclusive to newsletter subscribers. Hopefully, if fortune favors it, I’ll be able to meet some of you in the future.
Of all the people near and far who let me know that they “Can’t Wait” for Butterfly Swords, one won’t have to wait too much longer:
Congratulations Christine Alba! I’ll be putting your autographed copy of Butterfly Swords in the mail today.
Remember that the Launch Celebration begins on September 1, 2010 with the release of “The Taming of Mei Lin” a digital short story from Harlequin Historical Undone. I’ll also be starting a “Warrior Women Month” feature on the blog with interviews and features celebration the strong women that inspire me.
Tell everyone you know. The more the merrier.
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Filed in: Announcements | blog | writing Tags: author copies | butterfly swords | debut novel
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Need I say more?
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