Private Arrangements Giveaway!

DearAuthor is giving away 20 copies of PRIVATE ARRANGEMENTS. Final copies too, from what I understand. That Jane, she is scary efficient. I don't even have final copies yet.

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.

Michelle, You Tease, You

A couple of days ago Michelle Buonfiglio dropped me an e-mail.

I'd come across her name a couple of times before--she gave the cover blurb on Eve Kenin's Driven, and Lisa Lleypas thanked her in the acknowledgment section of one of her contemporaries--but I didn't really know who she was. Well, she is a great advocate for the genre, lifetimetv.com's romance columnist, and the marquee name at Romance B(u)y the Book.

And she picked up PRIVATE ARRANGEMENTS out the hundreds of ARCs she receives every months, read it, liked it, and wants to feature it. (Can you tell how thankful I am that my publisher gave PA a distinctive cover?) I feel like Lana Turner, discovered at a drugstore soda fountain.

And the woman works fast. She's already posted a fun tease for PA.

Really, I'm a little overwhelmed with the attention PRIVATE ARRANGEMENTS is getting. Maybe I should fly up to Hayden Christensen's farm up north and have a chat with him about how to deal with sudden fame. :-) Oh, look. Here's another stack of 1065 tax returns. Okay, that will do too.

My very own Desert Isle Keeper

I was at AllAboutRomance this afternoon doing my usual drive-by review reading. And then I had to blink and look at my screen again. It's still five weeks before PRIVATE ARRANGEMENTS's street date, but AAR's review is online.

Now when I go to RWA nationals next time, I'll get to wear one of those "I've been DIK'ed by AAR" pins that I so coveted in Dallas.

This is a true milestone. I've been reading AAR since the previous century--indeed, the previous millenium. :-) And I have waited a long time for one of my own books to join that venerated desert isle. My grade is an A-, rather than an outright A. But oh well, next time.

In other news, the excerpt of DELICIOUS is up at last.

SherryThomas.com

Yesterday was an excellent, excellent day.

I know you've been thinking, well, sixty hours a week isn't that much, there is still 52 waking hours left to update this blog and run the pay-it-forward contest. :-) That would be very true, if I hadn't spent so many of those 52 remaining waking hours getting my new website into shape.

Well yesterday, after all sorts of wrangling, the new website finally went live--which necessitated some further wrangling, as the remote browser turned out to be a lot less forgiving than my local browser. But now everything works--in IE and Firefox at least, though it is somewhat wobbly in Firefox: the formatting is a little off at times and the "back to top" links remain stubbornly comatose. And my gorgeous and smart husband just pointed out to me that my printable book list is a Microsoft Word document, which is limited to the Windows platform. So I guess I'll be switching it to a pdf file very soon.

And I know this will be disappointing to the two diehard Sherry Thomas fans out there, :-) but the DELICIOUS excerpt isn't live yet. I had actually styled the exerpt and everything before I remembered that I can only post as excerpt what my publisher uses on its website and in print. So that will go up as soon as I know what portion of DELICIOUS Bantam plans to use.

But still, go ahead and give it a look-see. The newsletter subscription is live, though it will be a few more days before the subscription page is styled to look exactly like my site.

A great big happy-sobbing "Thank You" goes out to my friend Michelle McGinnis, a true web maven, who has been instrumental in helping me achieve my dream of becoming my own webmaster. Just think, before Michelle came into the picture, I didn't know about syntax-sensitive editors or link checkers or even how exactly my html files would upload into my server.

A great big "Thank You" also goes out to Frauke of CrocoDesigns, the woman responsible for the look of the new site and a consummate professional in every way.

And thank you so much, dear blog readers, for your patience. I will try to better at blogging when all the craziness calms down a little.

Here's a little guest-blogging I did at the Valenduckie event at The Good, the Bad, and The Unread, in case you are desperately looking for something to read. :-)

Until next time.

Updated to add: My Library Journal interview is online and that is everything you'll ever need to know about me. :-D

Death by Tax Returns

No, not my own, those at work.

I've been doing lots of them. Lots. On Monday I worked 14 hours. On Valentine's day I worked 10 hours, and that's only because in the afternoon I took a 2 hour break to work on my website, otherwise another 12 hour day.

So the Pay-it-forward contest will have to postpone a little. Sorry. ::hangs head in shame::

My contract expires on February 28. (I'm a seasonal worker. Saying that makes me feel a bit like migrant farm labor but that's what I am.) I suspect at the beginning of March I will still be flat out racing to finish my line-edits and all sorts of promotional stuff for PRIVATE ARRANGEMENTS.

So the new date for the pay-it-forward contest will be March 15. And I've decided not to promote it elsewhere. It will be just for readers of this blog. The contest closes on March 25. I will wake up that day ready to pay it forward. :-)