Feline Friday: Cats in the Sun

I realize that it has been a while since I posted a Feline Friday blog. Believe me, it's not because the cats have stopped being cute. Snort. I've just been distracted by writing and gardens and fall, oh my.

And, of course, the ongoing CONTEST AND GIVEAWAY that's running here until midnight on Saturday the 18th (there are some options you can do every day, even if you have already entered) and my Goodreads giveaway of Wickedly Dangerous (these are the last Wickedly Dangerous giveaways, so if you don't have a copy yet, or if you want one for a friend...enter now, or forever hold your peace)

 
 

    Goodreads Book Giveaway
 

   

       
   

   

     

          Wickedly Dangerous
     

     

          by Deborah Blake
     

     

         
            Giveaway ends October 18, 2014.
         

         
            See the giveaway details
            at Goodreads.
         

     

   

   

      Enter to win

But all this aside, we are clearly overdue for a cheerful dose of adorable cats, so I'm going to share one of my favorite themes with you--cats in the sun.

Magic the Cat, wondering what the heck I'm up to with the camera. Again.

Samhain, who took over the prime sunny spot on the living room floor after Magic got up.

Samhain's buddy Angus coming over to say hi.

Magic sitting, very appropriately, on a box containing a broom-making kit from the fab Robert Skinner

Okay, no cats in this one, but isn't the sunrise glorious?

Happy Friday! What is everyone doing this weekend?

Contest & Celebration! Wickedly Wonderful is Coming!

OMG! Did you realize that the release of Wickedly Wonderful, the second book in the Baba Yaga series, is only SEVEN WEEKS AWAY? *faints*

Wickedly Wonderful (and yes, that dog is a dragon too)

I guess it must be time to have a contest and giveaway!

Here's the reality: People have been asking if there will be a book three. The answer is, it depends in part on you. Any day now, my publisher Berkley will be making the decision about whether or not to go with a third book in the series. They base that decision on two things--the sales numbers for WICKEDLY DANGEROUS and the preorder numbers for WICKEDLY WONDERFUL. If those numbers are good, I get to write book three and you get to read it. If not... well.

So how do I know if the numbers are even close? I don't. But one last push couldn't hurt, right? Besides, you know I was going to do a contest sooner or later. (In fact, there will be one more right before the release.)

Of course, you don't have to preorder the book. You can help spread the word, put up a review of Wickedly Dangerous (here's a secret: reviews help authors sell books). And of course, you can just have fun!

Unfortunately, there are no ARCs to give away of Wickedly Wonderful, and I haven't gotten my copies of the book yet. So we'll just have to make do. Here's what I'm giving away:

A signed copy of Wickedly Dangerous, a signed ARC (one of my last ones), a Wickedly Dangerous mousepad, a Wickedly Wonderful notebook, and of course, my eternal gratitude :-)

ALSO, the first TEN people to enter the contest will get free bookmarks, even if they don't win.

What are you waiting for? Enter! (The contest is only open to USA and Canadian residents, I'm afraid, due to shipping costs. But if you live elsewhere, feel free to enter anyway, and if you win, I'll send you a lighter-weight swag packet.) The Wickedly Wonderful link above takes you to Penguin's site for the book, which in turn will allow you to preorder from every option you can imagine.

As always, thanks so  much for your support!

  a Rafflecopter giveaway

Some Good News

We're still working on the contract for the Super Sekrit Project, but we're getting closer, so hopefully I can announce something soon...

In the meanwhile, I have a few other bits of good news.

I found out from my agent (who found out from my editor) that Wickedly Dangerous hit Barnes and Nobles romance mass market bestseller list for the last two weeks in a row, topping out at #5 last week! Can I get a WOOT!?

Circle, Coven & Grove is still doing really well (it was at #59 in Kindle Wicca and Witchcraft last time I checked). Big thanks to everyone who bought either one! (And especially to those who put up nice reviews.)

And because I am Just That Nice (yes, I really am) I decided to put up a copy of Wickedly Dangerous for a Goodreads Giveaway. I wasn't sure if people would still be interested in such a thing, but since I got 112 entries today and I haven't even announced it yet, I guess they are :-)

It is open to USA and Canada residents, so if you haven't already bought the book (WHAT???), go ahead and enter!

 
 

    Goodreads Book Giveaway
 

   

       
   

   

     

          Wickedly Dangerous
     

     

          by Deborah Blake
     

     

         
            Giveaway ends October 18, 2014.
         

         
            See the giveaway details
            at Goodreads.
         

     

   

   

      Enter to win

Contests, Links, Reviews and More

Wow--what a week.
Thank you all for all the kind words about Wickedly Dangerous, and for cheering me on during Book Release Week and for sharing the word about the book. Y'all rock AND roll.

I have been all over the Interwebs promoting the book, and there have been guest blogs, interviews, reviews, and contests. Here are a few of the highlights, in case you  missed them:

There is a guest post and a HUGE contest at Bitten by Books that runs until midnight on Friday night (EST). I'm giving away a $50 Amazon gift card!

And of course my contest ON MY BLOG HERE where I'm giving away a Super Prize Pack to one lucky winner (and where you can view my first-ever Vlog video and laugh at me). That contest also ends at midnight on Friday, so if you haven't entered yet, Go! Go! Go!

Nice reviews at Literary Escapism, at Ami's Hoard, at Heroes and Heartbreakers, at ISmellSheep (where they are giving away a copy of the book), an interview and book giveaway at Urban Fantasy Investigations, Talk Supe's Review and 5 Fun Facts about Baba Yaga, and interview and signed book giveaway at Lucienne Diver's Blog and others that I've lost track of...

Starting Friday morning (although I have to go in to work for a while) there will be a guest blog and contest at Fang-tastic Books, and I'll be popping in to answer comments all day, and probably on and off during the weekend. (I'm not exactly sure how long the contest lasts, so you might want to get there on Friday if you can.) I'm giving away a $25 Barnes & Noble gift card, a signed book, and a bunch of swag!

And if you live anywhere near Oneonta, NY I'll be doing a booksigning at THE GREEN TOAD BOOKSTORE, my local Indy bookstore, from 1-3. (There is also a huge street-wide event called The Grand and Glorious Garage Sale going on at the same time, with live music, lots of garage sale type booths, and a farmer's market.) I hope you'll come see me!

Thanks again for all your support, and don't forget to send me your pictures of the book in the wild (or, you know, at your house) and to put up a review if you read the book. *blows you all kisses*

BOOK RELEASE DAY!

It's finally here! BOOK RELEASE DAY for WICKEDLY DANGEROUS! YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAY!

As you can tell if you watched the video (or as you can probably guess, even if you didn't), I'm pretty excited. It seems like I have been talking about this book for a long time, and now it is FINALLY here!

If you want to pick up a copy of the book, and you don't happen to have a bookstore near you, you can get one at any of these places online:

Buying links:

AMAZON

PENGUIN

B&N

IndieBound

Of course, you can also ask your local Indy bookstore or library to order it.

I'm celebrating the book release today over at Bitten By Books with a live chat that starts at 3pm EST/noon PST and will go on throughout the evening until I have to go to bed, and then continue the next morning. I will be giving away a $50 Amazon Gift Card, so go enter the contest, and if you want, you can ask me questions or just say hi! (The live chat is only today and tomorrow--but the contest runs until Friday.)

And I know I said I wasn't going to do any more contests here, but it's RELEASE DAY! How could I not?

I'm going to do things a little differently this time. Instead of giving away a bunch of things and spreading the winning around, I'm going to give away a Bunch of Things to one lucky winner! Maybe it will be you :-) This will include a signed book (or a signed ARC, if you prefer--I still have a couple left), a bunch of swag, and a tote bag to carry it all around in.

[Note: because this is a Bunch of Things, I will only be able to send them to a winner in the USA. But if you win and you live outside the USA, I think of something cool. The contest at Bitten by Books is open to international entries.]

Thanks SO much for coming to celebrate BOOK RELEASE DAY with me--I really appreciate it...and you.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Guest Blogs and Upcoming Events

We're heading into the last week before the book release and things are gonna get a little crazy :-) I hope you'll all ride this roller-coaster with me. I need someone to hold my hand!

First off, congratulations to the folks who won the Book Release Celebration Blow Out CONTEST. I sent an email to everyone who won, and the names are also listed at the bottom of the contest form. Don't worry if you didn't win this one--I'm planning to give things away almost every day between now and the release of Wickedly Dangerous on September 2nd, either here or on my Facebook Author Page (you've "liked" me there, right, and then clicked on "receive notifications" underneath the like option...right?) So you're probably going to check back often, since some of these contests will be only one-day affairs.

Secondly, all sorts of lovely people have been kind enough to invite me to be a guest on their blogs in the next few weeks to help spread the word about the book. I hope that my WONDERFUL readers will take a moment to pop over to these places and say hi. You know, so it looks like someone likes me :-)

Today, Raymond Bolton did a seriously in-depth interview of me over on his blog The Write Stuff -- damn, I wish I'd thought of that name -- you might be surprised by some of my answers.

The lovely Karen Rose Smith is talking up the book on her blog. If you go there, be sure to read her earlier posts about Halo, the stray cat she took in recently, and see the progress of Halo's pregnancy and KITTEN PICTURES (warning: the cute may kill you). Karen and I had a great chat on the phone before the kittens were born, since she'd never helped to birth cat babies before, and I'd done it a number of times.

Here's a quick question for y'all:
I am going to be doing a live event online at Bitten by Books on the actual day of the book release, starting at noon PST/3pm EST. Since I'm going to be pretty much glued to the computer that day anyway, I was thinking about having a live event to on Facebook too, where people could ask me questions, say congrats, and win prizes. What do you think? If I did such a crazy thing, would you come?

WICKEDLY MAGICAL in Three Weeks! Yikes!

It suddenly occurred to me this morning that the Baba Yaga prequel novella, WICKEDLY MAGICAL, comes out three weeks from today yesterday. (There might have been some panicked shrieking, and possibly someone running around flailing their arms and yelling, oh my gods! oh my gods!)

Yikes.

The novella is only available as an eBook, like most novellas, but don't forget that you can get it through Amazon and download a Kindle app to your computer, if you don't have an eReader. And you don't HAVE to read it to enjoy the two novels, WICKEDLY DANGEROUS and WICKEDLY WONDERFUL -- it is just a nice way to meet the characters you'll get to know better later on.

The novella from Penguin
The novella from Amazon
The novella from B&N

Anyway, I said to Magic the Cat, I said, "Maybe we should have a contest to celebrate the upcoming release. Do you think I should give away one of the Advanced Reader Copies for Wickedly Dangerous?"

Apparently, she didn't think this was good enough. Here is what she suggested:

And as we all know, there is no point in arguing with Magic when she has her mind made up. So three copies it is. I'll even sign them.

Of course, I would love it if you would all run out and preorder the novella, the books, Magic's forthcoming autobiography (just kidding...I think I've bribed her not to write that)...but you don't have to. You can help spread the word, or just leave a comment here. Easy peasy. Because that's the way we roll around here. The contest starts at midnight tonight (July 15th) EST and ends Saturday night (July 19th) at midnight. (Sorry, USA residents only. If you live outside the US and you win, I'll send you something else cool.)

Okay, I'm going back to running around and flailing my arms now.

Addendum: Are people having a hard time using the Rafflecopter for some reason? There are a lot fewer entries than usual, despite the large number of page views. If something is going wrong, y'all would tell me, right?

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The ARCs are Here! WICKEDLY DANGEROUS

I got home from work today to find a mysterious box in the mudroom. A fairly sizable box, in fact. I couldn't remember ordering anything. So I dragged it into the house and looked at the return address:

The editorial department at Berkley. That was a pretty good clue that when I opened my mysterious box I would find this:

Along with a note from my editor, saying:

"Hi Deborah,
Here are some copies of the bound galleys for WICKEDLY DANGEROUS. Enjoy!
Leis"

That's right, people. I have ARC's! For those of you who aren't familiar with them, ARCS, or advanced reader copies, are the first sign that a book is almost ready to come out into the world. As you can see from the picture above, they don't have the final fancy cover that the real version will have. And because they are uncorrected proofs, they may have typos and such. (And in this case, the proofs aren't even the same size as the eventual book will be--these are larger than the regular paperback that will come out in September. Also, they're kind of an odd purple-tinted pink. Go figure.)

They don't look much like this:

 

But they're HERE. And I couldn't be more excited. If I did selfies, I'd post one of me jumping up and down. (Instead, you get Magic the Cat looking curious, which is even better.)

When I posted this picture on Facebook, one of my fans immediately said, "Does this mean you're having a contest?"

Well yes. Yes, it does :-)

This is going to be very simple. All you have to do is post something in the comments. You can tell me if you're looking forward to the book coming out, or whether or not you think ARC's are cool, or whatever. On Wednesday evening before I go to bed I'll pick one random winner from the comments. The only thing I ask is that if you win, you promise to review it. You can post a review to Goodreads at any time; Amazon won't let you do it until the book is officially available (but you can save a copy of your earlier review and post the same one there later).

That's it: make a comment, promise to review it. I'll even open this one to people outside the US! (Although I'll probably give away another one on Facebook that is USA only.)

So what are you waiting for? Ready, get set--comment!

New Poll, Baba Yaga Book Promo Questions, Reminders

Okay, folks...it is hard to believe, but the Baba Yaga novels will be out before we know it (the novella comes out August 6th, Wickedly Dangerous will be out September 2nd, and Wickedly Wonderful on December 2nd. So I'm starting to plot and plan how I'm going to handle promo and giveaways and contests, OH MY!

Bounce! Bounce! Bounce!

If you look at the top of the page, you will see that I put up a new poll, asking people what kinds of contest prizes they would like the best. You can choose more than one, and if whatever you want (bookmarks, for instance) isn't up there, you can add it in the comments here. Obviously, I will only have a few Advanced Reader Copies to give away (I think I might get 10 or so, but I'm not sure) and it will be some time before I get copies of the actual book. I'm not sure how soon I'll start the actual giveaways, but I'm trying to figure out what goodies to order now...

Also, I will be taking down the "Buy Now" button for signed copies of The Witch's Broom on May 26th, at the end of the long weekend, so if you want one, this is your last chance. Thanks to all those who ordered one from me already. Of course, you can always just use the link above to buy one from Amazon. (And, you know, boost my sales back up in to the top 100... Just sayin'.)

Don't forget to join me on the radio on Thursday 22nd, 9-10 pm EST at Blessed Be Gardens where you can call in and chat with me, or join us via chat room (the link is on the page) and/or listen via computer. I'll be giving away a signed copy of The Witch's Broom to one lucky listener!

I hope to talk to some of you then!

Big Happenings: Radio Event and Giveaway on Bitten By Books

I'm going to be on  the radio live this Thursday night from 9-10 pm EST at Blessed Be Garden's Radio Show -- you can join in by calling in or using the chat room Here ya go--the chat room!

Blessed Be Garden is a cool shop and so much more, run by a couple of very nice ladies named Krista and Andrea.They're strangely excited by the idea of having me on their show... I hope a few of you get a chance to stop by and say hi--you can actually hear my voice and everything!

Here's the event poster

Next Thursday on BLESSED BE GARDEN.......

I'm also taking part in a HUGE giveaway for Rachel Smith's amazing blog Bitten By Books. It is the blog's six year anniversary and she is doing six big days of giveaways, including prizes from really cool authors like Jim Butcher, and smaller (but also cool) folks like me. Today's prizes include a KINDLE FIRE! And I believe that you have 4-5 days to enter each day's contests, so it isn't too late. I don't know exactly which day she'll be giving away my prize pack, but I can tell you that I sent her...(wait for it)
Signed copies of the new Witch's Broom book, Everyday Witch A-Z, Everyday Witch A-Z Spellbook, and Everyday Witch Book of Rituals PLUS one of my handcrafted necklaces. You don't want to miss a prize pack like that, do you? No, I didn't think so!

Rachel was kind enough to invite me to do TWO events later in the year to celebrate the release of the two novels, so I definitely wanted to help her celebrate the anniversary of my favorite review and contest blog. Go check it out!

What an exciting week!

Addendum: As requested, the Necklace of the Week that I posted on Facebook, for those of you who aren't on there. (The stone is aventurine, in case you were wondering.)

 

Final Report on the Big, Huge, Mega Contest--WOW

After a fun, roller-coaster ride of a week, the Big, Huge, Mega Giveaway contest finally came to an end this morning. All 20 winners have been sent emails, and their names are listed on the original post HERE. There were two people whose emails bounced back as unreachable, so if your name is on that list and you didn't get an email, send me a note at magicmysticminerva at yahoo. I'll try to get the prizes out sometime next week. (The books will go media mail, and so they will take a little longer.) I'd love it if the folks who won took pictures of themselves with their swag and emailed them to me, so I could put them up here on the blog.

I want to congratulate all the winners, and thank everyone who took part. I hope you all had fun, because I sure did!

Here's the way things ended up, by the numbers:
Total entries: 3,278 -- That's just AMAZING. To give you something to compare it to, the last big contest I ran, I think there were about 850 entries, and I considered that a big success.

Total blog post page views: 3,188 -- again, AMAZING. You folks clearly did a great job at spreading the word.

Reviews put up: 7 (THANKS so much for doing this! Reviews are really important for getting new readers.)

Comments: 104 (nice!)

Books pre-ordered: I'm not sure, since I haven't had time to go through all the entries yet, but I'm grateful for every single one...

Because

#25 -- that's the number the book reached in the "Witchcraft" category on Amazon (It's nowhere near that now...but either way, that's spectacular, especially considering it isn't even out yet!)

And a big thank you to everyone who followed me here on the blog, or on Twitter or Facebook, or who signed up for the newsletter.

Basically--ALL OF YOU ROCK.

So even though we didn't reach the 3,500 goal I put up on the last day, I'm still going to send the new Wickedly Dangerous mini-swag kits out to all 20 winners.

And if you didn't win, don't worry. Sometime towards the end of the month, I should be getting my author copies of The Witch's Broom  and I will be giving at least one of them away in another contest. Maybe two, if you're good :-)

Oh, and Rebecca Elson--no more complaining that you never win one of these things!

Giveaway #2--THE MUG!

a Rafflecopter giveaway


As promised, I am doing the next "swag" giveaway for my upcoming The Witch's Broom--this one featuring the fabulous mug I showed you last time!

 Here's Magic the Cat showing how impressed she is by the giveaway. (No, really, that's her impressed face. You should see what she looks like when she's not impressed.)

My apologies to all the out-of-the-USA folks--this one is for USA residents only (due to shipping costs). If you want to enter anyway, anyone out of the country who wins will get one of the cute little broom refrigerator magnets instead.

All you have to do is use the Rafflecopter form up above, and choose as many options as you want. Note that the "tweet about it" option can be used every day until the contest ends at midnight EST on Friday.

I hope you all have fun and tell all your friends! Good luck, and GO!

SWAG!!!! GIVEAWAYS #1! The Witch's Broom

Okay, it is just possible I got a smidge carried away. (Ahem.) Just a teeny tiny bit. I know--how unusual for me.

The thing is, my next Llewellyn book, The Witch's Broom, is coming out in just over 2 months. The release date is April 8th. *bounce bounce bounce* Yes, this is not exactly the first book I ever had come out. Heck--it's actually the 7th. (Blinks. How is that possible?) But I really loved the way it turned out, and the cover is THE BOMB.

Seriously. How could you not like that? Even Magic the Cat approves, for obvious reasons. (No, it isn't a picture of her...the idea came from an old postcard image my fabulous editor Elysia Gallo found online. But if it makes the cat happy, who am I to argue?) And there seems to be A LOT of excitement from my readers about it, although I don't know whether that is due to the topic, the cover, or some other reason. (I heard a rumor that some people actually like my writing, but that can't be it.)

I always try and get something fun to do a giveaway contest or two with, leading up to the release date. Eventually, I'll also give away a book or two, but I won't have my copies for a while yet; they haven't even gone off the printer yet, as far as I know. And because this cover is So Damned Cool, I ordered a few extra things to give away. I might have gone a little overboard. What do you think?

 I've got a ton of the business cards with a picture of the cover, and some matching postcards. They both say "Coming April 8th, 2014" at the bottom, and as you can see, the back of the postcard also has a picture of Magic the Cat. If you want one or both, email me at magicmysticminerva at yahoo and I'll be happy to send you one. If you happen to own a shop or a bookstore and want extras, just let me know. I have 100 of the business cards as magnets (between the mug and the notebooks)--if you want one of those, they will be given away first-come-first-served!

I'll also be sending a bunch of the cards, magnets, and postcards to Pantheacon with Elysia, held in San Jose in the middle of this month, so if you're there, look around for them.

Elysia will also have a few of the little broomstick refrigerator magnets you can see to the right. Here's a close up of them and the mug.

Aren't they COOL? I saw the origin on Etsy, where a woman named Willow Dancer makes all sorts of fun stuff at her shop, Willow Creek Herb Company on Etsy And she very kindly worked with me to come up with something special just for this book. Notice the little cat charm on the front of the broom. I will have a few of these to give away on the blog, and I'm sending a few of those with Elysia for Pantheacon, too. (I only got 25 of those, and a few are going to people like my editors, and my uber-researcher, Sierra.)

I only got two mugs, since they're pricier and harder to ship. Maybe I should start the giveaway with one of them? I also got two cool lined notebooks with the book cover on front. Maybe I should start with them?

Did I mention I might have gotten carried away?

Which is your favorite bit of swag? Tell me which things you like the best, and I will pick someone at random at the end of the day tomorrow (Thursday 6th) and send them whatever they picked out. (If you're outside of the USA, I will have to limit what I send to the small stuff...sorry.)

Please spread the word, both about the swag and the book itself. If you want to preorder the book, you can go here:
Amazon (Where the book is on a pre-release sale at $11.95!)
B&N (Also on sale!)
Llewellyn

So, do you think I got too carried away? And which is your favorite?

GIVEAWAY BY THE NUMBERS! And Feline Friday

Since I am going to be disappearing until next Thursday (mostly, anyway), I am going to leave you with a Big Ol' Giveaway to keep you busy.

Here's how it is going to work: I'm calling it "Giveaway by the Numbers" because I decided that I'd like to raise some of my "numbers" (blog followers and page views, Twitter and Facebook followers) before the next book comes out. You can help--AND maybe win a really cool prize.

Here's where we are right now:
On the blog, I have (gulp) 95,550 page views. Which I find stunning, really, but let's see if we can get it to 100,000! I also have 259 followers, and I'd like to get that to 300. For each of those goals we reach, I'll give away a prize. If we get to 12,000 page views, I'll give away an extra prize. If we get to 350 followers, I'll give away ANOTHER extra prize. You see how this is going, right?

On Twitter, I have 1,640 followers--I'd love to hit 2,000...what do you think? Can we do it?
On Facebook, I have 2,332 follower--can we get to 2,500?

The more goals we reach, the more prizes, but you are entered to win just by taking part.

Here's some of what I will be giving away, depending on how well we do:
The signed book of your choice (or multiple signed books), like one of these...

A $25 Amazon gift card
A lovely hand-crafted Deborah Blake original necklace (for you or to give as a holiday gift)

These are from the "Spirit & Potential" line

A really cool poster of Magic the Cat (it isn't really her--it just looks like her, but way cool) that says "If you can spell, thank a witch"

And if we meet all our goals, I'll come up with something really spectacular...

So, help an author out and spread the word? *SMOOCHES*
a Rafflecopter giveaway


And here is your Feline Friday cuteness

What you lookin' at?

Out with the Old, In with the New--A CONTEST to Name the New Baby!

This was what my car looked like this morning:

This is what it looks like now. MAGIC!

 That's a 2013 Honda Fit, in case you were wondering. My first actual NEW car ever. Shiny!

Of course, now I have to name it. My mom suggested Deirdre, which is the name of the protagonist in my first novel (Witch Ever Way You Can). But I'm not sure that suits the car. So, I'm going to have a contest! Go ahead and suggest a name for the car, and if I pick one, that person will win the signed book of their choice. Well? What do you think?

And just in case this isn't enough for one day, I came home to discover that my pal Bobbie had dropped off a belated birthday gift...just in case I needed another form of transportation :-)

The Celebration Palooza Giveaway!

I just realized that I had promised to celebrate my BOOK DEAL (whoo hoo!) with a giveaway...and I never did it! And now we're coming up on my birthday, which is this Sunday, so I've decided to combine the two into a REALLY BIG CELEBRATION PALOOZA GIVEAWAY!

I'm using Rafflecopter again, and hopefully it is designed to let me give away the different prizes to different people :-) I'm still figuring the sucker out. But one way or the other, I intend to give away four prizes. You can enter starting now, and it will run through my birthday. Good luck, and thanks for celebrating with me!


a Rafflecopter giveaway

A Few Questions for Y'all

I'm pondering some options and would love some input from the folks who are kind enough to follow me here.

I'm thinking of running a series of contests/giveaways leading up to my birthday at the end of April, and possibly culminating in the ePub release of another one of my paranormal romances [this one is called KING ME! and is is about a modern witch who accidentally brings back King Arthur to save the world. Oops.]
I'm also debating giving a different class up on the witchcraft/workshop loop, and possibly offering some extra services on the side.

SO...which, if any of these, would you be interested in?

1) A new eBook (it would probably be priced at $2.99 like the 1st one)
2) A workshop on "Fast and Easy Edit as You Go" tips. That one would probably be 4 days/$15
3) Tarot readings via either Skype or phone
4) Professional editing (fees would vary, depending on the amount of editing needed/wanted)
5)Giveaway of this year's Sabbats Almanac from Llewellyn (including a Yule ritual and summary by me)
6) Giveaway of a signed copy of Circle, Coven & Grove (my first book, now out of print)
7) Giveaway of a signed copy of my most recent book, Everyday Witch Book of Rituals
8) Giveaway of editing/feedback on up to 10 pages of your writing
9) Some other giveaway (tell me what you want!)

You can answer by simply listing numbers (3, 5 & 7, for instance) or by giving specifics for which ones you'd want and why. Thanks for helping me figure out what I'm doing next!!!!

Deborah

BOOK GIVEAWAY and Feline Friday

Happy Friday! (And is it just me, or did it take a loooonnnnnggggg time to get here this week?)

After getting the news yesterday that my first book Circle, Coven & Grove was going out of print, and getting such a heart-warming and supportive response to my announcement, I decided to run a contest and give away one of my few copies (which are now going to become a collector's item!). There are only 3 left on Amazon, and a couple at Llewellyn, so they are going to get pretty hard to find.

You can see that I am still mastering this Rafflecopter thing...so you'll have to click on the "create your own option" buttons to see what they are. It's like being on a scavenger hunt :-)

a Rafflecopter giveaway


The contest will run until Tuesday. Good luck...let's send this book out with a bang!

And just because it's Friday...

Mystic, Minerva and Magic in a BIG OL' PILE O' CATS

Witchcraft/Writing Poll & BOOK GIVEAWAY

As many of you know, this year (after much nudging...ahem...encouragement) from fans, readers, and other interested folks, I started a new endeavor, my Witchcraft & Writing Class Loop . With the help of my Tech goddess and occasional guest-teacher Heather Long , I began giving classes on witchcraft and writing. I think it went pretty well! Lots of people seemed to enjoy the classes we offered, and I had a good time giving them.

It is time consuming, however, so we're trying to narrow down our offerings for the coming year, so we give only the classes people are most interested in taking. I've put a poll up here, and I would really really really appreciate it if anyone who might want to take a class in 2013 would take a minute to let me know which ones they want the most. And spread the word to anyone you know who might be interested.

You can vote for as many different classes as you want, and the poll will be up until December 8th. You'll note that some of the classes are mostly about witchcraft (although many of those can be useful for anyone writing a witchy character) and a few are aimed specifically at writers. The ones that Heather teaches have her name next to them, otherwise you can assume I'll be giving the class.

To reward y'all for helping me out with this, I'll be giving away a signed copy of the new Everyday Witch Book of Rituals to one person who comments (you can just say you took the poll, or you can tell me which class you would most like to take). If you aren't interested in taking a class, you can spread the word on Twitter, Facebook, or anywhere else you lurk online, and tell me you've done that, and you can still be in the contest. Or click on the link to the new book and go click "like." That's always helpful too.

And thanks so  much for all your support and encouragement in this new endeavor--I really appreciate it!

AND THE WINNERS ARE...

We have four lucky winners for my Biggest Giveaway Ever! Congrats to

Marilyn K. who won the necklace (email me at magicmysticminerva at yahoo and we'll talk specifics)

Autumn Raine who won the free class registration (if you want to take the current one, let me know ASAP! Otherwise you can take one of the ones we're giving next year)

Cristina Potmesil who won the signed book (email me to let me know where to send it)

Aphrodiasties LeFay who won the $25 gift card (I'll need an addy for you too)

Thanks so much to everyone who took part, and spread the word about the new book. I wish I had enough prizes to give one to each of you!