I’m doing a big release party and giveaway over at Bitten by Books on Feb. 18-19. I’m giving away some books and Amazon gift cards. If you RSVP, you get 25 entries into the giveaway. Here’s the link to RSVP. Check it out! 😉
Thanks to everyone who left a comment about what they like most about the holiday season, and congrats to the winners:
Spider’s Bite ARC: Sara M.
The copy of Fragile by Shiloh Walker: Donna S.
Three copies of Hot Mama (one per winner): Shannon, Xid Trebor, and Wendy.
Winners, please e-mail your snail mail addresses to jennifer@jenniferestep.com so I can send your books to you.
And if anyone wants some free bookmarks for Spider’s Bite, just e-mail me too, and I’ll tell you how to get them. I’ll be doing some more contests after the first of the year to promote Spider’s Bite, so check the blog for those. And be sure to sign up for my e-newsletter. Every month, I give away free books (and sometimes other stuff) to subscribers.
I hope everyone has a great holiday season. Happy reading! 😉
In the midst of all my Christmas shopping last week, I went to one of my local chain bookstores and saw something kind of sad — several copies of the trade version of Hot Mama outside the front doors in the $1 super bargain bin. And not only did I see them, but a couple of ladies in my critique group spotted them too when they went shopping.
Yeah, I have to say that it hurt a little bit to see my book, something that I worked so hard on, outside in the cold (literally). It kind of made me feel like one of the misfit toys in the old Rudolph Christmas special.
But my loss is going to be your gain. Because I bought those $1 copies of Hot Mama. It’s been a while since I’ve done a contest here on the blog, and what better time than Christmas to do one? 😉
But wait, there’s more. Because I also have an ARC of Spider’s Bite to give away, the first book in my new Elemental Assassin series that’s coming out on Jan. 26.
But wait, there’s still more. Because I also have an autographed copy of Fragile by Shiloh Walker. Shiloh was nice enough to give me one of her books during the Berkley author signing at this year’s RWA conference in Washington, D.C. Thanks, Shiloh!
So here’s how the contest is going to work:
To win one of three copies of Hot Mama or the copy of Fragile by Shiloh Walker, all you have to is leave a comment here on the blog about what you like most about the holiday season.
To win the ARC of Spider’s Bite, you have to have a Facebook page, blog, etc., and you have to agree to read and post a review of Spider’s Bite by the release date (Jan. 26). You don’t have to like the book, but I would appreciate it if you’d post a review of it somewhere because the ARCs are expensive for my publisher to produce, and I only get a limited number of them to send out. So if you’d be interested in reading and reviewing the book, just leave a comment on this post telling me so.
The contest will run through Thursday, Dec. 10. I’ll announce the winners on Friday, Dec. 11. Also note: This is open to U.S. and Canada residents only due to postage reasons. Sorry, overseas folks.
What are you waiting for? Comment away! 😉
So the random number generator picked the contest winners, and they are:
1) Violet (comment 16) won the Karma Girl book and T-shirt.
2) Wrighty (comment 17) won the Hot Mama book and T-shirt.
3) Drey (comment 3) won a copy of Jinx.
Winners, please send me your mailing addresses at jennifer@jenniferestep.com. If you don’t send me your address by Friday, you won’t get your prizes, and they will go back into my goodie basket for the next contest.
And I just want to say thanks to everyone who shared their stories good and bad. I had a lot of fun reading them. May you all get exactly what you want for Christmas — instead of fuzzy socks, wall hangings, empty cookie jars, olive trays …
Merry Christmas! :ww:
I haven’t done a contest in a while. And hey, it’s Christmastime. So let’s do a contest. I’ll give away the following:
1) Copy of Karma Girl and T-shirt
2) Copy of Hot Mama and T-shirt
3) Copy of Jinx
How to enter: Just leave a comment on this post telling me about the worst or best Christmas/Hanukkah/birthday/other present you’ve ever gotten. I’ll draw the winners on Wednesday and announce them on the blog.
So what’s the worst Christmas present I’ve ever received? An olive tray.
Yes, Virginia, there are things called olive trays. You use them to serve olives at parties. They are long, skinny dishes, just wide enough for olives and nothing else. It still boggles my mind that someone, somewhere, decided to create a dish just to serve olives — and that I ended up with one of them.
Why was this a bad present? For starters, I hate olives. Hate ’em. Hate ’em. I can’t stress that enough. The tray itself was fairly harmless, sturdy white ceramic. The only problem was that it was an olive tray — which meant you could only put olives in it and nothing else. It wasn’t even wide enough to put Hershey kisses in, unless I lined them up just so.
Of course, the person who gave me this had no idea that I didn’t like olives, which is why she also gave me a jar of olives to serve in the tray. Sigh. You know it’s a bad present when you tear the paper off the box and start hoping that it’s really an umbrella inside.
So what happened to the olive tray? Well, every year at my newspaper, we gather up all the items people have sent us (we can’t accept freebies), hold a silent auction for the newspaper staff to bid on whatever they want, and donate the money raised to our Santa Pal charity. The olive tray got donated to the cause. And someone at the newspaper actually bought it. I don’t know who or for how much, but it went home with someone that year.
Still, I think about the tray every Christmas — and how people reacted to it. My boss at the newspaper was practically crying with laughter when I brought the olive tray in for the action and told her that I’d gotten it for Christmas. Several folks looked at me and said “Um, that’s different,” in strained voices. Other people looked at me like I was making up the whole story — like I’d actually bought the tray for myself. Sigh.
What about you guys? What’s the worst present you’ve ever gotten? Share in the comments for a chance to win. Or just to vent. 😎
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