Cassie Photo Bomb Comp!

As a newbie author, I'm still pretty excited about the idea of people out there in the world actually reading my book! So I've come up with a little competition. Send me a photo of yourself reading my book somewhere exotic, glamorous, groovy or unexpected. I'll publish them on my blog and the best will win a $100 Amazon voucher!

I may give additional spot prizes for particularly interesting or exciting photos, so go get creative!

Bradley Cooper goes in the running for a $100 Amazon voucher
just for submitting this photo of him reading my book!*

Submit your photo to emmie @ emmiedark.com without the spaces (you know how it works).

We don't need to see your face, so it's the perfect photo-comp if you're camera shy. Just need you, your copy of my book and some fabulous surroundings. Don't worry if you have an e-reader version, just hold up your e-reader screen-forward and pump up the font size so that I can read Cassie or Ronan's name on it. Easy!

The small print: by sending me your photo, you give me permission to reproduce it here on my blog. And the judge's (my) decision is final! Competition is open now and closes on 15 April 2012.

*NB - Bradley Cooper probably didn't submit that photo. But you get the idea.

How do I buy your book?

Me: Ah, the most beautiful question an author can hear. *sigh of happiness*
Fans: That's lovely, but how can we buy your book?
Me: Oh, you're just messing with me now. *blush*
Fans: Seriously, Emmie. Get over yourself. How do we buy the bloody thing?
Me: You're serious? Right. *clears throat* Sorry about that.

The answer, my fans (if I may call you that), is actually kinda complicated and depends on a number of factors.

I've got an e-reader, so where I can I get an e-book version?
Easy! If you have an e-reader that can take EPUB formatted books, you can buy Cassie's Grand Plan RIGHT NOW from the eHarlequin store. That's right, it's already available! If you have a Kindle, you'll have to wait until it's available on Amazon in Kindle format. The timing of the release of Kindle versions of Harlequin books is still one of the great mysteries of the modern age.

What's all this e-reader nonsense? I want a hard copy!
You can order a copy from places like Amazon, Book Depository (the US store is best), and Barnes and Noble and they'll send you one as soon as it is released. Cassie's Grand Plan is officially out on 6 March. If you've never ordered a book online, Book Depository provides free shipping. (And if you didn't know that, I may just have changed your life...)

I don't like that internet shopping business. I want to buy one off the shelf.
Well, if you live in North America, that's easy! From 6 March you can pop in to your local Barnes and Noble, or Walmart, or similar places, and purchase one! (Don't forget to re-shelve the remaining copies to nice, front-facing, eye-level positions when you do.) If you live in Australia or NZ, unfortunately you'll have to wait until July, when it will come out under the imprint "Blush" and will be sold in places like Target and Kmart. Don't worry, I'll make a bit of a fuss when the time comes. If you live in other places in the world, it will depend on your local release dates. In all honesty, if you don't live in the US, maybe you need to reconsider that issue you have with internet shopping.

Why can't you just sell me one directly? I saw that big box of books they delivered to you.
Because I can't. That's not how it works. The publisher gives me money to write the book and then THEY sell it. That's just the way things are. Don't blame me, blame capitalism.

Well, if you can't sell me one, can you just give me one?
See previous answer. Capitalism. Not my fault. I have to pay my mortgage.

Will you sign it? 
You're still messing with me aren't you? No? *happy squeaky noise* Yes, absolutely, I would love to sign it. If we're not in the same room at the same time, though, the logistics of doing so become complicated. And expensive. You have to post it to me. I have to post it back to you. And so on. The idea is to make it easy, so when we're seeing each other, just bring the copy you have purchased (via internet or in-store) and I'll graffiti it all over for you. You're welcome to buy me dinner or cocktails in order to facilitate this. Signing e-books is obviously a more knotty issue, but I have a Sharpie and an iron will, so practically anything is possible.

Why is this so complex?
Good question. If you have any more of them, feel free to leave them in the comments. Also please leave a comment if you have any additional wisdom to impart. I'm new at this, after all.

Friday Favorites - another milestone moment

So a delivery man leant very heavily on my door buzzer a few minutes ago. It's a very loud buzzer, so you don't really need to hold it down for longer than a second. But that's not important. The delivery is what was important.

A box. An ordinary cardboard box. A kind of heavy box. I signed, and brought into my office. The checkered logo on the side gave a hint...

I knew this was a moment I needed to capture for posterity. So I photographed the very first reveal, after the packing tape had been carefully sliced, one side of the cardboard peeled back...

And then I styled the next one, just so...

Goodness there are a lot of books in that one little box.

The mailing label says the box came from New York originally. I don't know what all the barcodes mean, but they're quite impressive.

Title: Cassie's Grand Plan

Author: Dark, Emmie

Publisher: Harlequin Books

Product line: Harlequin Superromance

And now I'm remembering that ages ago, I meant to record some of the witty things I wanted to write in the front pages of copies I'm going to give to the people who've been part of my journey. I've forgotten them all now.

Just going to sit and look at my box for a while.

Friday Favourites - new music

It's been a while since I've done a Friday Favourites post, so I figured it was time to get back into the habit. Especially given that it's Friday, I'm a little bored with my 'to do' list and writing a blog post seems far more entertaining than actually doing any work. :)

I've been listening to lots of music recently. Funny, when I'm writing, I prefer silence -- no distractions at all. So given all that hard work on revisions for the past few weeks meant lots of silence, I've been making up for lost time catching up with some new tunes (or old tunes that I missed the first time round).

I know I should probably be all concerned about the privacy implications, but I really like the function in iTunes that says 'if you like that, you might like this'. I've found some awesome music that way. I've also found some great tunes thanks to friends posting clips on Facebook and the like.

So here's a few new fav's of mine I'd like to share with you.

First up, Aussie band The Panics. They've been around a long time but this song, Majesty, is reasonably recent and I adore it. Whenever it pops up on my iTunes shuffle, it's one of those songs that makes me stop and listen (this could be the reason why I don't play music while I'm writing -- I'd purposely have to listen to stuff I didn't like!). It's a story about Australia, with lovely lyrics that evoke key historical events in beautiful poetic images. (To the young eyes across the sea, Who live and return to sanctuary, Of defiant tales in stone, In a higher prayer alone, In the brightest chains of gold, In the furthest place from home.)



Pick number two -- a band I discovered watching the TV show Chuck, which has a pretty awesome soundtrack most of the time. Seriously, I watch that show with my finger hovering over the Shazam app on my iPhone. If the music programmer from Chuck needs someone to inherit their music collection for any reason, I hereby volunteer.

Anyhoo, the band I discovered was The National. I've since bought two or three of their albums and they've been on high rotation in my house and car. I find it incredibly hard to pick just one of their songs to highlight, but I really do love this one Fake Empire and am just a little bit in love with the low, gravelly voice of the lead singer. The song is five years old or so, but new to me.



(NB: Not the official video, but a goodie nonetheless.)

Another band that I discovered watching Chuck is Frightened Rabbit. I adore their song Keep Yourself Warm, but I won't embed it here as the lyrics are, shall we say, adult in nature. Click on the song title link if you want to know more... Don't say I didn't warn you.

Last, but not least, let's give a little airplay to a brand new Aussie band, Underlights. I heard these guys on Triple J and they're an 'unearthed' band, which means they're unsigned and if you're quick you might still be able to download this song for free from the Unearthed website.



They don't seem to have a filmclip (I guess that comes with having a record company) but this is such a happy, bright song, it seems just right for a Friday.

And on that note, I hope you have a great day and get to spend sometime in your own head listening to whatever music it is that does it for you. If you've got a track you think I'd enjoy, please leave a comment and let me know -- I'm not absolutely dependent on iTunes for exposing me to new songs!!

Meow!! I'm a Love Cat!

Da da da da da-dum...

That's me singing Love Cats by The Cure, but I understand if you couldn't really tell. The reason for my singing is that today I officially join The Love Cats Down Under as a regular blogger! Yippee!

They are having a launch party to welcome me and fellow new Love Cat Annie West (pretty excited to be joining with an author of Annie's calibre -- but then the Love Cats is filled with amazing writers!) so check it out -- there are prizes to be won. Prizes, I have to admit, I wouldn't mind winning myself!!

Back to normal programming

Hi everyone, sorry I've been a pretty-much absent blogger for the past few weeks.

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But I am proud (and not a little relieved) to say that my revisions for 'In His Eyes' are done and sent! Phew! It's been a big effort and has left me more than a little brain-dead. The past few days I've been trying to catch up with a massive 'to do' list of things that all got put on hold while I was in the revisions cave. (I know why they call it that now.)

The fun things have included seeing movies, catching up with friends, and buying and installing a new cabinet and TV in my living room. The work things have included... well, that's less interesting so let's leave it at that.

I'm going to make an effort to keep more regular with blogging, especially now that we're on the countdown to Cassie's Grand Plan being up on shelves everywhere (both IRL and online)! Book Depository helpfully tells me there are only 49 days to go -- woo hoo! (Book Depository also tells me that people who viewed Cassie's Grand Plan also viewed books including 'The Notebook' by Nicholas Sparks and 'Can you Keep a Secret' by Sophie Kinsella -- and I'm quite happy to be in that company, lol...)

The publicity trail appears quite daunting from this end of things, but I'm sure it will become more manageable when I get into it. I am going to run quite an exciting competition which I will tell you all about soon.

Hope your 2012s are all off to a great start.

Friday Favorites -- Getting set for the new year

I'm not usually one for making a long list of new year's resolutions. What I've found is that it's better to just come up with one simple idea and use it as a kind of "theme" for the year.

In 2012, my theme for the year is: Have more fun.

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That's not to say that I didn't have any fun in 2011. It was a year that certainly came with its highlights (a big birthday party to start the year, a holiday in New Orleans, multiple trips to Hong Kong for work -- not to mention getting two books sold!). But it was also a year filled with a lot of very hard work.

Somewhere along the way, buried under lots of work and responsibilities, I feel like I lost a bit of my sense of fun. I think I noticed it most when I was part of the scavenger hunt back in Nov/Dec, because although I wouldn't want to spend my life doing exceptionally silly things like that, I really noticed how much fun I was having just playing around.

So, for 2012. More fun. More silliness. More spontaneity. More making an effort to get my bum off the couch even when I'm tired. Less worrying. Less work intruding into all hours of the day and night (and weekends). Less introspection, more insurrection!