Janette Rallison's Blog, page 48

Slayers ARC give-away

Okay, gang, the CJ Hill website is now functional (www.CJHillbooks.com). Sort of. It still has some glitches. The blog may or may not be working when you push the tab. (My daughter is trying to figure out why it's not working and fix it.) And the book trailer still isn't done yet.



But here's the give-away deal: Go follow the blog (cjhillbooks.blogspot.com --if it's not working, check back in a day.) I'll give the ARC to one of the followers. Also, if you could leave a comment in the blog telling me whether the background is green or black, I'd appreciate that too. It's supposed to be green but is coming up black on my computer unless I use Google Chrome.



Oh, and a bonus point if you can find me in the picture on the website (www.cjhillbooks.com)and tell me what color jacket/sweater I'm wearing.



I'll choose the winner in a week.



And, since the release date is Sept 27th, I'll theoretically be doing another massive give-away soon. So stay tuned.

Stand By for Slayers ARC give-away

Hey blog friends, this was supposed to be a Slayers ARC giveaway, but in order to make that happen, I've got to make sure the CJ Hill website is up. So check back in a day or so, because you're going to want this awesome book!

And the Winner is Gayle!

Gayle,

Send me your address at jrallisonfans at yahoo dot com and I'll send you your book.



Everybody else--don't fear. I'll be giving away a boatload of books soon!

Give-away: How to Take the Ex Out of Ex-boyfriend & trailer

I took your advice and with the help of my awesome friend, Angela Fox, I changed the music for the How to Take the Ex Out of Ex-boyfriend trailer.







Let me know what you think of the new music choice.



Also Random.org will choose one of the commenters to win a copy of How to Take the Ex Out of Ex-boyfriend.

Other Downgrades We Should Make

In light of the S&P downgrade to America's credit rating, we here at the Rallison Think Tank have been pondering what other things in the world ought to be downgraded. We've come up with a list of ten.



1) The Great Salt Lake. It has now been downgraded to: The Average Salt Lake. With that fishy smell, um, it's really not all that great.



2) Mars. For decades it's promised us invading Martians with ray guns, but thus far all the planet has produced in the way of scientific interest is the possibility that it once had water. Big deal. We're downgrading it to: Pluto.



3) Rock stars with royalty names. Sorry Prince and Lady Gaga. Although we like some of your songs and you amuse us with your sparkly clown outfits, you're still not monarchs. We're downgrading you to: 'talented peasants' status and will refer to you respectively as "Wench Gaga" and "Plow Boy".



4) California. Its motto says that it's The Golden State. But with gold prices being what they are, we're downgrading California to: The Plastic State. It fits better anyway.



5) Las Vegas. For years it has been luring tourists to its casinos with pictures of girls in feathered headdresses and promises that transferring our bank accounts into the slot machines will be fun! But I don't think so. We're downgrading Las Vegas from a vacation destination to: A Sauna With Flashing Lights. And we're changing its name to Loss Vegas.



6) Hershey Kisses. With a name like "Kisses" and a product that is supposedly made of chocolate, you'd think this candy would be something to swoon over. But no. Hershey Kisses actually have a waxy taste, which makes us wonder who Hershey was kissing. We are therefore downgrading Hershey Kisses to: Brown Crayons.



7) The dollar. Due to its buying power, it's been downgraded and will now be referred to as: A Flammable Quarter.



8) The physical book. It's not that I don't love them. I want bookstores to sell lots of physical books. But alas, the experts keep predicting their demise and last I heard, sales were down 40 percent. Therefore we sadly downgrade physical books to: The Hallmark Card Section of the Grocery Store. People who care, still want to send the very best. We will now stop with this analogy as we are sniffling.



9) The Great Wall of China. Okay it's big and impressive but did it ever really stop anybody from invading? Therefore we're downgrading it to: The Longest Tourist Site Ever Created By Man.



10) Congress. We're downgrading it to: A Reality Show. And we wish it wasn't our reality that it was messing up.

A book trailer question

Hello my blogworld friends. I decided to have a book trailer for one of my backlist books, How to Take the Ex Out of Ex-boyfriend (With the hope that eventually I'll have trailers made for all of them.) and since I couldn't find an upbeat song that I liked and that had words that matched, I told my rent-a-teen Andie, to just use the instrumental for You've Got My Heart.

I think it turned out cute, but my daughter pointed out that after the trailer for Ex-boyfriend is played on Youtube, the next one that comes up is My Unfair Godmother, which uses the vocal of the same song. She thinks it seems unprofessional to use the same song for both trailers.

I'm going back and forth as to whether or not she's right. So what do you think? Can you watch both trailers and tell me whether you think I should have Ex-boyfriend's redone with a new song?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egHqYj...

If you missed the call on writing romance

You can still hear it by going to this link: http://authorsadvisory.blogspot.com/2...

Please ignore all those instances when I sound like I'm drunk. Really, there is no better way to make yourself tounge-tied than to know you are being recorded and the recording will be available forever and ever.

join my conference call on writing romance

I'll be David Farland's guest on Wednesday, July 27, 2011 at 9:00 PM, EDT. Talking about writing romance.


Anyone can call in and ask questions: At the appointed time, dial 1-218-862-7200 (long distance charges may apply, depending on your phone plan). Enter the Conference Code: 245657. To raise your hand and ask a question, dial 5*. To Mute yourself, dial 4*.

I'll be giving away two books (Fairy Godmother and Ex-boyfriend)I'll also be wearing my boa, dangly diamond earings, and fluttering my velvet eyelashes.

The book thieves book reviews--and a conference call

I've heard from more than one teacher that books frequently go missing from their classroom libraries. Personally, I think it's a compliment. (This is because I'm not paying for the books.) Kids liked the novels so much that they resorted to a life of crime in order to possess them.

My daughter made a collage of all the books that went missing from her class last school year. I think she sent the picture out to parents to see if they had spotted any of the wayward books at their homes. I passed on a lot of books to her that I didn't like so much, and yeah, none of those got stolen, which just proves that even thieves have taste.



I am very proud that two of my books were among those stolen!

And in other news, I'm going to do a conference call about writing romance next Wednesday, the 27th. I'll post more info about that here when I get it.

Why Disney villains should be nervous at the Grand Canyon.

Have you ever noticed that an inordinate amount of Disney villains meet their doom by falling from high places? The wicked queen from Snow White was the first, but by no means the last. Gaston from Beauty and the Beast, the evil queen from Enchanted, and Mother Gothel from Tangled all bit the dust that way. Shan Yu form Mulan flew off on a rocket, so we can assume there was some falling involved with his demise as well.

Of course not all Disney villains die exactly that way. Disney likes to mix things up once in awhile. Scar from The Lion King fell and then got eaten by hyenas. The film Mega Mind started with Mega Mind falling to earth and then the movie went on to tell about his formative years and all of the events that led to his fall. I'm sure I'm missing many other Disney fallers, but according to the first website I saw after I googled the phrase: "How many films has Disney produced?" there are 318 Disney movies and one cannot be expected to remember all the grisly deaths.

Suffice it to say, falling is a popular way to end one's existence.

What does that have to do with my recent vacation, you may ask. I'll tell you. The Rallison clan just went to The Grand Canyon and Bryce Canyon--which is still pretty darn grand even if it doesn't use the word in the title. Some canyons are modest that way.

Here we are smiling at the start of our trip. There are signs that tell you to be careful when you turn your back on the canyon to take pictures, as this is how most people fall in. They forget how close they are to the edge and take a step backward. We made sure we were far away from the edge.


Here is a picture of what looks like my middle daughter lovingly putting her hand on her little sister's shoulder.

I'm pretty sure Middle Daughter is doing this as a way to make sure Youngest Daughter doesn't do a Disney Villain and plunge off the side. Youngest daughter has no built-in fear gage and is much too daring.

Middle Daughter has already saved Youngest Daughter's life once. When Youngest Daughter was about four we were walking along Newport Beach and a rogue wave nearly carried Youngest Daughter out to sea. Thankfully, Middle Daughter was standing nearby and grabbed Youngest Daughter before she was swept away. Youngest Daughter laughed with delight during this incident but Middle Daughter and I remain traumatized to this day.

At any rate, one has to watch Youngest Daughter very carefully.

So then of course the next thing we did was go horseback riding at Bryce Canyon. This was perhaps not the cautious thing to do since the last time we rode horses, Youngest Daughter's horse bit Middle Daughter's horse which caused a horse fight in which there was actual rodeo-like bucking.


Somehow this didn't dim Youngest Daughter's love of horses. Middle Daughter, however, refused to go on a horseback ride anywhere near a canyon.

Here is a picture of Youngest Son by the edge of Bryce Canyon.


When we got to this point, I was beginning to agree with Middle Daughter about the whole horse/canyon thing, but by then it was too late. My horse went right to the edge to eat the grass growing there.


One side note about my horse: His name was Zero. I thought that was an odd name until I mounted him and he proceeded to walk around the corral putting his face into the other horses' butts. Then I realized zero was the amount of friends he had.

So there I was on the edge of Bryce Canyon, my horse happily munching on grass, and all the other horses followed him, thus boxing him in. He turned sideways, walked a few steps, then turned his back on the Canyon.

This is when I realized that not only was I on a horse with no social skills, he couldn't read either. It was entirely possible that he was going to take an unintentional step backward. Or one of the other horses might have been fed up with his butt-nudging antics and decided to push him over. Heaven knows, if I were one of those horses, I would have been tempted.

Which is why I was very glad that I have never been a Disney Villain.

I lived to vacation another day.

And no, this picture isn't photoshopped. This is the sort of thing gymnasts do.