Kalayna Price's Blog, page 4

Win an Alex Craft series or Haven series themed shirt!

Some of you who've seen me at conventions recently know that I've started selling Alex Craft and Haven themed t-shirts. I was screen printing them myself for the last year, but I finally farmed the printing out to a company so I can keep up with demand. I now have s-xxl in stock and ready for upcoming conventions as well as for sale on the site. ($20 each - free shipping in the US.)

To celebrate the change, and to get the word out about the upcoming book release, I thought I'd give away a few t-shirts. (Everyone likes free stuff, right?) Are you interested?

Entering is easy. Simply mention GRAVE MEMORY's upcoming release or link to the excerpt on Twitter/ your Blog/Facebook/etc. Then return here and leave a link to the mention in the comments section. Each mention between now and Sunday the 24th at 11:59pm will count as an entry (no more than one entry per each form of social media per day.) I'll draw three winners on Monday. Winners will be able to pick one shirt in whichever design they want.

Easy right?

Oh, and here are the shirts! What do you think?
Willing to have
a near Death
experience

FIB
Fae Investigation Bureau MINION


Ghosts:
Terrible backup
Excellent spies Don't call me
Kitten

-Kalayna Price

GRAVE MEMORY Excerpt and ARC Winner from Newsletter!

Today I'm very happy to release the first two chapters of Grave Memory. You can find the excerpt HERE. I hope that you enjoy!

Also, it is time to announce the winner of the Grave Memory ARC (contest rules were in June's newsletter). To enter, I asked you to send me the name of Alex's uncle. The correct answer is Nandin, the King of Shadows. I received nearly two hundred correct responses--you guys are awesome. I employed a random number generator, and the winner is:

Karin Anderson

Congratulations! Karin, I'll get the ARC out to you in the next few days. Thank you everyone who entered.

 Have a great Monday everyone, and check back soon, because I'll be releasing a sneak peek of THIRD BLOOD in the next few days!-Kalayna Price

Remember when I jumped out of a plane?

Remember a couple months ago when I jumped out of a plane? Well, I finally got the video uploaded to share with you. I hope you enjoy!



Happy Wednesday everyone. Oh, and I'll be releasing an excerpt from GRAVE MEMORY in the next few days. Remember, newsletter readers get it first, so if you aren't a member--now is the time to sign up!-Kalayna Price

Almost Con time

ConCarolinas starts tomorrow (check out the last post for my schedule) and I've spent most of the day preparing. There were shirts to screen print, buttons to press, and outfits to arrange. And of course, that gift basket I mentioned in the last post. Want to see?

Lots of goodies in there, including an ARC of Grave Memory. You have to be present to win, so I hope you'll stop by my table and say hi. I'd love to chat with you!

Okay, time for me to go pack and stuff. I'll see you at the convention!-Kalayna Price

ConCarolinas Schedule

[If you didn't see yesterday's call for minions, please scroll down to the previous post to learn how to get some free stuff by helping me spread the word with bookmarks!]

June is almost here (time moves faster each year, I swear) which means it is almost time for ConCarolinas!  This is a convention I look forward to each year because I always see so many friends. The Magical Words crew will be having our yearly reader lunch on Saturday, which is always a highlight of the weekend. I think last year we had sixty-four people turn out for the event--it was amazing. The line up of panels this year is once again exciting, and I'll have a table where I'll be signing books, giving out free stuff, and of course have books for sale. I'll also have a giveaway basket that will include an ARC of Grave Memory--I haven't decided how I'll give out tickets yet, but you have to be present to win, so I hope I'll see you there!

Here is my panel schedule.


Friday 04:00 pm to 05:00 pm

Event Title: You Had Me at Hello

Location: Lakeshore II - Programming 2



Friday 06:00 pm to 07:00 pm

Event Title: When Fairy Tales Were Scary Tales

Location: Lakeshore II - Programming 2



Friday 08:00 pm to 09:00 pm

Event Title: Bad Boys, Bad Boys

Location: Lakeshore II - Programming 2



Saturday 10:00 am to 11:00 am

Event Title: I Believe in Magic

Location: Lakeshore II - Programming 2



Saturday 06:00 pm to 07:00 pm

Event Title: Urban Fantasy

Location: Lakeshore II - Programming 2



Sunday 10:00 am to 11:00 am

Event Title: e-Books

Location: Keynes - Programming 5



Sunday 12:00 pm to 01:00 pm

Event Title: Marketing Yourself & Your Work

Location: Lakeshore II - Programming 2-Kalayna Price

Call for Minions: Bookmark Project for Grave Memory release!

Today I'm calling all minions (aka volunteers for a street team) to see if anyone would be interested in helping me spread the word by taking bookmarks to their local bookstores!

 What I'm proposing is that if you're interested in helping me get the word out about the books (and helping some bookmarks find good homes) send an email to kalayna(AT)kalayna(dot)com with the words "BOOKMARK PROJECT" in the subject line and include your name, shipping address, and the name of the bookstore you plan to take the bookmarks to. I will  send you 20-30 bookmarks that you can take to the bookstore and either ask the manager to put on the checkout desk for customers to claim, or you can take the bookmarks back to the fantasy section and place them inside other urban fantasy titles so that the reader who buys that book will have a free bookmark and learn about my series.

Of course, I wouldn't ask you to help without giving you something in return. Along with the bookmarks, I'll send you a personalized and signed bookplate for Grave Memory (or any of the books you'd like to put it in.) Also, if you haven't already received a minion button and would like one, just let me know in your email and I'll be sure to put that in the package as well! 

Anyone interested?

Edited To Add: Sorry to my international fan. I'll try to do something special for you guys soon, but this particular project is for the US only. The bookmarks have only the US information on them.-Kalayna Price

GRAVE MEMORY ARC WINNERS

Wow, you guys are awesome. Between the Goodreads blog and the blogger blog there were over 100 reviews entered. Thank you everyone who reviewed one of my books and entered the contest! I wish I could give you all copies. Unfortunately, I only have the two ARCs. So, on to what you are all waiting for.

I cranked up the random number generator and it picked two reviews. Congratulations:

-Eileen with your review at: http://speakcoffeetome.blogspot.com/2...
and
-proud_farmgirl with your review at: Amazon (it was a really long link)

Please send me an email at CONTESTS (AT) KALAYNA (DOT) COM with who you would like me to sign the book to and shipping information.  I'll get the ARCs in the mail asap.

Thank you again everyone who entered and please check back tomorrow: I'll be putting out a call for minions to help me spread the word with free bookmarks! (And, of course, everyone who volunteers will get free stuff.)

Happy Monday everyone!

[ETA sorry this is going up so late--I wondered why no one was commenting. I hit save instead of publish. **headdesk**]-Kalayna Price

GRAVE MEMORY: A Contest!

Hey all. I promised I had big news and I do. I received my ARCs (Advanced Reading Copies**) of Grave Memory and I want to give them away to YOU. Of course, I have only two copies and there are likely a lot of you who are interested, so I've devised an easy contest.

To enter simply write a review on any book in my backlist and post it to the review site of your choice. (Goodreads, Shelfari, Amazon, B&N, etc) Once you've published the review, drop a link to it in the comments section of this blog. The more books you review and the more places you post your reviews, the more entries you receive. Easy enough?

The contest is open internationally and will run from now until Sunday, May 20th at 11:59 EST. If you'd like to be one of the first to read Grave Memory, I hope you'll help me spread the word with a review and enter to win an ARC.

Best of Luck!


**ARCs are printed before final edits so expect minor differences between the ARC and the book that hits shelves in July. ^_^-Kalayna Price

Twice Dead German Cover

I just saw the German cover for Twice Dead and it is gorgeous! Check it out:

What do you think?

Oh, and I have special news coming very soon, so check back on Monday!-Kalayna Price

Remember to backup your work--An almost horror story.

I've become spoiled using the writing program Scrivener and online backup storage space on Dropbox. Scrivener saves my work constantly, and as I have it saving to external storage, I rarely have to worry about losing my work.  But in the late stages of a book, for instance during copyedits (which I'm currently finishing for GRAVE MEMORY right now) I can no longer use scrivener and must switch over to Word as that is what my publisher uses.

But I'm not accustomed to Word anymore. I forget little things like that I need to tell the program to save. I tend to spend hours working before my brain goes "Oh, this doesn't auto-save, I should probably save." This typically isn't a problem.

Unless something goes wrong. Like it did last night.

My MacBook Air has a problem. I've known this for a while. It occasionally goes rather nuts. The problem isn't reproduceable, it can't be found on a diagnostic test, and it doesn't happen often, so for the last few months, I haven't been willing to give up use of the laptop to get it fix. This hasn't been that big of an issue because, like I said, I usually work in Scrivener which automatically saves to an offsite storage site which I can access from any of my computers. Plus the problem it is very rare and sporadic. The problem (which makes the computer non-responsive until forcefully restarted) has only occurred four or five time in three months (which might sound like a lot, but isn't when you think about he fact I often spend 12-18 hours a day working on the laptop.) So I didn't even think about the problem or its possibility of striking unexpected.

Which almost ruined yesterday.

Six hours into copyediting (and not a single save because I'm so out of the habit) the laptop turned FUBAR. Okay, deep breaths. Surely I didn't lose everything. Word has auto-recovery, right?

Except when I restarted the laptop and opened Word it didn't give me the option to open a recovered file. Now I was ready to freak out.

Thankfully, the Head Minion found where Word had dumped a temp auto-saved file and I was able to recover those six hours of work, but I learned my lesson--I don't save enough. And I doubt that's going to change. I just don't use the program often enough. But Word does have some options that aren't automatically turned on. An important one being an option that automatically creates a backup of any open document. I now have that option selected on my laptop (and plans to sacrifice some time with my laptop so I can get the problem fixed). I've also increased the frequency of Word's autosave.

So that is my almost horror story, and my reminder to everyone to backup your work. Now to finish these copyedits so I can get back to my Work-In-Progress on Scrivener. ^_^

Have a great Monday everyone!-Kalayna Price