Competition to win a Kindle Fire still running, plus Dognapped? is FREE today!

Dognapped? is free on Amazon today (free promo finishes 25th July)

I received an email from a reader who had trouble accessing the entry form below. If you have ANY problems entering, please feel free to email me with your name, postal address (in case you win) and your order number from Amazon. I'm happy to add you to the entry list myself.

As I write this post, Dognapped? is currently #1 in both its categories and #495 in the Free Kindle Store. This is a great response, a big thanks to everyone who posted, tweeted and blogged about this competition!

If you've only just found out about the competition, here's the info:

I'll be giving away a Kindle Fire! (Kindle Paperwhite if winner resides outside the US - Amazon won't ship the Fire to non-US countries). That's not all, one lucky runner-up will receive a $25 Amazon gift voucher! (Competition closes 7th July), there are two ways to enter:

1. Purchase your copy of Dognapped?, then fill in the entry form below. You'll be asked for your receipt number from Amazon (it will be on the receipt Amazon email you - keep a copy of your receipt as proof of purchase if you win). Dognapped? will be FREE June 23rd to 25th, and yes you can still enter if you downloaded your copy FREE! 

or

2. Blog about this competition or about Dognapped? (you can review, talk about or interview) then fill in the entry form below. You will be asked for your blog post link in the entry form. 

*If you'd like to review the book, but miss the free Kindle promotion, I'll be happy to send you a free review copy in mobi or epub file, simply email: charmaineclancy@gmail.com. 

If you blog and purchase the book, then yes, you get two entries.

Too easy! This competition runs from now until 7 July 2013.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

A lost dog

A stolen dog

A mysterious will

It all equals murder!

Meet twelve-year-old Kitty, friendless bookworm and amateur sleuth. All Kitty wants is to gain her mother’s attention, spend time with her miniature schnauzer Spade, and avoid Miss Perfect, Jessica Jones. 

Kitty’s world turns upside down when she finds a lost dog, and she needs Jessica’s help to find the owner, hunt down a dognapper, and solve a murder.

Introducing Kitty Walker and her mischievous dog Spade in the first Dog Show Detective Mystery.

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RFW: Wedding Writing Prompt

Don't forget the huge competition celebrating the release of DOGNAPPED? 

is still running. 

It closes 7th July. For details and entry, visit:  

WIN A KINDLE FIRE AND AMAZON GIFT CARD

And from the 23rd to 25th June, DOGNAPPED? is FREE!

Romantic Friday Writers have a great writing prompt for June, and that's a wedding!  Go over and sign up, write yourself a short story or scene that includes a wedding theme - will your bride wear white?

I Do...Do You?

It’s embarrassing for me when you say goodbye and I don’t leave. My linger becomes uncomfortable for us both. So, I think, my dearest, that you should stop saying goodbye.

No, don’t speak. Keep this moment suspended, I hope forever. I know I’ve said it before, many times, too many to recall. But I’m here with you where I always want to be.

My sweet, beautiful love, oh there, I’ve said it first. Love. I thought I’d be afraid once the promise slipped my lips. I’m not you know. It feels right. Love. A truth that passes between us.

I’ve declared what we both already knew. There are no questions left. This must be done. Tell her. It really is the kindest thing to do.

The crease of your brow betrays your worry. Bad timing. I know. She’s somewhere right now sliding into that ridiculous white gown. She’ll be devastated. Calm your concerns my darling one. When she sees what must be she’ll forgive us. And she will see, for neither of us could conceal our feelings anymore, we glow with our love, our future intertwined reads like a happy neon sign upon our smiles. She’ll be happy for us, and it will free her. You could never care for her the way you care for me.

Tomorrow will be too late, so I won’t go. Don’t say goodbye, I’ll never leave. Don’t say 'goodbye', or 'get out' or 'I have a restraining order'. Those are just words.

Your denial cuts me. It slices through my soul, a ribbon on its handle. My pain gushes from the wound. How can you pretend to be unaware of our connection?

I see I’ve hurt you too my love. There’s shock in your eyes, they reflect the red of my open wrists, the stain of our destiny. It’s not too late. And you, my handsome groom, can join me. My sister may have the white taffeta dress, but I’ll have you. My blade of truth punctures your sweet throat and now your love finally flows and mingles with mine. As we crumble, our vows spread into a glossy red heart, framing us, this will be our wedding portrait.

365 words

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Win a Kindle Fire and Amazon Gift Card

The launch for Dognapped? has been awesome and it's all thanks to you!

Releasing a book onto the world is always a little bit scary. What if it's not well received? What if everyone hates it? I may have chewed my nails (just a bit), but I can now say the experience of releasing Dognapped? has been amazingly rewarding.

It continues to sit in the top 100 of its categories and is often in the top ten. I've even got a couple of reviews up now, this is all thanks to you awesome bloggers who posted about my book - THANK YOU!

I know most of my blog readers already know about the competition, so you can feel free to skip the next bit :)

To celebrate the release of Dognapped?, I'm hosting a competition: I'll be giving away a Kindle Fire! (Kindle Paperwhite if winner resides outside the US - Amazon won't ship the Fire to non-US countries). That's not all, one lucky runner-up will receive a $25 Amazon gift voucher! (Competition closes 7th July), there are two ways to enter:

1. Purchase your copy of Dognapped?, then fill in the entry form below. You'll be asked for your receipt number from Amazon (it will be on the receipt Amazon email you - keep a copy of your receipt as proof of purchase if you win). Dognapped? will be FREE June 23rd to 25th, and yes you can still enter if you downloaded your copy FREE! 

or

2. Blog about this competition or about Dognapped? (you can review, talk about or interview) then fill in the entry form below. You will be asked for your blog post link in the entry form. 

*If you'd like to review the book, I'll be happy to send you a free review copy, simply email: charmaineclancy@gmail.com. 

If you blog and purchase the book, then yes, you get two entries.

Too easy! This competition runs from now until 7 July 2013.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Want to know more? Here's the blurb:

A lost dog

A stolen dog

A mysterious will

It all equals murder!

Meet twelve-year-old Kitty, friendless bookworm and amateur sleuth. All Kitty wants is to gain her mother’s attention, spend time with her miniature schnauzer Spade, and avoid Miss Perfect, Jessica Jones. 

Kitty’s world turns upside down when she finds a lost dog, and she needs Jessica’s help to find the owner, hunt down a dognapper, and solve a murder.

Introducing Kitty Walker and her mischievous dog Spade in the first Dog Show Detective Mystery.

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FREE book! Plus, WIN a Kindle Fire!

Celebrate the release of my new book and win prizes!

Dognapped? A dog show detective mystery, featuring Kitty and her mischievous miniature schnauzer, Spade. In this adventure, they unravel the mystery of the missing dog -- simply lost, or something more sinister?

A lost dog

A stolen dog

A mysterious will

It all equals murder!

Meet twelve-year-old Kitty, friendless bookworm and amateur sleuth. All Kitty wants is to gain her mother’s attention, spend time with her miniature schnauzer Spade, and avoid Miss Perfect, Jessica Jones. 

Kitty’s world turns upside down when she finds a lost dog, and she needs Jessica’s help to find the owner, hunt down a dognapper, and solve a murder.

Introducing Kitty Walker and her mischievous dog Spade in the first Dog Show Detective Mystery.

Dognapped? is a mystery novel perfect for curious girls aged 10-12yrs. There are funny and cute canine characters, but also an element of danger! 

To celebrate the release of Dognapped?, I'm hosting a competition! I'll be giving away a Kindle Fire! (Kindle Paperwhite if winner resides outside the US - Amazon won't ship the Fire to non-US countries). That's not all, one lucky runner-up will receive a $25 Amazon gift voucher!

There are two ways to enter:

1. Purchase your copy of Dognapped?, then fill in the entry form below. You'll be asked for your receipt number from Amazon (it will be on the receipt Amazon email you - keep a copy of your receipt as proof of purchase if you win). Dognapped? will be FREE May 22nd and 23rd, and yes you can still enter if you downloaded your copy FREE! 

or

2. Blog about this competition or about Dognapped? (you can review, talk about or interview) then fill in the entry form below. You will be asked for your blog post link in the entry form. If you'd like to review the book, I'll be happy to send you a free review copy, simply email: charmaineclancy@gmail.com. 

If you blog and purchase the book, then yes, you get two entries.

Too easy! This competition runs from now until 7 July 2013.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Ancient Spells & Crazy Kings

 

Today I'm happy to be hosting Laura Pauling on her amazing blog tour for her new Middle Grade novel: How to Survive Ancient Spells and Crazy Kings! I love a bit of Egyptian mythology, so enjoy Laura's post and enter to win prizes!:

    

Published by Pugalicious Press

When Bianca and Melvin brave the jungle to rescue their grandfather, they stumble upon the ancient Maya city of Etza, where the people haven’t aged in 2,000 years. They must learn to work together as they face loincloth-wearing skeletons from the underworld, a backstabbing princess, and an ancient prophecy that says in three days the city will be destroyed. No problem. They’ll find Zeb and zip right out of there. The fact that a crazy king wants to serve Bianca up to the gods as an appetizer is just a minor technicality. But this ancient evil dude has finally met his match.

Weaving mythology into a story.

How To Survive Ancient Spells and Crazy Kings is a middle grade time travel. I didn’t plan on adding fantastical elements to the story, other than time travel. The characters would go back in time, solve the mystery, and return home alive--hopefully. But while researching the Ancient Maya I learned about some of the driving forces dictating their cultural decisions. The Maya strongly believed in the afterlife. They believed in an underworld. When kings or queens were buried, their tombs were filled with treasured items to help them on their journey in the next world. Kings in particular were driven to sacrifice their own blood. When their earthly lives passed, they desired to rise up into the heavens and become a god. During their sacrifice rituals they would seek answers from their gods and past kings in the rising smoke from bark soaked with their blood. Most commoners didn’t ascend into the sky and become gods. No, they traversed into the depths of the underworld. So when my characters, Bianca and Melvin head down into a deep underground cavern, it was easy for me to connect that to the underworld of the Maya. So guess who they run into? That’s right. The undead. Thanks, Charmaine, for hosting me on the tour!

How To Survive Ancient Spells and Crazy Kings released in November. Pugalicious Press did a fantastic job, and I’m extremely happy with the results. This book would make a fantastic gift for boys or girls who enjoy adventure stories with lots of excitement! You can purchase it on Amazon or Barnes and Noble. You can read the first chapter here. Check out the teacher's guide. Thankfully, my journey is just beginning and I’m excited to see where it leads. Click here for the list of blog tour stops! Enter to win these prize packages!

Prize Package One (signed paperbacks)

Prize Package Two (signed paperbacks)

Prize Package Three

 

  Refresh the page if you can't see the Rafflecopter form! a Rafflecopter giveaway

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KINDLES FOR KIDS

Most writers that frequent the blogworld would be familiar with Danyelle Leafty, YA author. You might have seen her awesome new series on fairytales, beginning with the gorgeous CATSPELL.

But, did you know about her very generous ambition to donate Kindles to Kids? I love any cause that combines children and literacy so please go check it out at her site. You could even win some good prizes for yourself. You'll find details at this link:

DANYELLE LEAFTY

I'm probably not going to get any more posts in before the big A-Z Blog Challenge, where I will be crazy enough to blog every day, but on my first post for April I'll announce the winner of the KINDLE FIRE or KINDLE 3G. This was part of the MY ZOMBIE DOG Kindle release promotion. You just buy a copy of MY ZOMBIE DOG or blog about the book or the competition and you get an entry. If you want to try a last minute entry then see the details here:

WIN A KINDLE FIRE

My girls at PAPER DOLLS will be attempting the A-Z Challenge for the first time. They are going to try and do a book review for EVERY letter of the alphabet. You can check them out and cheer them on at:

PAPER DOLLS

Good luck with all the competitions and challenges!

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WIN A KINDLE FIRE

March 1st is the big release date for MY ZOMBIE DOG and I'm promoting the book by giving away a free Kindle! (If the winner is a lucky US resident, they will win the Kindle Fire, for everywhere else the prize changes to a Kindle Keyboard 3G - due to Amazon shipping rules).

There's two ways to enter:

Buy MY ZOMBIE BOOK by clicking here and then fill in the entry form below. You will be asked for your receipt number from Amazon (it will be on the receipt Amazon email you - keep a copy of your receipt as proof of purchase if you win). Also, Tweet this competition with a link to this page and you get a second entry! You'll be asked for your tweet link, but if you're not sure how to do that, just use the hashtag #zombiedog in your tweet so it's easy to find.

or

Blog about this competition or about MY ZOMBIE DOG (you can review, talk about or interview) and then fill in the entry form below. You will be asked for your blog post link in the entry form. If you'd like an interview for your post, you can email me at charmaineclancy@gmail.com. Also, Tweet this competition with a link to this page and you get a second entry! You'll be asked for your tweet link, but if you're not sure how to do that, just use the hashtag #zombiedog in your tweet so it's easy to find.

Too easy! This competition runs from now until 31st March 2012.

You can only have one entry for blogging but if you blog and buy the book, you'll get two entries (plus another if you tweet about it!). Each entrant has the possibility of earning up to 3 entries.

Already own the Kindle Fire (I'm jealous!), it'd make a fantastic present to someone you love!

Why I'm doing this:

I love you guys and it's the blogasphere that has helped me to get serious about writing and learning the importance of a professional approach.

Also because of this book:

MY ZOMBIE DOG

On Zane’s 14th birthday he had to bury a dog. The next morning it’s in his room, tail wagging.

This is not the dog he wanted. No, Zane longed for a cool Collie or Shepard. Now he’s stuck with this scraggy, smelly undersized mutt. As if the dog wasn’t embarrassing enough, his mum wants to name it ‘Fluffy’. No way. Zane figures it dug itself out of the ground, so its name is Fossil. 

Fossil's a mean dog and will snap and bite at people... but why are those people bitten turning sluggish and craving strange food items like brains? Can Zane rid himself of this mutt and save his town from a zombie outbreak?

Now... Enter, and GOOD LUCK!

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Book Giveaway Time!

200 followers! Woo Hoo! To celebrate, I'm hosting a BIG BOOK GIVEAWAY!

It's sooo simple to enter, all you have to do is choose which TWO books (yes, you get two!) you would most like to win, fill in the form and tweet or blog about this contest (include a link to this page so people can find it). These will be brand-spanking new books ordered for you from Amazon. I've made a selection for you to choose from, based on my absolute favourite books for helping me with the craft of writing. You will LOVE these books, the hard part will be choosing just two:

 

 

Good Luck!

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Competition WInner!!!!

I'll post my R is for... (hmm don't know yet) later today - It's time to draw the winner of the book giveaway competition! After trying this method:

What hat?

I decided to stick to the original plan of using random.org to generate a number.

And the number I got is.....

(I know some people post up their random.org box to show the results but I couldn't figure out how to get it on here). Still not exciting? Okay... looking on my google list of entrants that is.....

Christine Danek from http://www.christinedanek.blogspot.com/

I will organise with the nice people at Amazon to send out your copy of:

and 

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F is for Follow, Focus and Fetish.

In a blatant attempt to reach 100 FOLLOWERS, I'm hosting a competition to win books on writing and editing! See my last post for the entry form and details:

E is for Enter the Book Giveaway! (oooh, 99 so far!).

I've got a lot of projects on the go at the moment and I find that the days I stress about which to do first, I end up accomplishing nothing. I need to FOCUS on my tasks (I often say I prefer focus-tasking to multi-tasking) and FINISH what I'm on before being distracted by the other.

My current writing tasks include:

• Editing Dog Show Detective
• Writing Warracknabeal Kids
• Researching for Warracknabeal Kids
• Blogging
• Reading, book on writing and editing and all your blogs!

My project tonight is to do up a better timetable so I can schedule these projects to complete a little on a daily basis.  It does help me to keep my information for each task separate. Each writing/editing project has it's own notebook. This is how I discovered I have a FETISH. I will shop for days to find just the right notebook for each project. Dog Show Detective has pets on the cover, while Warracknabeal Kids has a plain brown cardboard cover. If I spot a notebook I love, then I have to have it. I give notebooks as presents. In short, I LOVE notebooks.

F is also for Funny pranks. My protagonist in Warracknabeal Kids is a 12/13yr. old boy who is a bit of a scallywag. Not having a boy's mind for mischief, I asked my husband for some inspiration. I won't go into too much detail but his idea involved a corpse, a coffin and a chicken.

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E is for Enter the Book Giveaway!!!

The contest has closed! I'll announce the winner on tomorrow's blog

  

   

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B is for Birthmarked AND Book Giveaway!

Keeping with the A-Z Blogging Challenge hosted at Tossing it Out. Today is B and I've found a book giveaway competition for you! Steph Su Reads is giving away a copy of the new book Birthmarked by Caragh O'Brien. This comp is open internationally. 

But wait, there's more! In Which a Girl Reads is also hosting an international book giveaway (means us Aussies can enter too!), this is to celebrate gaining a whopping 600 followers! (can you hear the jealousy in my voice?). Check it out:

I'm choosing my favourite books on writing and once I hit the 100 followers (I know that's a long way off 600 - but I'm still thrilled), I'll have a book giveaway too - looks like that won't be long now :-)

B is also for blogging. I currently maintain this site and one on education and teaching English, The Write Words (I also have one for Dog Show Detective aimed at kids). Now my 9yr. old and my 12yr. old daughters have decided they would like a blog too, they would like to blog on book reviews and of course they have no interest in sharing a single blog. Sigh. This is going to be just like the kitten and the rabbit and the puppy - I know who will end up having to do most of the work. 

I am happy they are showing an interest and they were both amazing during NaNoWriMo, each ending up with their own novelette. I told them I would get the book printed and bound for them like a professional book (perfect Christmas present for Grandma!) and now Miss 9 wants to know when it will be in the stores. A little budding writer-wanting-publication in the making!

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Competition - Get Your Google Wave Account!

I pretty much figured I was one of the last to join Google Wave. After critiquing a twitter friend's first chapters, I was generously offered a wave account last year, and boy was I excited.

To find out a little more about Google Wave (if you're not already onboard) you can check out an earlier post I did called: Wave to the Writer. I was very excited at first and saw a great opportunity for writers to form writer's groups and critique online. During NaNoWriMo this was a great tool, but admittedly my attention has strayed (so unlike me - ooh look, a puppy!) and I've barely been on Wave this year.

Now I have been granted a limited number of Waves to pass onto others. I'm hoping this will grant the opportunity to boost the number of writerly/readerly people I know in my Wave groups. 

Soooo... If you have joined as a follower on my blog (or you'd like to follow now), and you could use a Google Wave account, simply leave a comment and I will invite the first ten responses from my followers - I'll need to get your email addy, but we can do that after the ten are up, you won't need to post it on the site if you don't want to :-).

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