SPIRIT WAR RAFFLE - Day 6 Winner!

All new entries have been added in, and the winner for Day 6 is... Hisham El-Far! OH YEAH!

So,  Hisham El-Far, if you would please contact me with all your details like where you live, whom you want the book made out to, and which book, omnibus or Spirit War, you would prefer, I'll get you shipped off!

For everyone else, we're getting down to the wire! There is only 1 days left to go! And please don't forget to tell people about the contest! The more word we spread, the better it is for everyone. Post your entries on the original thread (rules are there too) to make sure they get counted!

Congrats again, and thanks so much for spreading the word! See you all tomorrow for the next winner!

SPIRIT WAR RAFFLE - Day 5 Winner!

All new entries have been added in, and the winner for Day 3 is...Eric C!

FEAR NOT,  Eric C, it is real! If you would please contact me with all your details like where you live, whom you want the book made out to, and which book, omnibus or Spirit War, you would prefer, I'll get you shipped off!

For everyone else, we're getting down to the wire! There are only 2 days left to go! And please don't forget to tell people about the contest! The more word we spread, the better it is for everyone. Post your entries on the original thread (rules are there too) to make sure they get counted!

Congrats again, and thanks so much for spreading the word! See you all tomorrow for the next winner!

SPIRIT WAR RAFFLE - Day 4 Winner!

All new entries have been added in, and the winner for Day 3 is...Sam Baskin!! I congratulate you with my current favorite thing in the world...

So,  Sam Baskin, if you would please contact me with all your details like where you live, whom you want the book made out to, and which book, omnibus or Spirit War, you would prefer, I'll get you shipped off!

For everyone else, don't worry! There are still 3 days and the grand prize left to go! And please don't forget to tell people about the contest! The more word we spread, the better it is for everyone. Post your entries on the original thread (rules are there too) to make sure they get counted!

Congrats again, and thanks so much for spreading the word! See you all tomorrow for the next winner!

SPIRIT WAR RAFFLE - Day 3 Winner!

All new entries have been added in, and the winner for Day 3 is....Dustin!!

Dustin, if you would please contact me with all your details like where you live, whom you want the book made out to, and which book, omnibus or Spirit War, you would prefer, I'll get you shipped off!

For everyone else, don't worry! There are still 4 days and the grand prize left to go! And please don't forget to tell people about the contest! The more word we spread, the better it is for everyone. Post your entries on the original thread (rules are there too) to make sure they get counted!

Congrats again, and thanks so much for spreading the word! See you all tomorrow for the next winner!

SPIRIT WAR RAFFLE - Day 2 Winner!

All the names were entered into the pot, and the winner for Day 2 is....Laura!! Congratulations! I hope your Eli book makes you as happy as this pumpkin makes this red panda!

So,  Laura, if you would please contact me with all your details like where you live, whom you want the book made out to, and which book, omnibus or Spirit War, you would prefer, I'll get you shipped off!

For everyone else, don't worry! There are still 5 days and the grand prize left to go! And please don't forget to tell people about the contest! The more word we spread, the better it is for everyone. Post your entries on the original thread (rules are there too) to make sure they get counted!

Congrats again, and thanks so much for spreading the word! See you all tomorrow for the next winner!

SPIRIT WAR RAFFLE - Day 1 Winner!

Woo! We had some awesome entries! Have I mentioned how amazing you guys are? AMAZINGSAUCE!

I've entered all the entries for yesterday into my magic spreadsheet and, the randomly selected winner for Day 1 is.... The Superhero Princess!! HOORAY! I will now use your name as an excuse to post a picture of Thor!

Hey Chris, come play Josef, would you?

AHEM, so, The Superhero Princess, if you would please contact me with all your details like where you live, whom you want the book made out to, and which book, omnibus or Spirit War, you would prefer, I'll get you shipped off!

For everyone else, don't worry! There are still 6 days and the grand prize left to go! Today is a fresh day, so feel free to repost and get your name in the hat again for more chances to win. Also, everyone who posted yesterday is still in the pot for the rest of the prizes! Don't forget to post your entries on the original thread (rules are there too) to make sure they get counted!

Congrats again, and thanks so much for spreading the word! See you all tomorrow for the next winner!

The Spirit War Give Away!

THE TIME LONG FORETOLD IS UPON US... The Spirit War is finally here!

And it looks so nice next to the omnibus!

Isn't it lovely? Don't you want one?! Well, you're in luck, because Orbit sent me a big old box of these lovelies to give away to you fabulous people!

A pile of Elis! 

Now, since the last give away contest I did for the omnibus was such a huge success, we're going to do it again! I am happy to announce the...

Official Spirit War Pre-Release Raffle!

The Prizes!
You've waited patiently for so long. Now, you can win the book before it hits shelves! I'm giving away 7 personalized signed copies of THE SPIRIT WAR (or the Eli Monpress Omnibus if for some crazy reason you haven't read that yet, your choice!), one for each day until Thursday, May 17! Also, at the end of the contest, I'll combine all the entries to pick one grand prize winner who will get signed copies of both THE LEGEND OF ELI MONPRESS Omnibus and THE SPIRIT WAR, plus a $50 Amazon.com gift card to spend on the books of your choice!

How to Enter
Unlike my last contest, there's no reviews to move this time, so that means the rules are even simpler. All you have to do is spread the word that THE SPIRIT WAR is coming out on June 5! Post about Eli on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, your blog, or any other social platform of your choice and then drop me a note in the comments below letting me know what you did and I'll enter you into the pot.

This is a raffle, that means you can enter multiple times. Every time you spread the word somewhere on the internet (or even in real life! I'll totally count putting up a flyer if you roll old school!) put it in the comments below with a link. Pin the cover, post on Twitter, and mention the book on your blog? That's 3 entries! Tell me so and I'll enter your name 3 times.

I'll be drawing from the comments on this post every day, including today, so the sooner you enter, the more chances you have to win. You can also keep promoting the book every day to increase your chances ever further. Winners will be announced the morning of the day after they win, so today's winner will be announced tomorrow morning, etc.

The grand prize drawing will be on  Thursday, May 17th at 12:00 PM, east coast US time (EST). After this, entries will be closed and I'll be mailing out a lot of books!

Boring Rules Stuff
This contest to open to everyone in the US, Canada, and the UK. Only one entry per social network per day (so no posting it a million times on Twitter for a million entries :P). Readers who win one of the earlier signed copies are still eligible for the grand prize at the end, but since they already have a book coming to them, I'll pick a new winner to get the extra copy.

If you have any questions about the contest, the rules, or the books, please contact me! If you want to read a sample of the book you'll be winning, you can do that here.

Good Luck!
And please spread the word of the contest around. If I get a lot of people, I'll just give away more books to keep the chances even.

ETA: Following me on Facebook, Twitter, Tumlr, and Pinterest also count as entries if you're not doing that already. Bonus! Just let me know below.

Rachel enters the internet

So yesterday I finally decided to go see what all the fuss was about and made a Pinterest account. I'm not normally a big social network person, I've never really liked facebook, I kind of suck at blogging, and I've only half way got Twitter. I figured Pinterest would be the same.... and then I realized I'd been "just checking it out" for almost 3 hours.

Yeah, addiction time.

But it's not all bandwagon hopping. The visual nature of Pinterest gave me a pretty fun idea. See, my absolute favorite part of my books are the quips. Dialogue is my favorite thing to write, but it's the hardest thing to promo in a book since it requires someone to actually, you know, read the thing. But then I thought hey, wouldn't it be cool if I could make pretty dialogue pictures of the best Eli quotes?

That's some win right there.

I love this idea because I really hate back of book blurbs, and covers just don't give you a real feel. But awesome quotes? That will make you pick up a book! Plus they're pretty to look at. Of course, I had to have a place for all these quotes to live... so I made a Tumblr to hold them all, and thus Monpressive was born.

So that's 2 new social platforms in one day. Welcome to the 21st Century, Rachel! I'll be adding my pinterest and tumblr links to my website, please come follow me! I think this is some social networking I can actually do! 

Also, if you have a favorite Eli quote you want to see on Monpressive, or if you want to make some quote art of your own, let me know in the comments or on my contact page! Looking forward to it!

Illustrated Review - The Spirit Rebellion

The lovely Sita, she of the awesome illustrated review for The Spirit Thief, has done it again! This time with a very clever review of The Spirit Rebellion, which she translated into English for me! BEHOLD!

Again, HUGE thanks to Sita (@BookwormSita) both for the review and the translation! Be sure to check out her awesome illustrated review site, sorcelleries.net (it's in French, but it is still awesome to look at!).

Rachel the Reader vs Rachel the Writer

I've been doing a lot of interviews/general talking as the Spirit War's release date gets closer (SO EXCITED!), and the question of "what are your favorite books?" has come up a lot, as it does. For the record, my favorite book changes all the time, but perennial favorites include The Last Unicorn, Dune, The Deed of Paksenarrion, 1984, The World Without Us, and Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. 

As I was answering all these questions, though, I began to think why I choose the books I do and more, why there are certain books I can't seem to enjoy no matter how hard I try or how good I know they are. For example, confession time, I can not get into Game of Thrones. I have tried four times in the last ten years to read the first book and I've never made it past the first hundred pages. 

This infuriates me, because I know I'm missing out. All my friends love the series, but I just can't get into it. Same with The Night Circus (Erin Morgenstern). I've heard nothing but amazing things about this book, and while I got a good half way through, I just never really cared enough to finish it. 

I actually have a very long and impressive list of books other people loved but I could never get into, including several genre classics I feel I should read as a writer. But no matter how hard I try, I just can't make myself finish them. 

I think this is in part because Rachel the Writer and Rachel the Reader approach books differently. Rachel the Reader is far, far crueler than Rachel the Writer. When I'm reading, my tolerance for slow starts or gentle build up is next to zero. Sometimes I just hate characters, other time there's something in the book that I find distasteful to the point where I don't want to read any more about them. And sometimes I just don't care enough to keep going.

This incredibly picky, irrational way of judging books horrifies Rachel the Writer, most of all because it's so arbitrary. Like, I can see as a writer that something is good, but the reader part of me just does not care. It's one thing to understand that not everyone will like every book and quite another to see it in yourself, especially when it's so easy to start seeing reasons a reader could hate my work. Undermining doesn't even begin to describe it.

Some writers talk about their internal editor. Me? I fear my internal reader. I'm constantly scared the bitch will zero in on something and that will be that. I've actually put down whole, perfectly good novels because the reader half of me wasn't on board, and while that's probably a good thing, I still can't tell you why the book didn't work. As someone who likes to be scientific and specific, it drives me NUTS. 

So, have you ever had a novel you knew you should have love but didn't? Do you let fear of reader expectations cloud your writing? Do you notice a difference between your writer mind and your reader mind? I'm really curious!

- Rachel