[tags]book tours[/tags]

“This book is so good, I’m buying two so that each eye can have its own copy.”

Go — read ‘em and weep with glee.

[tags]Scott Adams, Dilbert, book blurbs[/tags]

Small-town life gives us so many stories to tell. There’s no shortage of local eccentrics to chronicle. It’s a culture that reveres good dogs, family ties, loyal friends, the glory of sports, and, of course, storytelling. It’s also a state known for its potent brew of politics, civil rights struggles, fundamentalist religion, and poverty; pain, controversy, fire and brimstone, and struggles make for stronger characters on the page and poised over the keyboard. (Do you like how I worked in more reasons in this intro? We’re sneaky, too.)

But I decided on these key points:

1. We can ALL pronounce “Yoknapatawpha.”

2. A love of home and history seeps into the bedrock of our lives. No one really has to explain that “The past isn’t dead, it isn’t even past.”

3. Quirky, complicated and highly individualistic writers/artists fit right in with the Southern love of characters. There’s no problem if you want to move through life stages that include watercolor artist, Baptist preacher, Harley owner, newspaper journalist, and murder mystery writer.

4. Grit from our day jobs — lawyers, firefighters, and National Park Service Rangers — filters into the fiction.

5. We know dark comedy and crazy families.

How’s that, Rosina? The meme contest is a great marketing idea and a fun project.

[tags]Mississippi authors, Southern writers, Southern authors, Southern fiction, Mississippi writers[/tags]

Tied to the Tracks by Rosina Lippi. July 3, 2007. ISBN: 0425215326″[This] is a hilarious, smart, sexy novel with a heart of gold.” — Susan Wiggs

“[Lippi] turns her buoyant creative talents to the romantic comedy genre with an effervescent tale of a trio of offbeat Yankee filmmakers plunked down deep in the heart of Dixie.” — Booklist

Read an excerpt. (Adobe Reader required)| Watch the book trailer

You can find Tied to the Tracks at Amazon , Barnes & Nobel, Borders, Powells, or at your local independent bookseller.

This meme has been entered in the Tied to the Tracks contest, originating on Rosina Lippi’s Storytelling2 weblog. If you’d like to enter the BUCKS & BOOKS meme contest, get the rules here.

• There’s a difference between signed books and inscribed books. It inspired me to do a web search on the topic, and I found a thoughtful article on the topic here.
• There’s a free search engine called Bookfinder.com that is dedicated just to helping people find books. It searches more than 100,000 bookstores’ inventories to provide results. And it works; it turned up 12 copies of a rare book on crossword puzzle design I’ve been seeking for years.

Live and learn!

[tags]signed books, inscribed books, book inscriptions, book search engine, podcasts[/tags]

[tags]autobiography, DropsofBlood.com, Carolyn Bahm, memoir[/tags]

*sigh*

Heaven.

Today, the grownup SFF reader in me is emitting high-frequency squeals because I just got a gift from author S.L. Viehl — her latest book to hit the stands. A book I really wanted! She recently posted a drawing on her blog, Paperback Writer, and gave away paperbacks of Rebel Ice. As a marketing tool, this was very smart to send to eager readers/bloggers, and I hope it nets her some extra publicity. (Check this space in a few days; I’ll post a review.) And as a kind gesture from an author to her fans, it was incredibly generous of her to send some of her books to the ordinary Joes and Jane Does who keep up with her via the blogosphere. And to up the coolness factor for me personally, it’s also signed.

Ain’t I grinning tonight.

The only two things I can recall winning before this are (1) a frying pan in a department store drawing when I was in high school and could not have cared less about cooking and (2) a book about the history of bars and roadhouses and DewDrop Inns and other such fine establishments in some midwestern state. (I was around the zillionth-place winner. Took me a week to figure out why someone had sent me the book. I kept looking back through my various book club fliers, wondering what brain aneurysm I had suffered to make me order that.)

Cool. New. Book. Love it! If I hadn’t already stayed up way too late with blogs tonight, I’d dive through a few pages tonight.

Well … I don’t really need THAT much sleep for a Tuesday at work …

(Followup on Rebel Ice: I’m sorry that I never posted a review of this book. My confession is that I didn’t finish it. It’s no fault of the writing itself, which was good. I’m squeamish sometimes and  just didn’t like part of the subject matter once I started reading. So sorry! – Carolyn)

P.S. Just heard from the Literary Chicks that I’ll be getting a signed copy of Beth Kendrick’s Fashionably Late, too. How cool is that? I can’t wait to curl up on the sofa and discover her writing style; I do love me some toe-curling good chick lit. I’ll blog about it and do a review when this book lands in my mailbox too.

Thanks to the authors who are sharing copies of your latest books via your blogs. I think this is a great way to reward, inspire and attract readers while you introduce your latest book to the market. And it’s such a fun, nice thing to do, too. Thank you!

(Follow-up on Fashionably Late: Well, this doubles my embarrassment. Because I had a stack of several books to read, I loaned the copy of this one to someone … who lost it. So I never got to read it! *Wah!* Sorry for not posting a review — my face is flaming red over this.)

[tags]DropsofBlood.com, Carolyn Bahm, free books, book promotion, book reviews[/tags]