Official Maria V. Snyder Blog

I just received permission to show the Australian/New Zealand cover for TOUCH OF POWER!  So I'm going to do another contest.  Vote for your favorite of the three covers and you will be entered to win a signed copy of TOUCH OF POWER.  There will be two winners picked at random - it's open internationally - must vote by 11:59 p.m. EST on December 6th.  Please leave email addy so I can contact you. All three are being released at the same time (December 20th).  Good news for all!! Here are the covers in alphabetical order: Australia/New Zealand Cover UK Cover USA Cover

My Celebrating post clocked in at 310 comments...WOW! Nothing I've done before has gotten so many comments - guess everyone's excited about TOUCH OF POWER ;> I had to use a new random generator website because my other one only went up to 100. And now without further ado......the five winners are: Chris M. from Ireland Emily C. from Utah, US Nikky B. from England Sarah F. from Georgia, US Shilo M. from Utah, US Congrats to them all!! To the 300 people who didn't win, don't worry - there is going to be a BLOG TOUR starting December 12 with close to a dozen chances to win AND I'm offering another contest today! Yep check my other blog entry for today.

What exactly are we celebrating?  Three things.  One - I've over 500 Followers!  Considering my off again on again relationship with this blog, that's pretty impressive.  Two - I just received my copies of TOUCH OF POWER.  (author perk!) To celebrate, I'm giving away 5 copies of TOUCH OF POWER.  Just leave a comment to this post, and I'll pick winners at random.  The give away is open until midnight my time (EST) on Black Friday (that's Friday, November 25th for my international readers :)  This is open to everyone with a mailing address.  Please also leave an email address so I can contact you with the news. And three - it's Friday - that's always a good reason for a celebration :)

So I'm the worst blogger ever!  Ah, my poor neglected blog is always pushed aside when other tasks come up suddenly.  For example, MIZZ magazine in the UK wants to do a big promotion for TOUCH OF POWER's release.  Great news!  However, they wanted a 3 minute video of me for their new MIZZ TV website and they wanted it before I left for Italy.  A seemingly simple task - talking about my book for 3 mins turned into an all day affair, including how to send a 270 MB file via the Internet.  My poor producer/daughter had to hear the same thing over multiple takes. Yes, I was in Italy, but before I talk about my trip, I wanted to announce the winner of the TOUCH OF POWER ARC!  I received 17 entries and random.org picked entry #9, which is Jessica W. from Texas!!  Congrats to Jessica!!  I might be slow to blog, but Jessica's been, I hope, enjoying her prize for the last couple weeks - I mailed it out before my trip. So what this about Italy?...

In keeping with the scary theme this month, I wanted to let everyone know I'm in another short story anthology called Spirited that has 13 haunted tales of ghosts and other scariness (mine is called NEW GIRL and isn't very scary I must say - it's more funny - and I picked the title BEFORE that TV show came out ;).  The e-book is OUT NOW ( http://www.amazon.com/Spirited-ebook/dp/B005ZGH4ZI/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1319579825&sr=1-1 ), and the print book is coming out in March 2012. The best part of this project - ALL PROCEEDS from the anthology (both print and e-book) will be donated to National 826, a literacy-based charity!  Yep - all the money is going to support literacy.  YAY!  I'm really glad I'm involvled in this and I also had the benefit of working with a friend of mine - the editor Kat O'Shea was editing me when we both were aspiring writers/editors - we were in a critque group together.  Funny how...

I don't know what has gotten into me lately.  Perhaps it's a mid-life crisis or just the desire to do something...scary.  I'm not sure of the reason, but the results have been quite...revealing. I've been wanting to get back into riding motorcycles.  I use to ride a 3 wheeled ATV (a trike) in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey with a bunch of dirt biker friends, but I was in my late teens, early 20s.  Recently my friend Kathy suggested we take the Motorcycle Safety Course together.  They provide the bikes, helmets and instruction over a long weekend.  So I took my learner's permit exam the same day my son took his driver's permit test (no - he didn't think it was cool - lots of eye rolling that day). We both passed :) Over the long Columbus Day weekend, I sat in a classroom for 5 hours of instruction on motorcycle safety. The instructor Harry was quite the character - he'd threaten to throw things at us if we didn't listen to him when we were out ...

Now that I have your attention :)  I'm doing a special OUTSIDE IN promotion and dangling an ARC of TOUCH OF POWER as the prize.  As many of you know, I have contests on my website for all my books.  If you answer 20 questions about the book correctly, I'll send you a signed book label for your book and you're entered into a quarterly drawing to win a copy of the book.  However, poor OUTSIDE IN only has 3 entries since March and I'm determined to change that! So, here's the deal - email me ( maria@mariavsnyder.com ) the answers to the 20 questions below (please put: special OI promo in the subject line), and include your mailing address by OCTOBER 22, 2011 and you will be entered to win an ARC of TOUCH OF POWER with the UK cover!  You'll also get a book label and some cool bookmarks :)  This is open to everyone and no shipping costs either. QUESTIONS: •1 – What is the name of Trella's new cleaning troll? •2 – Who is Bubba Boom? •3 – What are th...