Diana Rowland — Writing, Life, and the Stuff in between

Yes, finally, the panel of unreliable judges has come through with the winners. Yay!

By the way…Holy Crap, this was hard to judge! From the simplest entries to the most complex, every single one was fantastic and delightful, and I’m incredibly grateful to all of you for taking the time to create and post a pic. Looking through all the entries was a rare thrill. Lots of pictures with pets, religious artifacts, not-so-religious artifacts, kids, smiles, the whole nine yards.

But, as I said, it was a bitch to judge, and I am doubly grateful that I was able to dump the hard part onto others. Honestly, I don’t think I could have picked any winners on my own. I loved them all!

Now, as you might recall, the prizes were:

An autographed copy of Mind Games by Carolyn Crane
An autographed copy of Accidentally Demonic by Dakota Cassidy
An autographed copy of Tempest Rising by Nicole Peeler
TEN autographed copies of Mark of the Demon or Blood of the Demon (winners’ choice)
A $10 Barnes & Noble gift card contributed by Michele Bardsley

As well as TWO GRAND PRIZES of New Orleans-y gift baskets with all sorts of cool New Orleans goodies, both books, along with a $50 Barnes & Noble gift card each.

And, a couple of prizes have been added to the pool! Jeanne Stein has very kindly offered to donate a signed copy of The Becoming, along with book cover magnets and other goodies.

AND another $10 B&N card was added by one of the unreliable judges, simply because it came down to a decision between two entries, and it was most easily resolved by adding one more prize.

All of the above prizes (except the grand prizes) will be distributed to the following winners:

Best Picture with a Cat–Hilda

Best Picture with a Dog–Heather

Best use of Accoutrements–Ambika

Best use of Statuary–Rene

Most Artistic-Amy

Best Drawing–Bianca F

Best Summoning Circle (ebook version)–Cheryl H

Best Summoning Circle (print version)–Melissa T

Best Incorporation of Alcohol–Jani

Best Use of Religious Icons/Texts–Nicole L (I especially liked the inclusion of a coffee-mug as a religious artifact. I completely approve!)

Best Collage–Robin K

Best Foreign Entry–Julia The Brazilian

Most Impressive Collection of Cool and Bizarre Stuff–Jon Hansen

Best LOLcat version–Julie Wood

Best Montage (which, unfortunately has to be a link, because there was just no way I could get it all over here!)–Pearl

http://pearl72.blogspot.com/2010/03/day-in-life-of-pearl.html

And, The Cutest–Van P

And now for the two Grand Prize Winners!! These were unanimous decisions from the unreliable judges:

Grand Prize #1–Crissi B (Who, by the way, does NOT have a twin!)

And, Grand Prize #2–Tynga (I LOVED this one!!)

Thanks again to everyone who participated!! Winners, I’ll be emailing you soon (hopefully tomorrow) with details and information about your prizes! (This is assuming you left a valid email address when you posted your comment. If not, I’ll blog and tell you to email me. )

The good news: The panel of unreliable judges has finished judging, and we have Winners!

The bad news: I was tied up with family stuff all day, and don’t have all the winning pictures formatted all purty-like just yet. But, I have a significant chunk of time blocked out tomorrow for doing just that, and the winners and their pics will all be revealed tomorrow!

Thanks for your patience.

Unfortunately, this was the self-imposed one that had to do with announcing the winners of the Demontastic contest. [wince] Sorry!! Today was stupid busy, but I PROMISE I’ll announce the winners tomorrow!! (It doesn’t help that there were so many AWESOME entries! Curse you all for being so clever!)

Wow, y’all are seriously creative!!! Thanks to everyone who participated in the Demontastic Contest To Hell! The contest is now closed, and I’m planning on announcing winners this Friday.

And the cool news is that there are other neato special offers going on RIGHT NOW on other highly worthy blogs! For a limited time, Mario Acevedo is offering you the chance to get a bonus story from Jaye Wells, Kat Richardson, or Carolyn Crane. All you have to do is order Werewolf Smackdown from BarnesandNoble.com by 10AM, Thursday March 25, 2010. Go to www.marioacevedo.com for the details!

And, the lovely and talented Nicole Peeler is running a terrific contest for the talented and lovely Carolyn Crane, whose debut novel Mind Games releases today!

So, go forth and enter! And, be sure to check back here on Friday for the winners of the Demontastic Contest To Hell!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (because I don’t think I’ve used enough exclamation points yet..LOL)

So, most (normal) authors do a big promotional push for the release week of their book. This makes sense, see, because those first week numbers are considered super-important blah blah blah… And, for Mark of the Demon I did do a big push during the run-up to the release and the release week itself.

But, as you’ve all no doubt figured out by now, I’m not normal. Or sane, or sensible, (or organized), or anything else that could possibly make this whole Profeshunal Riter thing easier. (Plus, I was busy finishing up Secrets of the Demon before its deadline, which conflicted beautifully with the release week of Blood of the Demon.)

So, I’m officially embarking on a WEEK FOUR DEMONTASTIC PUSH TO HELL! (See what I did there? Normally it might be “from hell”, but since I write about demons I thought it would be funny to say “to hell” even though that really doesn’t make a whole lot of sense since the demons in my book aren’t from hell anyway, but I’m on a bunch of bronchitis meds and steroids and crap, so right now it’s TOTALLY HYSTERICAL. To me, at least.)

Anyway. Here’s the deal. I’m going to run a Big Neato Demontastic Contest To Hell! (Hence the title of this post.) Here are the prizes so far (and more may be added as the week progresses):

14 runner-ups will be chosen and be placed in random order to choose from–

An autographed copy of Mind Games by Carolyn Crane
An autographed copy of Accidentally Demonic by Dakota Cassidy
An autographed copy of Tempest Rising by Nicole Peeler
TEN autographed copies of Mark of the Demon or Blood of the Demon (winners’ choice)
A $10 Barnes & Noble gift card contributed by Michele Bardsley

And TWO AWESOMELY GRAND PRIZE WINNERS will receive New Orleans-y gift baskets with all sorts of cool New Orleans goodies, both books, along with a $50 Barnes & Noble gift card each.

Now, to be entered into the Demontastic Contest To Hell, all you have to do is:

1) Take a picture of yourself/someone else/a random sculpture/your pet/anything else with either Mark of the Demon or Blood of the Demon. And, because I don’t want to make it so that you have to buy a copy of the book to enter (I don’t want this to be something where you have to pay to participate) it can be a borrowed book, an e-book, a library book, or–if all else fails–a picture of the cover of the book.

2) Post said picture on your blog, or your twitter, or your facebook, or an online photo-sharing site (flickr or that sort of thing. Most are free and easy to use.) along with a link back to my website.

3) Come back and comment here with the link to where you posted the pic. I’ll be collecting all the winning pics and putting them on a page for all to see. (By posting your pic and commenting here with the link, you are giving me permission to repost said pic on the winners page. ‘Kay?)

4) PLEASE please please do NOT email me pics or files or anything like that. I’m super nervous about opening files from people I don’t know, and I’d rather not lose my work due to a virus. Thanks.:-)

Winners will be chosen by a panel of untrustworthy judges. Completely arbitrary and subjective points will be awarded for coolness, creativity, and WOW factor. Contest will close this Sunday, March 21st at midnight Louisiana time. Winners will be announced within the following week.

Go wild!!

P.S. Feel free to spread the word about the contest.

Well, Blood of the Demon is loose in the wild, and you should be able to find it at booksellers everywhere–or in just about any e-format you might prefer! And, if for some reason you don’t see it in the “R”s in the Science Fiction section, check the New Releases section, or if you’re at Books A Million, check the Romance section. I’m not sure why BAM insists on shelving my titles in Romance, but hey, at least they carry them!** (And, if all else fails, ask at the customer service desk.)

Other news that I think I forgot to mention here is that Mark of the Demon has gone into its third printing! Huge thanks to all of you who made that necessary!

And, other cool news about MotD and BotD is that French and Thai rights have sold. Soon I’ll be able to say that my books are published in four languages! ***

And, finally, I’ve been receiving quite a few wonderful and awesome emails begging to know when the next book will be out. Unfortunately, I don’t have an answer for you yet. Since I’m switching publishers, there might be a bit of a pause in the production schedule. However, the operative word there is “might”. I really don’t know anything at this time, but I’ll be sure to make a big announcement as soon as I do!

The good news, though, is that I’ve finished and turned in the third book–Secrets of the Demon. And, while I’m waiting for my editor’s revision letter, I’ve started working on book four–Sins of the Demon. In fact, here you can see the Plot Wall of Doom for the fourth book, wherein I attempt to keep track of everything I need to keep track of, both in this book and in the series as a whole.

(In fact, plotting has suddenly become Very Tricky, since I’m essentially having to juggle two plots. I’ve been referring to previous books quite a lot lately to try to make sure that I don’t slip in any contradictions.)

And, finally, I have to say that I’m stupidly tickled to hear that “Team Ryan” and “Team Rhyzkahl” factions have been forming. All I can say for y’all is that you’re gonna LOVE Secrets of the Demon. [cue evil laugh]

** For what it’s worth, I have absolutely nothing against Romance (and actually read quite a bit of it) and the only reason I have any issue with the books being shelved in Romance is because the Demon series isn’t technically romance. Yes, there’s romantic tension, but there’s an expectation that books in the romance genre will have a Happily Ever After, or at least a Happy For Now–and my books don’t have that. Now, that being said, there will be a (hopefully) satisfying resolution to various romantic tensions by the end of the series, but it’s going to take several more books to get there. Anyway, I hate the idea that a romance reader might buy my book and be disappointed in it, solely because it doesn’t fulfill the (justified) expectations of the genre.

***English, German, French, Thai!