It Was Twenty Years Ago Today . . .

OK, so not exactly 20 years. Not today, anyway.

Actually, it was 20 years in January since I published my first book.

Just writing that makes me sit back and think, "Wow." Like all anniversaries, for me, this is a time of reflection. What have I done in 20 years? Well, it goes something like this:

I’ve written and published

10 historical romances

4 contemporary single-title romances

4 category romances

7 YA novels

1 children’s book

5 Cooking Class mysteries

8 Pepper Martin mysteries

1 Button Box mystery
　
Whew! No wonder I’m so tired most of the time!

Which doesn’t mean I’m ready to slow down. The next Button Box mystery ("Hot Button") will be out in June and Pepper Martin #9 ("Supernatural Born Killers") will be a September release. I’m currently working on "Panic Button" and as I mentioned a while back, I’ve got a new series starting soon. I also have news about another sale that I’ll talk about once all the details are hammered out.

Publishing today looks nothing like publishing 20 years ago. Then, we never dreamed of e-rights or e-books or the kind of self-publishing that’s so common now. But one thing remains the same: telling stories. And hey, getting paid for it!

All in all, it’s a pretty darned good way to make a living.

Nook? Kindle? What should I get?

Happy birthday to me...well, almost. It's coming up and my husband just asked the dreaded question: what do you want? I never know. Books? More books? I think he gets tired of that. So this year, I'm thinking about asking for an e-reader. But I have no idea what kind to get.

I've been on the Nook website. Loved the Nook color. But then started wondering if it would be too hard for a tech phobe like me to update and whether it does a lot of the same things as my iPhone. So I looked at regular Nook. That was really cool. Then I looked at the Kindle Touch. But I'm used to turning pages, so would the regular Kindle be better? Or maybe back to the Nook. And Sony has an e-reader too. I haven't even looked at that.

Then again, I literally have nine bookshelves in the house, all full of books I love. When is enough enough? Ha! Okay, that's funny. Totally disregard that.

So those of you with e-readers: What do you have? What do you like about it? And what would you ask for if you had a birthday around the corner?

Three Winners Monday

Happy Monday, all!

It's a gorgeous day here in St. Louis. I'll take a sunny sky and a nice wind any day over the chilly weather we've had lately. It's so nice outside that I've opened the windows and let some of that fresh air inside.

So how was everyone's weekend? Mine was productive. I'm working on a new project and it's been keeping me on my toes as of late.

So, now to the fun part! I have some winners to announce. If you're a winner and I don't have your contact information, shoot me an email here:

Linda Henderson

Simply Kayla

Lady Damonayde

Thanks for your kind comments on my trading cards. I'll be giving them away at the RT Convention in Chicago and I'll have several more contests coming up. Stay tuned.


Everyone have a great week!

ICE Winners!

Thank you for all your entries and excitment about the ICE contest! We had 34 entries, which meant 3 prizes! YAY!  The winners are:

Skyla11377
Princessrose
Rosean

If you three winners could email me from my website, www.stephanierowe.com or on facebook with your email addresses and let me know whether you want the Nook version or the Kindle version, I will send you your prize!

For all those who didn't win, I have a bunch of books coming out over the next few months, and I'll be hosting lots of giveaways for those books, so there will be plenty more chances to win! Plus, ICE was just discounted by 40% (save $2), so now is a good time to treat yourself until the next chance to win rolls around!

Happy Friday!

Stephanie

Conference Season

I’m still in the grip of the winter doldrums that I mentioned last week. However there is a glimmer of excitement beginning to glow. Why? Conference season is coming up! Personally, I love going to them and if I had unlimited resources, I would attend far more than I do. It’s always a hard decision to decide which ones to attend and which ones to pass by. As it stands right now, I’m booked for two—the first annual Romfest in Gatlinburg, TN and sponsored by author Trista Michaels; and the second is back to Louisville, KY for Fandom Fest.

Romfest is going to be a blast. Sherrilyn Kenyon is the keynote speaker and a special guest is forensic anthropologist, Dr. Bill Bass, founder of “The Body Farm” located at the University of Tennessee. (Note on Dr. Bass—I attended one of his presentations a few years ago and it was fascinating. He walked the crowd through two of his cases and explained how he came to his conclusions. Since “Bones” is one of my favorite shows, it was right up my alley!)

Fandom Fest was great fun last year and I expect the same this year. In addition to the literary track, they also have guests from the world of gaming, film and media, and comic books. The guest of honor this year is Bruce Campbell from “Burn Notice”. (Anyone remember “The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.”? Loved that show, too!) Since the conference covers a lot of pop culture, the attendance is huge—around 4,000 last year and I expect they’ll have more this year.

But setting aside all the razzle-dazzle, the special guests, my favorite part of these conferences is still meeting the readers and catching up with some of my author buds! It’s wonderful seeing old friends, making new friends, and just generally getting charged up about this crazy profession in which I’m involved. I always come home exhausted, but thrilled that I’ve had the opportunity to meet and know such great people.

How about you? Has anyone else started making their plans to attend conferences this year? There’s a lot of great ones out there—Malice, Bouchercon, Murder and Mayhem in Muskego, Festival of Mystery, etc.—how many are you attending?

That's all for this week--see you next Thursday!

Best,
Shirley

And the Winner Is . . .

A couple weeks ago I posted a message about a contest. I now have a winner! It's

Lori Y

Lori, send me an email:

casey@caseydaniels.com

And let me know which of the Pepper Martin books you'd like. There's a blurb about each on my website:

www.caseydaniels.com

Since I'm also Kylie Logan, author of "Button Holed," you can also choose that book.

Thanks, everyone, for playing along!

Zombieland comes to town

Something happened last week that still has me grinning every time I think about it. "The Run for Your Lives" Zombie-infested 5K is coming to St. Louis.

Now I've been stalking this race for awhile. They've been doing it in lots of other cities for the past few years. And the website cracks me up.

Basically, this is a 5K obstacle course where zombies try to "eat" you. Now this not being the actual end of civilization as we know it, the zombie threat is more to your ego. Each runner is given a race belt with flags. And similar to flag football, the flags can be torn off until none are left. At that point, you are a zombie. You can still run the race because, you know, it takes a bit for the virus to transform you. But you have to admit, it will call for a lifestyle change.

Someone took a chest-camera video of the race in Alexandrea, Virginia last year. Cracks me up every time I watch it (which is too much according to my daughter).

So if you're a runner or if you think you might be chased by zombies some day, check it out. And if anybody wants to run from zombies with me, we're getting a team together for the 3:00 p.m. wave on August 18 in St. Louis. Sign up for Team Fox. We'll be plotting our survival strategy and getting some cool t-shirts. I'll also bring a box of Twinkies for the end (Zombieland fans will know we need them).