Choices Meant for Kings Online Book Tour Update
Or...The Dragon says hope springs eternal

There's a very good possibility that Fantasy Author Sandy Lender will be appearing at the following this week:

Wednesday, Sept. 30: Liana's blog interview
Thursday, Oct. 1 at 7:30 a.m. ET: Authors Connection Radio Show
Thursday, Oct. 1: Penny's blog review
Friday, Oct. 2: Penny's blog interview

"Some days, you just want the dragon to win."
Tags: fantasy author, Sandy Lender, online book tour

Another Week Atourin’
Or…The Dragon has more stops for your contest-winnin’ delight

If you’re still learning about my newest release, Choices Meant for Kings, or still trying to win a copy of the first novel, Choices Meant for Gods, you’ll enjoy using the easy research stops of my online book tour spots this week. We have a couple guest posts and a couple interviews for your entertainment. Just leave a comment or question at a blog stop or two and you’ll be entered for the chance to win the book, and you’ll learn more stuff, too. Have fun!

(And remember that you can get a free dragon magnet if you’re one of the first 25 to get yourself and a friend signed up as followers here. Details in the post below.)

Monday: Morbid Romantic
Tuesday, 22nd: LoveRomancePassion
Wednesday, 23rd: Chris Redding AND Katie Hines
Thursday, 24th: a day off
Friday, 25th: Inspiration Ink
Saturday, 26th: nothing confirmed yet
Sunday, 27th: nothing confirmed yet

“Some days, you just want the dragon to win.”
Tags: online book tour, Choices Meant for Gods, Choices Meant for Kings

The Tour That Keeps You Guessing
Or...The Dragon should have a separate contest for guessing which dates will work

I think I'm being cynical this morning. It might be a function of lack of sleep or lack of reimbursement for expenses I turned in more than three months ago. Take your pick. BUT! In fabulous news, I'm on an online book tour to support the brand new release of Choices Meant for Kings, available now as a fancy dancy hardcover (perfect for holiday gift-giving) or an eBook (only at the Amazon-safe publisher's site).

If you'd like to read some cool interviews and cool guest blogs from moi and then interact with the tour hosts and me, then you have the perfect opportunity to do so from now until Oct. 4. Now, so far, the tour dates have been hit or miss, but, hey, stop in and see which hosts have remembered to post their interview or guest blog from me on their day. It's like a game...a not-so-professional game that toys with my budding career as a fantasy author, but a fun little game nonetheless. Woo-hoo!

This week is underway so let's start with today's stop, which isn't up as of "press time," but that doesn't mean it won't be there later today. Time zones and all...

Tuesday: Amber Scott Project
Wednesday: Anne Kane
Thursday: Laurie Edwards
Friday: Elaine Cantrell
Saturday: Lily Stone Books
Sunday: Hywela Lyn

Now, you may notice that a few of the tour hosts along this online book tour write books themselves. And some of those books are of the hardcore romance variety. That's okay. Choices Meant for Kings is still all fantasy all the way through, with just that sweet romance between Nigel and Chariss. (You can check the reviews at Amazon to reassure yourself.)
I'll post next week's roster later (read: as my tour guides confirm everything for me).
Oh! Don't forget the best part of this whole online tour thing for you happy visitors! If you leave a comment at one of the blogs WITH your e-mail address in the comment, you get entered to win a hardcover, first edition, autographed copy of Choices Meant for Gods. How cool is that?

"Some days, you just want the dragon to win."
Tags: Choices Meant for Kings, online book tour, fantasy

We Have Winners!
Or…The Dragon gives away books to celebrate successful online book tour

I haven’t posted at this blog for a month (or so) because I’ve been posting at a bunch of other places since June 1 for my third online book tour. The great news is the tour has been a great success. I’m surprised at the hits to this site. We went from 23,320 to 23,791 with no new posts from me. Odd stat, but cool to have folks checking in to learn more about me. My rank for Today the Dragon Wins at Technorati went from 376,090 to 269,519, which isn’t fabulous, but, hey, I’ll take the improvement. What I found bizarre is that, after being showcased (and linked) on 20 or so blogs, Today the Dragon Wins’ authority at Technorati went from 15 to 14. Methinks Technorati needs to adjust their system, eh? (There's a nifty green button at the upper right of this blog post where you can link to "favorite" this blog on Technorati, if you're so inclined.)

On Twitter, I went from 59 followers to 1,649 thanks to my participation with my good friend Jamieson Wolf in the Internet’s first live Tweeterview. (You can read the full transcript at this blog.)

I joined facebook in the middle of the tour and now have 125 connections there. At Amazon, my page for Choices Meant for Gods gained another five-star review and my ranking improved overall. Its best was 59,884 one Friday (late morning).

In other great news, I met some fun people during the tour. From the hosts to the visitors, fantasy readers with excellent ideas and senses of humor made me thankful for the time, energy, and dollars I put into the tour. It was worth it. Now, I get to give a little extra “thank you” to a few of those folks. My tour organizers pulled names from those who left comments each week during the tour and here are the winners who will be receiving hardcover, first edition, personalized copies of Choices Meant for Gods in the mail!

The tour host winner is Cynthia Eden. We had the most comments (29—not counting duplicates or my comments) the day she hosted me at her site.

Week One Winner: Pauline Baird Jones
Week Two Winner: My Newest Stalker, Mysti Holiday
Week Three Winner: Lisa Lawmaster Hess
Week Four Winner: M (love the Bond reference!)
Week Five Winner: Deborah Panger

With the comments link below, please join me in not only congratulating these folks on winning a fabulous vacation-in-a-book, but also in thanking them for supporting me during the tour with their kind words. It was a fantastic journey.

(You can also follow this blog so you're notified when I update with news.)

“Some days, I just want the dragon to win.”
Tags: fantasy, dragon, winners, book, Choices Meant for Gods, online book tour, blog, Technorati, Twitter, Tweeterview, Jamieson Wolf, facebook, Cynthia Eden, Pauline Baird Jones, Mysti Holiday, Lisa Lawmaster Hess, Deborah Panger

Where is Sandy Lender?
Or…The Dragon lists this month’s online book tour stops

Information about Fantasy Author Sandy Lender and her fantasy novel Choices Meant for Gods immediately follows this list of tour dates. We encourage you to stop by these blogs to visit with Sandy during her tour. If you leave a comment, you will be entered in a contest to win a hardcover, first edition, autographed copy of Choices Meant for Gods (one is being given away per week of the tour). If you can’t wait to see if you win the autographed print version, you can order the eBook at the publisher’s site. You can also check out reviews and pictures at Amazon.
This list will be updated as additional stops are confirmed.
(If you’re looking for regular updates/news about Sandy and what’s going on in the writer’s life this month, check with Nigel’s blog at http://sandylender.blogspot.com/.)

June 1 Travel the Ages
June 2 A.F. Stewart's Blog
June 3 Annekane's Weblog
June 4 The Perils of Pauline
June 4 Long and Short Reviews
June 5 Inspiration Ink
June 5 Jamieson Wolf
June 6 Lily Stone
June 11 Marianne Arkins
June 12 LRP
June 13 LRP
June 14 MLM
June 15 Laurie J. Edwards
June 16 LRP
June 17 Nicole Zoltack
June 18 Cynthia Eden
Participate in the first live online author Tweeterview (view press release here)
June 20 http://twitter.com/sandylender AND http://twitter.com/jamiesonwolf
June 22: Chris Redding
June 23: Christine Clemetson
June 24 Absolute XPress
June 25 Chic Book Chick
June 26 A Book Blogger's Diary
June 27 J.K. Coi
June 28 Deborah's Realm
June 30 Cate Masters
July 1 Alien Places
July 2 Hywela Lynn
July 3 Kathryn Kennedy

See you around the blogosphere!
Oh! And, just for grins, totally check out the turtle graphic at the bottom of my blog, right above my Twitter updates. How cute is that? When you click your mouse inside the graphic, it drops food pellets for the turtles to eat. Fabulous, I say.
“Some days, I just want the dragon to win.”
Tags: online book tour, Choices Meant for Gods, fantasy, twitter, tweeterview

An Interview with Jo Linsdell
Or…The Dragon takes you to Italy…sort of

International Author Extraordinaire Jo Linsdell joins us at The Dragon as part of her online promotion for her newest release Italian for Tourists: Pocket Edition, which is available from Lulu.com.

What’s your personal background?
Jo Linsdell: I came to Rome Italy from the UK in June 2001. I originally came for 3 days but fell in love with the city and decided to stay. After all these years I’m still here, married to an Italian (with whom I have a son) and have no plans to leave any time soon.

Who is your intended readership?
Jo Linsdell: I created this book for tourists. There are a lot of phrasebooks out there but they all seem to want to give as much information as possible, a lot of it irrelevant to a tourist who just wants to get by for the couple of days or weeks that he‘s in Italy. This book is designed to be a basic guide to the Italian language covering phrases and words most needed by tourists.

Why did you write this book?
Jo Linsdell: I came to Italy with the plan of staying for 3 days and figured I could get by for such a short stay using English. With this in mind I hadn’t prepared for the fact that Italians might not speak English. In fact a lot of them don’t or if they do it’s very limited. I felt rude not being able to thank or greet people in Italian, after all I was in Italy. If an Italian came to England not being able to speak English how far would he get? I got myself a phrasebook to help me but a lot of the information was irrelevant and it took ages to find what I needed. I wrote this book bearing all this in mind. A tourist doesn’t need to know everything about Italian grammar and the in’s and out’s of renting an apartment. They want to have an easy to use reference book of the language they will need to use and understand during their stay.

How did you research your book?
Jo Linsdell: I’ve been living here for 7 years now and from my own experience I know the sort s of things that are useful to know when you first come here. I also worked in hostels and as a tour guide and know what information people used to ask me for.

The Dragon: How do you enjoy working through lulu.com? Is it difficult tracking all the accounting/bookkeeping/financial aspects without an agent or publisher in the mix or is it refreshing to have everything in your control?

Jo Linsdell: I've found lulu.com to be great for publishing my books. The on site account they give you when you sign up makes it easy to check your book sales and see how much you've earned. Royalty payments are sent automatically. I get mine sent via paypal.It's nice to be in control of everything. It also means you don't have to give up a percentage of your earnings to someone else.

The Dragon: What marketing avenues do you use that you would recommend to other authors visiting the site today?
Jo Linsdell: I'm a member of some great networking sites including http://bookmarket.ning.com, facebook, myspace and several yahoo groups. These are good for learning more about the writing industry too.I also manage several blogs including the multi award winning http://writersandauthors.blogspot.com. This is a great way to create a following and therefore spread the word about yourself and your writing. On each of my blogs I have links to my books and my other sites.Other peoples blogs are a great way to reach a new audience, so I highly recommend doing interviews and online tours.I also organise an annual online international event called PROMO DAY. It's a whole day dedicated to promoting, networking and learning. This years event will take place on Saturday 9th May at http://jolinsdell.tripod.com/promoday. It's free to attend and everyone is welcome.

The Dragon: Thank you for sharing your experience with us today, Jo. It’s always a pleasure to see you here at The Dragon, and we wish you great success with your Italian for Tourists guide!
“Some days, I just want the dragon to win.”
Tags: Jo Linsdell, Italian for Tourists, online book tour, book promotion, Italy

Interview with Author Jane Kennedy Sutton

Welcome to The Dragon, Jane. Today we're conducting an interview that one might experience while participating in an Online Book Tour. So let me ask you a few questions about your recent release The Ride.

The Dragon: First, can you tell us what genre you would use to classify The Ride? I saw it more as a women's adventure story, but I don't know if that's a real category or not!

Jane Kennedy Sutton: The Ride is classified as contemporary women’s fiction. However, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the positive comments and reviews received from men, which leads me to believe contemporary fiction best describes the genre.

The Dragon: The reviews for The Ride have been largely positive whether people love the main character, Barbie, or want to yell at her. How do you feel toward this character that you lived with while writing for so long? (And how long did you live with her in your head?)

Jane Kennedy Sutton: I can so identify with many of Barbie’s less favorable qualities that I was shocked when I first heard someone didn’t like her. However, in retrospect, I can understand how people can be frustrated with how her low self-esteem leads her to make choices in her life that are not in her best interest. Barbie has been in my head for so many years I’ve lost count and at times I still think of her as an actual ‘being.’

The Dragon: When was The Ride released?

Jane Kennedy Sutton: August 2008 – a month I’ll never forget.

The Dragon: This is your first novel and I know the process was long. Can you share with our visitors what feelings you had when you finally got to hold your book in your hand?

Jane Kennedy Sutton: As the commercial says, “Priceless.” There are times I still find myself hesitant to list my occupation as an author.

The Dragon: You have vast experiences from your travels and the many places you've lived. Will you be working more of those life experiences into more books? Are there more stories already in the works?

Jane Kennedy Sutton: I think my travels and experiences always work their way into my writing but not necessarily in a literal context. I have finished the first draft of my second novel and I do have a million other ideas for books floating around in my head.

The Dragon: Where can visitors go now to get a copy of The Ride? Or to learn more about you?

Jane Kennedy Sutton: The Ride is available at Amazon and other online bookstores. If you don’t see it in your favorite local bookstore, they should be able to order it for you through Ingrams or Baker & Taylor. It’s also available at a discounted price through the publisher, ArcheBooks Publishing. Please visit my web site janesutton.com or my blog janekennedysutton.blogspot.com for additional information, including upcoming events.

The Dragon: It was a joy to have you stop by The Dragon today, Jane. I'm glad you could make some time to show our visitors how an Online Book Tour interview looks, and I hope they check out your book!

Sandy, it was a pleasure to be here and to participate. Thanks for thinking about me.

"Some days, I just want the dragon to win."
Tags: Jane Kennedy Sutton, The Ride, online book tour

Online Book Tours and Developing Long-Lived Characters
Or…The Dragon was busy today

Here’s a nice little update about the fun stuff I did this weekend. The Naples Press Club, of which I’m a member, hosted its Seventh Annual Writer’s Conference and Authors & Books Festival yesterday and today in downtown Naples, Fla. I can’t remember much of what happened yesterday (although I now own some new books) because I had this rude migraine through the night that seems to have wiped the memory drive in my brain. Luckily, those fabulous Imitrex pills take out migraines in a jiffy…

So today I attended again and presented “Designing the Online Book Tour.” Some of you regular visitors may remember the two-month online book tour I conducted when my fantasy novel Choices Meant for Gods was released in March 2007 or the much shorter two-week online book tour Jamieson Wolf helped me conduct when the chapbook What Choices We Made was released in November 2008.

For the folks who attended the presentation this afternoon, here are a few of the many sites (with links) that were kind enough to host me.

Alison Kent

Ambrose Musiyiwa

Author Island

Yvonne Walus

I intend to do another online book tour when the next fantasy novel Choices Meant for Kings is released…soon. In the meantime, I’ll be hosting some authors here. Specifically, I’ll have interviews and/or reviews from Tina Murray, Jane Kennedy Sutton and Jo Linsdell this week.

The other cool “hour” for me this afternoon was the “Writers’ Roundtable on Developing the Continuing Character Fiction Series” with Deborah Sharp (in the black jacket), the author of Mama Does Time and the upcoming Mama Rides Shotgun; Lisa Black (in the white and floral dress), suspense author of Takeover; and me, Sandy Lender (in the lavender top), fantasy author of Choices Meant for Gods, What Choices We Made and the upcoming Choices Meant for Kings. Suspense author James W. Hall, author of the recent Hell’s Bay, would have participated in the panel discussion with us, but had to leave early due to illness. We certainly wish him a speedy recovery.

I hope everyone who attended the presentations came away with good information. Check in tomorrow to see Jane Kennedy Sutton’s interview “day”. And check out the post below for an example of a book trailer “day”.

“Some days, I just want the dragon to win.”
Tags: online book tour, Choices Meant for Gods, Deborah Sharp, Lisa Black, Sandy Lender, James W. Hall, Naples Press Club

Where in the World is Sandy Lender?
Or...check out today's tour stops

Did I mention that I'm doing an online book tour to pre-promote the short story anthology What Choices We Made? Well, I am. The book is due out on the busiest shopping day of the year (Nov. 28). You can catch me talking about it at various spots for the next couple weeks and two of those places today are at Chris Chat Talks Books and Jamieson Wolf's blog. Nice? Click on the links and visit away!

What's extra nifty about Chris Speakman's blog today is that she's got the cover of What Choices We Made AND she's posted her reviews of Choices Meant for Gods and Choices Meant for Kings that she wrote this summer. The review of Choices Meant for Kings is just amazing. I was so tickled when I first read it. (Apparently, it still makes my day because I just read it again on her site and it's got me smiling.)

So please stop by Chris and Jamieson's sites and leave a comment so I know you were there. I'll be be-bopping through around the lunch hour (yes, I must get some work done, you know) and after work to respond!

Tomorrow, I'll be the featured author at PNR's The Haunt.
If you're trying to get your hands on the current Choices Meant for Gods, you can pick up the hardcover from Amazon.com, where they're currently offering a 20% discount. Or you can get the hardcover or the eBook from my publisher's site. My publisher always has a 25% discount on the hardcover and the eBook is only $3.99.

See you around the blogosphere!
"Some days, I just want the dragon to win."
Tags: online book tour, What Choices We Made, Chris Speakman, Jamieson Wolf