Winners. Also, a New Drawing

by Stephanie Black

Thank you to everyone who provided book recommendations in response to my blog last week. Now I'll have some great new suggestions next time I’m on the hunt for a suspense novel.

Thanks also to everyone who said nice things about my books. Aww, you guys are awesome. You really know how to make an author’s day.

Via an online random number generator, I have now drawn two winners. The two commenters who will receive copies of Methods of Madness are:

Charlie Moore

Jennifer

Congrats! E-mail your mailing address to me at emailstephanieblack@gmail.com, and after the book is released in August, I’ll get your copies in the mail.

Now that I’ve given away the free books, I have a few books to give away that will involve a bit of work. Having been inspired by Heather Moore, who is on my list of Extremely Cool and Brilliant People, I’m offering ten review copies of Methods of Madness to bloggers who would be willing to post about my book. If you are a blogger and are interested in reviewing my book between the middle of August and the middle of October, post a comment in the comment trail letting me know. If I get more than ten bloggers who are interested, I’ll do the random number generator and choose ten (I do reserve the right to exercise a little judgment here if a blog doesn't seem like it would be a good match with my book--not that I really anticipate that, but strange things can happen on the internet).

In other news, I’m about fifty pages into the second draft of my next book (which, as yet, has no working title). I’m delighted to be finished with the first draft. Drafting can be very fun, but given a choice, I’ll take revising over drafting. I like having a screen full of words to work with. Naturally my first draft is full of problems—there’s the subplot that went nowhere, the character that appeared out of nowhere near the end of the novel because I decided I needed him, the backstory that you’d have to be psychic to understand because I never explain it, and so on. Hmm . . . backstory. How am I going to slip all this info in so it feels natural but doesn’t point the characters in the direction of the solution too early? I’m thinking that instead of trying to work in all that backstory, I’ll just include my phone number at the front of the book. Readers can call me and say, so, what was the deal with that Leslie girl? And I’ll say, dude (I live in California), sit down and I’ll tell you the scoop. Could work.