What if I offered...

This week I'm offering some of my books free and some of them at a greatly reduced price, all because I'm so excited about the release of MURDER ON THE HOOF. I'm doing this to entice readers to sample my writing, whet their appetite for more, and be willing to spend $3.99 (less than the price of a latte) on my newest work.

Check back on my blog every day this week for one more book on sale or offered free. (Hint: FROM THE HORSE'S MOUTH is still available for 99 cents! http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00D0HDYRQ)

And on Wednesday, be prepared to start the party! There will be a contest, with prizes, on my site as well as others. I will be giving signed copies, personalized e-copies, gift cards, and more.

There will also be a very special contest for people willing to go that extra mile. But waiting at the end will be that extra prize - a Kindle Paperwhite.




Let the games begin!

Some days are like a box of chocolates. Others are like a carnival game.

In either case, you never know what you're going to get, but at least I like chocolates. Carny games can give you a cute stuffed animal or a cheap plastic spork.

So today, I was going to write and submit my column, then fill out the form to enter a contest, then call the woman at the Horse Expo Pomona to get extra ad space for my booth at the Book Corral. How did that work out for me?

Column written, edited, submitted - check. It's a good one, too, about a group in Placentia. Very topical.

Forms to enter a contest filled out - check. All I have to do is mail the books.

Horse Expo ads - check with a CAVEAT. Uh-oh.

To get the fullest bang for my buck, I needed to send seven (7) photos of my "product", a URL where people can find it, a 40-word description, and a YouTube video. Like I said, uh-oh. I don't have a book video of Snoopy's memoir.

Make that "I didn't have a book video." I spent the better part of the morning tossing something together. I won't say it's my most shining moment. I'm not Scorsese, for Pete's sake. It reminds me a little of a salad - a lot of things tossed together - but it moves in a fairly linear motion. I'm not cringing.



Now it's time to package my books and head off to the ranch, with a brief stop at the post office. Later, Peeps.

Giving it all away: WIN THE SPAMMY!

I tried giving away some promotional items earlier, with a contest to see who could tell the most interesting story about what they had done for a friend. A few people told some wonderful stories, but they were so poignant I thought I might weep. I confess, I was really looking for stories of bailing each other out of a Mexican jail or lying to all the parents in order to hitch a ride to Woodstock.

So now I'm going to get more specific - this is a contest about spam.

No, not that Spam.

I don't know about you, but I get spam mail ALL the time. As in, sometimes over 200 messages a day. On the same day, I will get offers to increase my boob size and my masculine virility, along with great rates on new cars and discount prescriptions. Sometimes I get spam-mails from gaylecarline with what appears to be a string of Chinese characters in the subject line.

Don't you hate it when you start sleep-emailing in a foreign language?

My favorite spam-mail arrived last week. The subject line said, "gaylecarline, Be the Man You Used to Be."

Perhaps it was the time I was accidentally enrolled in Boys' P.E. in high school. Or maybe it has to do with visiting my great-grandfather in the nursing home once. "Dad", my grandmother said, "You remember Gayle, don't you?" Great-Grandpa looked up through his very hardened arteries and said, "Yep, he's gonna grow up to be a fine man some day."

It's hard to take offense to a little spam-err.

So I'm introducing the SPAMMY Awards, for the best, funniest, most creative spam emails you've ever received.**

RULES:

1. Only one entry per person.
2. You may submit entries in any way that reaches me: the comments below, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, email, or semaphore (BTW, I'm not good at semaphore so your message may be misinterpreted).
3. The spam mail submitted should be a legitimate one, but how am I to check for this? Basically I can't, so if you can come up with something that blows my socks off, well... oh, well.

PRIZES:

I will award multiple prizes, from free books (paperback or Kindle), to promotional items, to gift cards. In addition, I have twenty-four (24) free copies of my Audio book of Freezer Burn to give away. Perhaps I could even give away some Spam.

Go ahead and advertise this. Tell your friends and neighbors. Everyone who enters should win something. The best ones will just win more stuff.

So go ahead - what's your favorite spam email?

**Please do not assume I want you to OPEN the spam-mails. DON'T OPEN THEM! I'm just looking for funny subject lines.

Get ready. Get set... It's coming.

On Monday, two things will happen:

1. The Hot Mess will be available as an e-book.

2. Five other bloggers will be joining me in a contest for one lucky person to win a free copy, and by copy I mean an e-book or paperback.

The contest will be kind of a scavenger hunt. You visit five blogs and read excerpt from the book in each one. Then come back here. I will have five questions for you. Each answer is contained in one of the five other blogs. Answer the questions correctly in the comments and you win!

The five blogs are:

The mostly adorable Andrew Kaufman, http://www.andrewekaufman.blogspot.com/

 

The lovely and talented Jenny Hilborne, http://jfhilborne.wordpress.com/

 

The fierce but friendly Michele Scott, http://adventuresnwriting.blogspot.com/

 

A sweet cozy writer Teresa Trent, http://teresatrent.wordpress.com/

 

Mr. All-Things-Dean-Martin, http://ilovedinomartin.blogspot.com/

 

If this goes as planned it should be fun. Hopefully, we'll drive some traffic around to the other sites, as well as whetting everyone's appetite for The Hot Mess. If it goes badly, you'll be able to hear me weeping, weeping bitter tears.

In the meantime, here's the trailer for The Hot Mess.




See you on Monday!

Contests! Contests! Contests!

I was almost going to be contrary today and say "Contests!" twice, because you know how I love to do things in threes. In the end, I couldn't get away from it, because I have three contests to tell you about.

See? There's a REASON for the rule of three.

First is Michele Scott's contest to name her first book in her new Dead Celebs mystery series. She's giving away a $40 gift card to Amazon or Barnes & Noble (your choice), and she's letting the readers vote on which title wins. She's a braver soul than me. Go here to check it out and enter the contest.

The second contest is just for fun, I think - no prize was mentioned. But it was fun, so I tried it out. Go to Janet Reid's blog and read the rules. Basically, you take a bunch of books from your library (or somewhere), stack them up and write a poem using their titles. Here's my entry:

Finding What I Knew

In search of MIRACLES,

I left THE KNOWN WORLD
To go WALKING ON WATER
Toward a LOST HORIZON.

RIDING BETWEEN THE WORLDS,

I was a WANDERER OF THE WASTELAND.

THE STRANGER took me,

I was SOLD INTO EGYPT
Until THE GOOD SHEPHERD
Sent me THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS
To THE THURBER CARNIVAL.

IT'S A MAGICAL WORLD, after all.

Last, and most importantly, is my contest. I was going only run the contest for a week, but I think I'll keep it going until I get back from the Southern California Writers Conference, happening Sept. 23-25 (still time to register and join us). To recap, I'm having a helluva time picking a title for my second book of humor columns. This one will be much like the first one - several columns accompanied by readers' emails, editor's notes, and generally what was happening while I was trying to write. The rules are:

1. Either vote for one of the titles listed below or enter your Most Excellent idea in the Comments. (This is important. I've had people list titles and vote in the comments on my Facebook postings. I cannot go hunting through my wall posts to find your entries. You must give me your opinion in the blog's comments!)

2. If I get a bunch of votes for a title, everyone who voted gets a free copy of the new book.

3. If someone submits The Most Amazing Title Ever, that person gets a free copy AND their name in the Acknowledgments.

Possible titles:

1. I'd Like to be Self-Absorbed But I Don't Have the Time

2. In My Spare Time, I Juggle Horses

3. In My Spare Time - Wait, I Don't Have Any

4. Wolves Mate for Life Because They Don't Speak English




Current synopsis (rough draft): When Gayle Carline got a job writing a humor column for her local newspaper, she knew it would be a fun assignment. What she didn't know is that her son would begin every conversation with, "This is off the record." But that didn't stop her. Join her continuing journey of balancing her life as a wife, mother, and occasional juggler of 1000-lb horses with writing a column about her husband, son, and everyday events. Her husband and son may object from time to time, but the horses don't complain.


Titles submitted so far:

1. Fodder for Thought (submitted by Chrissie Barnett)

2. Jen Eldridge, prolific gal that she is, submitted ALL of these -
"A Horse of different story"
"Hold your Horses"
"The Gift Horse"
"The Art before the Horse"
"The Dark Horse Chronicles"
"Now Hold your Horses..."
""Behold, a White Horse"
"Straight from the Horses Mouth.."
"Off the record..."
"A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.."
"A begining makes an ending.."
"Wild horses in my living room.."
"According to Carline (or Gee)"
""For Whom Gayle Tolls (or toils)"
"Just a click away..."
"The Writing Muse"
"I'm just sayin...."

3. Missed Congeniality offers these -
"Get this book now, dammit"
"Billionaire Secrets"
"Don't Be What You See" with a pic of a horses behind
"Just Enough to be Dangerous"
"Thundering Herd"

4. And Anonymous submitted - "Between Balancing Acts and Juggling Horses" (quite frankly, I'm not sure how I mention Anonymous in the Acknowledgments)



Vote for something or submit another one!

Pure (bred) silliness

This is a short post today, and entirely silly, but I didn't want to leave yesterday's post up. It feels both like I'd be dwelling on the day and like I let the whole thing get stale by keeping it. I don't know if that makes sense, but if you think I'm just wasting pixels, stop reading and come back when I'm not being whimsical.

Yesterday we went to El Cholo in Los Angeles (the original, since 1927!) and celebrated our cousin Robert's birthday. Robert is 48 and is developmentally disabled.

As we were leaving, I saw the following store across the street:

I admit, a storefront selling puppies disturbs me, although I wonder what kind of business they're doing. "Puppy House" could mean a host of activities, only a few of them good. But then, I looked closer at their sign:

"Give Love for Family and Pretty Puppy" - What the hell does that even mean? Are they selling companion dogs for your pretty puppy? Is this an admonishment for parents who work too much? Or ungrateful kids? Aren't they a little presumptious to think you already have one Pretty Puppy? Someone decode this for me.

If you haven't entered the contest yet - put on your thinking caps and visit last week's blog here.

If I can't just request it, I'll bribe you for it

I consider myself a fairly nice person, but I'm also an impatient one. It is one of the qualities my P.I., Peri Minneopa and I share. So in the previous post, I asked for some input on what to call my second humor book. There were no answers. So I tried posing a Question on Facebook. I got three responses. Three is not enough, people.

So now I'm going to do what any author in their right mind, or at least right brain, would do: offer a prize.

Here's what I'll do. Help me come up with a title and you'll get a free book.

The rules are as follows:

1. The contest will be open for 1 (one, uno, un) week.
2. During that week, you can either vote for one of the titles listed below, or submit your own brilliant idea in the Comments.
3. If I get a bunch of votes for a title, everyone who voted will get a free copy.
4. If someone submits something so amazingly brilliant I wish I'd have thought of it, that person gets a free copy AND a mention in the Acknowledgments.

Are you willing to help me now?

(Rough draft) Synopsis: When Gayle Carline got a job writing a humor column for her local newspaper, she knew it would be a fun assignment. What she didn't know is that her son would begin every conversation with, "This is off the record." But that didn't stop her. Join her continuing journey of balancing her life as a wife, mother, and occasional juggler of 1000-lb horses with writing a column about her husband, son, and everyday events. Her husband and son may object from time to time, but the horses don't complain.

Possible titles:

1. I'd Like to be Self-Absorbed But I Don't Have the Time

2. In My Spare Time, I Juggle Horses

3. In My Spare Time - Wait, I Don't Have Any

4. Wolves Mate for Life Because They Don't Speak English

5. Fodder for Thought (volunteered by Chrissie Barnett)

6. Two Years Before the Masthead (Okay, I know this one is too erudite, but it still makes me laugh)

Let the voting/suggestions begin!

New Contest! Get it while you're hot!

I promised you another contest for a free, autographed copy of Freezer Burn, and here it is. It's not as hard as the last one was; I won't make you write about pictures of strange women or vampires or cute kitties, etc. I won't make you create anything.

You do have to do a little work, though. Call me a Puritan, conservative, workaholic, but… actually, call me any of those things and I'll slap you into next week. I'm no task-mistress. It's just boring to have a contest where nobody does anything. What kind of contest is that?

This time, all you have to do is wander around in my website, and answer six questions. The answers are all there, easily found, in black and white and read all over.

Ready?

1. What are the names of my two horses?
2. Who would my husband like to play him in the movie?
3. What TV show inspired me to write "I Know What She's Thinking?"
4. Name one Freezer Burn item you can buy on Zazzle.
5. What's the name of my grandpa's hunting dog?
6. Where do I think the (possibly) first drag wedding was held?

The first person who emails me (gaylecarline@sbcglobal.net) the correct responses gets a free book. C'mon, it'll be fun!