Read Crescendo Chapter 1!

Happy Monday, folks! It's a particularly exciting day for me, because today is the first time a long and fully-edited sneak peek of Crescendo is going up on the interwebs. The entire first chapter, in fact. Almost 3500 words. I'm so excited I can't even wait the 23 minutes until it's officially Monday. Ah well, it's Monday in Europe, right? :D

You can find the first chapter at my publisher's book page for Crescendo. Wait--don't go quite yet! Let me tell you about a second exciting thing first: Crescendo pre-orders start today, and there is ten kinds of awesome going down with that. The ten kinds of awesome, let me show u them:

1. For one thing, everyone who pre-orders gets 20% off--you pay $7.99 instead of $9.99 for the ebook, $11.99 instead of $14.99 for the paperback (plus free domestic shipping!), and $14.39 instead of $17.99 for the print + ebook bundle (plus free domestic shipping). I'm not sure how long that special will last, so if you've been waiting for Crescendo, definitely take advantage of it while it's still there.

2. Awesome Point #2 is that folks who pre-order get to download their book a full two days before the "street date"--October 5 instead of October 7.

3. Awesome Point #3 is raffle prizes! Each copy you pre-order gets you entered into a drawing for--get this--a free first-gen Nook pre-loaded with my entire back catalog! A second lucky winner will get signed copies of both Counterpoint and Crescendo, and a third lucky winner will get an autographed print of the gorgeous Crescendo cover art.

Okay, so it turns out there are only three kinds of awesome, but I think they're awesome enough to count for 3.33 points of awesome each, no?

Anyway, off I go, dancing giddily away to wrap up edits. I hope you'll go off to Storm Moon Press and read the first chapter of Crescendo. And I hope it's everything you've all been waiting for :D

. . . Oh, who are we kidding. We both knew I couldn't get through a whole blog post without a picture of Michael Fassbender. So, my present to you. Look, it even unwraps itself!

(Now go! Read Crescendo!)

It's Unofficial Release Day--Let's Have a Party!

Yay! Today's the day everyone who pre-ordered Where He Belongs gets to download it--a full 48 hours before the official release date of July 1. (It's not too late to "pre-order," by the way; any orders placed today or tomorrow can be downloaded instantly and you'll still be entered in the nifty pre-order prize drawings.) I've downloaded my own copy onto my Kindle, and boy does it look snazzy. The folks over at Storm Moon Press did a gorgeous job.

To celebrate, I've started a little blog hop, visiting some of my favorite places and giving away free ebooks and swag. So far I've talked about "the prequel problem" at Kari Gregg's place (while Kari heinously insulted me, natch), and brought Daniel over to do a character interview at Amara's Place. And today I'll be at Well Read doing an interview with Jenre. What all three of these things have in common--aside, of course, from my winning personality and charm--is free stuff. Go, leave a comment on each post, and you'll be entered to win a copy of Anchored: Belonging (the precursor to Where He Belongs, although you don't need to have read Anchored to enjoy WHB) or some neat swag.

I'll be hopping around for the rest of the week giving stuff away too. You can find that schedule here.

And just because I haven't posted one of these in, oh, twelve hours (the horror!), let's end today's post with some Fassavoy, beneath the jump.

Crescendo Sneak Peek #3

My scheduled guest couldn't make it today, so I thought I'd share a bit of my WIP with you all. It's hitting the 70,000-word mark today and will hopefully be wrapped up nice and tidy by the end of the month (or my editor will make me scrub toilets, yikes!). I've basically been eating, sleeping. and breathing Crescendo these last several weeks, and I'm very excited about it lately. I hope you will be too :-)

Before I get to the excerpt, just a few quick bits of administrava:

• It's not too late to enter the drawing for a free print copy of Sublime. Just pop on over to my last blog entry and leave a comment with your thoughts on the subject of pricing, which I discussed in the entry. I'll draw a winner on Friday. If you're having trouble leaving a comment (some people have mentioned this), just drop me an email or contact me via my website comment form instead.
  
  
• Storm Moon Press has added one more awesome incentive to pre-order Where He Belongs: you'll get to download the book a full 48 hours before the official release date! Of course you'll still be entered in the drawing for all the cool prizes too, so go, order! It's only $1.99 :-)
  
  
• Counterpoint is at last for sale as a Barnes and Noble Nook book, horray!
  
  
• The Anchored trade paperback is currently on sale at Amazon for $12.75. I don't know how long that sale will last--the last one disappeared in less than a day--so if you're interested and have been waiting for the price to drop, now's the time.

And now what you came for, beneath the jump.

Porn Friday, & Pre-Order and Win with Where He Belongs!

Yeah, so Blogger was broken half the day and now I'm exhausted and also feeling really pretty sideways-awful, so my witty, clever blog post about last weekend's sale of Aleks Voinov and Kari Gregg is getting put off once again. But once again, I shall pacify you with peen.

And also a quick cool bit of news. Where He Belongs is now available for pre-order at Storm Moon Press, and you can read a sample vignette from the collection there for free. WHB is only $1.99, and you definitely want to pick it up through the publisher because they're raffling off three cool prizes at random to folks who place an order through SMP before the July 1 release date:

• A one-of-a-kind autographed poster of the hot hot cover art
  
  
• A limited edition trade paperback of Where He Belongs (far less than 100 of these will be printed)
  
  
• A $5 gift certificate to the Storm Moon Press store

EDIT: One more bonus for the pre-order folks: you get access to the book 48 hours before anyone else! So as long as you pre-order directly through Storm Moon Press, you can download your copy on June 29!

Awesome, huh? Each copy you pre-order for $1.99 gets you an entry into the raffle for the prizes. And of course on release day you'll be able to download it in the file format of your choice.

But enough about raffles and buying my books (you know you want to ;-p). You're here for the peen. So, some truly spectacular (and vaguely frightening) ones, beneath the jump. Super, super NSFW, obv. I'd say click to embiggen, but I'm pretty sure it's not necessary for these ;-p

COVER ART!

We interrupt this regularly scheduled no-blog day to share . . . *wipes drool off keyboard* . . . this.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Daniel Halstrom, star of Anchored: Belonging and the upcoming Where He Belongs, a short collection of vignettes releasing July 1 with Storm Moon Press. Click to embiggen; I cannot recommend that highly enough.

This is the cover of Where He Belongs, so the title and my name will be down in the lower left corner soon. Fortunately, my awesome awesome publisher over at Storm Moon gave me permission to post this now before the lettered version is complete :-D I'd have done it a few hours ago, actually, but I Couldn't. Stop. Staring. At. Daniel. Ah well--occupational hazard, I suppose.

If you're feeling like you recognize the style, that's because this was done by the amazing Nathie, the same artist who painted the cover for Counterpoint: Book I of Song of the Fallen, and who will be painting the cover for Crescendo: Book II of Song of the Fallen as well. I feel like the Luckiest Author in the Whole Universe right now.

Oh, and speaking of exciting news? Anchored finally released in print yesterday! :D :D :D You can find it at Amazon (hmm, temporarily sold out at time of posting) or Barnes & Noble (in stock). Sorry about the cover price--I have no control over that--but hopefully if you've been eagerly awaiting the paperback, you'll find it worth the cost. To make it a little less painful for you, if you order one, email me your receipt (metarachel at gmail dot com) and I'll send you some cool Anchored swag.

That's all for now, folks. If I can cease my endless bouncing off the walls, floor, and ceiling, I'll be back tomorrow with the author and lovely lady Sarah Ballance, who'll be discussing Run to You, also of ZOMGHAWT cover fame :D

Crescendo Has a Release Date . . . And a New Home!

It's official, folks, an I'm very excited to be able to say that the Counterpoint sequel, Crescendo: Book II of Song of the Fallen, will release October 7 with Storm Moon Press.

Why not with Guiltless Pleasure, you ask? Unfortunately, GPP's owner is facing some difficult times right now, and the press has had to take a backseat to more important issues. I loved everything about my experience there and am deeply saddened by what's happened. I hope they'll re-open GPP's doors in the not-too-distant future and that I can rejoin them again when the time comes. (You can still read the first five chapters of Counterpoint on their website and purchase Counterpoint through them; they're simply closed to new submissions now.)

That being said, Storm Moon Press has rolled out the red carpet for me, and I'm most impressed by everything I've seen and heard there. They are professional, completely on the ball, and run by some of the nicest and most knowledgeable people you'll ever meet. They offer a beautiful package--they even use the same cover artist GPP used!--some of the best editing in the genre, some of the best royalty rates anywhere, and fair pricing for an upscale/boutique reader experience. They'll also be offering Crescendo for pre-order with some awesome raffle prizes (did someone say a Nook???), so be sure to keep your eyes peeled as release day approaches.

Until then, Happy Monday, my lovelies, and thank you for sharing my joy with me.