Archive for the Category »Internet «

Mar
19

Over the past few months, I and three other writers of novels set in the Australian outback have got together (in a cyber-sense) to do some promotion; while we each have different writing styles, our books probably appeal to a similar audience, as they’re set in various parts of regional Australia that we each know well, and all contain romantic elements and often suspense elements, too. And since many of our readers read books much faster than we can write them, it’s good to be able to suggest other books that might appeal!

The four of us – Fleur McDonald, Helene Young, Fiona Palmer, and Bronwyn Parry – now have a FaceBook page: Australian Outback Romances and Mysteries. If you’re on FaceBook, please visit and say hello, and become a fan of our page, so that you can keep up with the news from all four of us.

We’re giving away a collection of not one, not two, not three, but FOUR signed books to one lucky winner! The books are:
• Blue Skies, by Fleur McDonald
• Border Watch, by Helene Young
• The Family Farm, by Fiona Palmer
• Dark Country, by Bronwyn Parry

Two runners up will each receive a signed book; the first runner-up can choose one book from the four, and the second runner-up can choose one book from the remaining three.

So, how do you enter? It’s a treasure hunt, so you need to find the answers to four questions – the answers can easily be found in the first chapters of each book, which you can find by clicking on the link on the book title. The four questions are:

1. In Fleur McDonald’s Blue Skies, who was with Amanda, when she heard the terrible news?

2. In Helene Young’s Border Watch, what is the name of the snack bar caretaker who greets Morgan and Sam when they are out for their early morning run?

3. In Fiona Palmer’s The Family Farm, what did Izzy’s mum have in her gold locket that hung around her neck?

4. In Bronwyn Parry’s Dark Country, what did Kris put into the boot (trunk) of Gil’s car?

When you’ve found all four answers, hop back to Bronwyn Parry’s blog, and submit your entry on the form there. Entries close at midnight on Friday, March 26th, Eastern Australian time (about 9am Friday morning, US Eastern time). We’ll draw the winner and two runners-up from the correct entries.

The form requires your email address, but we do respect your privacy and we will not publish, sell, giveaway, or do anything annoying with your email address – we’ll use if only for notifying winners.

Wherever you live on the planet, as long as there’s a postal service, you’re eligible to enter – but please, to keep it fair, only one entry per person!

Thanks for playing along with us – good luck in the draw!

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Feb
27

I have an opportunity to offer you guys a pre-release copy of Blue Skies! Our local bookshop, Le Grand bookshop, has secured 200 copies before Blue Skies is due out. Now these are for a couple of events.

First one is that the Blue Skies Launch will be held at the Condingup Community Fair on the 20th of March. I’ll be having a chat in hall with the MC of the day and then signing books. So we’d love to see out at Condy. The fair is a family orientated day and the main aim of it is to raise money for our local school, so it’s geared towards children and familles.

The second reason is that people outside of Esperance don’t miss out! If you ring Joy at Le Grand bookshop, give her your credit card details and who you would like either Red Dust or Blue Skies made out to, I’ll head in once a week (mostly on a Friday) sign them and take them to the post office! This offer is open for all year, so if you miss out on the first lot of copies there will be more opportunities to grab a signed copy!

Also, I’m giving away of copy of Blue Skies , every week leading up to April. I’ll be all over the place offering giveaways, but the first one will be on here. Good luck and I hope you’re as excited about the release of Blue Skies as I am!

I’m also guest blogging at Inkyblots about how I juggle my life! I’d love it if you could pop over and say hi and leave a comment!

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Nov
30

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We are really lucky to have Marianne Delacourt on the Guest Blog, today! She started out writing fantasy, then dabbled with some chapters about a ‘kick-arse’, feisty crime fighter, with an ability to read peoples auras! Loving the characters from the Tara Sharp series so much, she kept writing about them, as well has her speculative fiction books.

Marianne uses the social-blogging network, Facebook, to keep her characters in touch with all of their fans. Tara Sharp has her own page, as does her science fiction character Parrish Plessis, and often blogs about small mysteries and mishaps she has during the week. You’ll often find laugh-out-loud conversations between to the two! Marianne’s thoughts behind this is that:

‘It’s a long time between books. I like Tara, and I’d like to have her around in my life regularly, the way I enjoy catching up with the characters in my favourite TV series every night. I hope you’ll feel the same way.’ (excerpt taken from Marianne Delacourt’s website.)

Today, Marianne talks about writing different genre’s and how to be successful at it.

Her second Tara Sharp book is due out in September 2010 and she will be around to answer any questions you have, if you’d like to leave a comment here.

~

Hi Fleur fans,

I thought I’d chat to you about switching genres. I’ve been writing and publishing science fiction for five years (and 5 books!) now. Though I love working in that genre, I had a hankering to write something light and contemporary and sleuthy. Probably because my writing world was filled with such tortured characters and mind-bending ideas.

In my spare time (hah!), I started flirting with a new character. I wrote a couple of chapters and found that I was enjoying my flaky private eye and her cast of hilarious friends so much, that I couldn’t stop. It became as addictive as the SF. So I guess, switching genres for me has been like changing clothes – just something you do. I put it down to my very eclectic reading tastes. I grew up on a weird mixture of pulp novels and literary fiction, and I appreciate both equally.

The main thing, if you’re considering doing this yourself, is to make sure you read widely. I don’t believe that any writer can do a genre justice if they aren’t aware what has come before them, and what the customs and idiosyncrasies are for that readership. If you wrote a science fiction novel assuming that you were only person who’s ever written about faster-than-light travel, then you’d be laughed outta town.

On the other hand, I don’t believe a writer should be limited creatively – as long as they approach each project with the same excitement and passion.

Good luck!

Marianne Delacourt (aka de Pierres) www.tarasharp.com www.mariannedepierres.com

Parrish Plessis and Tara Sharp

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Oct
24

14032552A note from the webmistress

Salutations all!

Fleur and I have been trying to decide what exactly got into the site to make it work for the past week…domain host, server host, faries, goblins, daleks….turns out, it was the salmon mousse! (Monty Python, the Meaning of Life).

And now it’s up again, we have more news to bring! Fleur now has a twitter account that you can follow, a page for all her interviews (including one that was on RadioWest last week!) and we were finally able to get up her video of the ram auction from a few weeks back.

It’s great to see that so many people visit Fleur’s site (for her and for me!), so thank you all!

~Nyssa

Nixel Web Design

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Oct
21

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It used to be that if you wanted to buy stock, you jumped in the ute and drove to the sale yards. Not any more!

A couple of weeks ago, I sat in front of my computer and kept hitting the enter button. Why? I was bidding on a stud ram auction that was being held in Victoria!

It’s amazing to think that there was an auctioneer running a sale so many thousands of kilometres away and I was sitting in my office, bidding. I must say, although the adrenalin was running through my body, the atmosphere wasn’t the same in front of the computer as it would have been if I was at the auction itself. I think I would have preferred to be there!

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