Thanks to the awesome, He-Man-like power of random.org, we have twenty winners! If your name is listed below, please contact me with your mailing address, using the subject line DEMON BLOOD WINNER or HELLHOUNDS WINNER, and I’ll send them out to you ASAP.

Demon Blood winners:

#8 – Christine
#91 – Anne Marsh
#22 – Throuthehaze
#87 – Triciab
#78 – Ang from Oz
#36 – Donna S
#28 – JennyME
#53 – Sherry Lyn Roginski
#49 – Tori [Book Faery]
#51 – Ella D.

Must Love Hellhounds winners:

#23 – nikkibee
#41 – Barbara Elness
#74 – Amy Jacobs
#26 – Darrell
#25 – Kate N (YzhaBella)
#14 – Marlene Breakfield
#92 – Aileen
#6 – Julie
#3 – Alex D
#68 – Louisa

If your name isn’t here, all is not lost! Berkley is having a HUGE giveaway over at Dear Author, including copies of The Iron Duke.

I think my notification e-mails are going into your spam folder! Please check the next post to see if you are the Dawn Maness*, Bonnie, and Sarah who won The Iron Duke ARC. Because time is a factor in this contest, if I don’t have your postal mailing address by Friday, September 3rd, I will have to re-draw new winners for the ARC**.

If you got an e-mail from a Melissa K — that’s me! You can reply to that e-mail address, too. Or you can contact me with your mailing address using this form.

—

*I’ve already heard from the other Dawn. So other Dawn, don’t panic! Yours is in the mail.
**If this happens and you contact me after the 3rd, I will send a final copy to you. So you will still have won a copy of THE IRON DUKE — just not the ARC.

I cannot believe the amazing turnout for the giveaway — almost 200 entries. I’m staggered, and I wish I had a ton more ARCs to give. I don’t, but I have 10 copies of Must Love Hellhounds, and 10 of Demon Blood … more details on that below. But first, thanks to the power of random.org, we have the Iron Duke ARC winners!

#178 – dawn maness
#84 – Dawn
#28 – Lily
#123 – Bonnie
#189 – The Queen B
#14 – Laura K Curtis
#94 – celi.a
#153 – Sarah
#5 – Chelsea / Vampire Book Club
#48 – Pokey
Congratulations! I’ll be e-mailing you all in the morning, or you can contact me with your postal mailing address before that. And the bad news for each of you is … you can’t enter the next contest. It’s only for those people who didn’t win an ARC.

If you didn’t win an ARC, don’t forget that you can receive a reminder of The Iron Duke‘s release by signing up for my postcard mailing list or e-mail newsletter (100% spam free!)

THE NEW CONTEST

As I mentioned in today’s flashing nipple post at Odd Shots, the most useful thing that an author can use to promote her work is … her work. So if you’d like to try the Guardian series, this contest is for you.

I have ten (10) copies of the mass-market edition of Must Love Hellhounds, which is on shelves now in trade format, and will be released in mass-market in September. This includes my Guardian tie-in novella, “Blind Spot.” This novella is Book #5.5 in the series and references events from Demon Moon and Demon Forged, but for the most part, stands alone. You can read more about this novella and an excerpt here. The anthology also includes novellas from the amazing Charlaine Harris, Nalini Singh, and Ilona Andrews.

I also have ten (10) copies of Demon Blood, which is Book #6 in the Guardian series. I honestly can’t tell you if this book stands alone or not — I’ve read reviews from readers new to the Guardian series who have loved it, and I’ve read reviews where the readers have said you should read the earlier books first. I will say that all of the information you need to understand the world is included in the book (seriously, it has the longest prologue ever), and you can always find spoilers from previous books and information about the world in the primer.

For more information about Demon Blood and to read an excerpt, visit this page.

Okay, and the contest: All you have to do is comment before midnight on Thursday Tuesday, August 31st, and tell me which book you’d like if you win. Next Friday Wednesday, September 1st, I’ll use random.org to choose 10 winners for each book and announce the names here. Good luck!

The small print: Comment by 11:59:59 PM Pacific time on 8/31/2010 for your chance to win. Ten commenters who have chosen Must Love Hellhounds as their prize will be selected to win using random.org, followed by ten commenters who have chosen Demon Blood as their prize. The winners’ names will be posted on this blog 9/01/2010. Only one entry per ISP address. The contest is open to international readers. No purchase necessary to enter. Odds of winning depend on number of entries received. Void where prohibited.

*Contest closed at 194 entries*

It’s that time again! I have ten (10) ARCs of THE IRON DUKE to give away on this site. No hoops to jump through — you just have to comment before midnight on Thursday, August 26th to enter. But! there is a small catch.

These are advance review copies, and I’d really love it if they were used as such. So if you win one, please review it somewhere by the week of October 5th: on your blog, on an online bookseller’s site, Goodreads or Library Thing, wherever. I’m not asking for positive reviews, or even detailed reviews — just reviews. If you don’t think you can read it by October, please pass on these advance copies; I intend to give away several final copies when the book is released, so you can try again, then. (If you want to be reminded of the release, you can sign up for the Postcard Mailing List or the Email Newsletter.)

From this box to your hot little hands!

About the ARCs: these are the yellow-covered bound copies, and are copy-edited, but they haven’t gone through that final proofreading pass. That means that there are more errors than in a final version, and that some dialogue, sentences, and descriptions are different than will be in the final version. There are no substantial differences in plot, characters, or any of the scenes. If you have any questions while reading, I’ll be more than happy to answer and/or send you the corrected passage, if applicable.

About THE IRON DUKE: This is the first full-length novel in my steampunk romance series, The Iron Seas. To read a description and an excerpt, go here. To learn more about steampunk, click here. To find out about “Here There Be Monsters,” the novella that kicked off the series in the anthology BURNING UP, go here.

So, the rules: Comment by 11:59:59 PM Pacific time on 8/26/2010 for your chance to win. Ten winners will be selected randomly using random.org, and their names posted on this blog 8/27/2010. Only one entry per ISP address. The contest is open to international readers. No purchase necessary to enter, but a good faith effort to review the book by the release date is deeply appreciated. Odds of winning depend on number of entries received. Void where prohibited.

Thanks to everyone who entered! Thanks to the power of random.org, I have five winners to announce:

#14 Karen Mahoney – BURNING UP
#41 gladys – DEMON ANGEL
#9 Erica G. – MUST LOVE HELLHOUNDS
#42 Ashley – no book needed, just birthday wishes. (Thank you!)
#82 Debbie – no book needed, happy birthday (You guys are killing me here. Thank you!)
#32 B. – FIRST BLOOD
#15 Sara M – DEMON BLOOD

Congratulations! I’ll be e-mailing you in the morning, or you can contact me with you mailing address, and I’ll send them to you ASAP.

Thank you again to everyone — between the amazing response to BURNING UP and your generous birthday wishes, it really was a fantastic day.

So, on Friday I hit the big ol’ Three-Three. I’m not really much of a birthday person, and I don’t celebrate much, but that doesn’t mean that no one will receive presents!

Until midnight (Pacific time) on August 6, I’m leaving the comments open. If you comment and tell me which book from my backlist you’d like, I’ll randomly pick 5 winners and post their names here on Saturday.

Here are the books to choose from (I don’t have any copies of THE IRON DUKE yet! — I’ll probably have an ARC contest next week, though.) You can click on any cover to find out more.

Meljean’s note on the Guardian series: If you tried to get into the Guardian series with Demon Angel or Demon Moon but couldn’t, my advice is to skip to Demon Night. No, really. Find out why here.

The small print stuff: Comment by 11:59 PM PST on August 6th, 2010 to be entered into the drawing. Five winners will be randomly chosen via random.org, and their names posted on this blog August 7th, 2010. Winners must e-mail Meljean with their mailing address information by Aug 15th, 2010. Only one entry per household. Duplicate entries will be deleted. No purchase necessary to enter. Odds of winning depend upon number of entries received. Void where prohibited.

I have an interview up at Dear Author, all about the steampunk series. I’ll be answering any questions over there, so feel free to stop by and interrogate me.

Here, I’m giving 10 copies of BURNING UP away. A one-day only thing — comment before midnight tonight (Monday, August 2) and you’ll be entered to win. International entries are fine.

Just answer — Have you read steampunk before? Or — Is your definition of steampunk the same as mine (you can find mine at the interview above)? Or — whatever you want to comment about, I’m not picky.

The small print stuff: Comment by 11:59 PM PST on August 2nd, 2010 to be entered into the drawing. Ten winners will be randomly chosen via random.org, and their names posted on this blog August 3rd, 2010. Winners must e-mail Meljean with their mailing address information by Aug 15th, 2010. Only one entry per household. Duplicate entries will be deleted. No purchase necessary to enter. Odds of winning depend upon number of entries received. Void where prohibited.

My Odd Shots post is up today here.

I’ve listed the winners of the 20 book giveaway here.

Have a fantastic weekend!

…over at Odd Shots.

I’m completely astounded by the number of entries for the ARC — thank you all so much for entering. I combined the number of entries from my blog and my Facebook page, and here are the results from random.org

True Random Number Service
Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

29 51 130 97

#29 – Heather (Darkly Reading)
#51 – Devon Alexander
#97 – Jacqueline C.
#130 – Katrina Whittaker

Congratulations! And thank everyone again, so much. I wish I had a lot more to give away. But since I don’t, I’ve added a snippet (edited to cut out paragraphs that wouldn’t make sense without the previous chapters, and mildly spoilerish for Demon Forged):