A recent release that caught my eye the first time I saw the cover was Kate Pearce‘s Tudor Vampire book, Kiss of the Rose. Not just because of the interesting time period, but because … well, look at the cover.

For one thing, it’s gorgeous. And that was part of the eye-catching part. But the smart part? It was that I immediately associated it with the Tudor period. Why? Well, because I’d seen these images in so many places:

I don’t even watch the show, and I made the Tudor association. Was it intentional? I don’t know how it was not (and if it wasn’t — whoa, synchronicity). But that’s awesomely smart marketing, to create a cover that resembles a popular image, and yet still manages to say very clearly: Tudor vampires and romance, everyone!

And, it’s gorgeous.

*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.)

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.

In the past couple of months, and even more frequently since BURNING UP has been released, I’ve gotten this question: Where is the steampunk romance? They can find steampunk, but not much romance (and, okay, there isn’t much.) I’ve been replying to the e-mails naming titles and authors, but I know that I must miss some every time. Then I realized — there might be a better way.

When a category of romance is very big, I don’t find Amazon’s tagging system very helpful. If someone is looking for paranormal romance, 1,000,000 people have already tagged the books that everyone has already read, and so a reader looking for something new has to go pretty deep to find a book that isn’t a bestseller and already on a bunch of lists. But take a look at the steampunk romance tag.

There’s not much there. And even though there isn’t much steampunk romance in general, there should be MORE there. And it *could* be a useful tag for a reader who is interested in the steampunk romance subgenre.

So, readers and authors — if you are reading a steampunk romance, if you are selling a steampunk romance, please tag it steampunk romance. (Even if it only has steampunk elements … because judging by my e-mails, readers want those, too.) And I’ll point everyone who e-mails me in that direction.

(If you don’t have an Amazon account for tagging, leave a comment here or drop me a note, and I’ll tag it for you.)

Here’s one that doesn’t show up at Amazon yet, but is available on ebook: Ciar Cullen’s Steamside Chronicles

For those who have asked, I’ve added both a postcard mailing list and an e-mail newsletter. Note: These are separate mailing lists, so if you want to be added to both, you have to sign up for both.

• Postcard Mailing List
• E-mail Newsletter

If you sign up for the postcard mailing list, you will receive a postcard reminding you about an upcoming release. The Iron Duke postcard will be mailed in September, and Demon Marked in July 2011, and so on. The postcards will simply have the cover on the front and the book description on the back — and so you will receive steampunk mantitty in your mailbox. If that is a problem, you might want to opt for the newsletter instead.

The e-mail newsletter will probably only be sent out around the time of a release, or if I hold a big giveaway, or if there’s something that is Really Big News. I will never send it out more than once a month (and probably far, far less often than that.)

Privacy policy: I won’t use your information for any reason but to mail out these postcards or to send the newsletter. I will never sell or distribute your information. You can unsubscribe from either mailing list at any time.

Spam policy: I won’t spam you. I promise.

I just realized today that I haven’t updated my MySpace page in almost a year…but I don’t think anyone cares. Does anyone actually use MySpace anymore? I’ll check my messages now and again (usually because I get a notice by e-mail) but I don’t visit any pages anymore.

So of course I set up a poll, because there’s nothing more fun to do on a Friday night, right?

It’s not a romance, I don’t think, because the couple isn’t about to kiss — they’re dead and frozen in ice. So it’s just suspense, which works for me.

But I also loved the USA Today quote. I’m not sure if that makes it the awesomest book ever, or potentially the biggest trainwreck ever. But I was walking past the display at my local B&N (which had tons of copies of Burning Up, whee! and still tons of copies of Demon Blood, which isn’t as whee, but it’s okay. They sold one! And God knows I’ll end up buying the rest at some point. That B&N probably thinks I have a ton of fans, but really…I just have a lot of contests) and couldn’t resist.

Anyway. Also got: The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic–and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World (and created the Longest Title Ever) and The Science of Leonardo. Yay, research. Kind of. I liked the covers of these, too.

Or so my daughter just told me. Here’s why:

And, I can’t believe I just posted a Pokemon clip on my blog. But I’ll admit I laughed out loud when I saw the pink puffball bitchslap.

…I don’t even know what the world is coming to.

Here it is.

Thank you everyone for your patience!

This is part of an interview I did with Project Paranormal — the extra stuff, I think, that didn’t fit in the Project Paranormal cut. I can barely look, but here’s the video!

I’m frequently asked: When will Demon Angel be released as an ebook?

Answer: I’m not certain. Releasing the ebook with the printed book wasn’t the standard at the time Demon Angel was printed, and Berkley’s backlist conversions haven’t caught up with it yet. It should happen, at some point. I don’t have a date, though, and I will update you as soon as I see it (because I will be very, very happy to see an ebook version, too ).

ETA: Also, Burning Up finally has a Kindle link, though it doesn’t look as if it’s for sale yet. I’ll also update this spot when the link allows you to buy it.