First things first: Time to pick the winner of the October LOVE TO READERS contest. (Sorry I’m a little late with this this month!) So–chosen totally at random by my fiance–the winner is:

RobynL

YAY, Robyn! Email me with your address and let me know what gift you’d like from my LOVE TO READERS page!

Thanks to everyone for your great comments about bookstores last week. You guys delight, surprise, and inspire me. My little LOVE TO READERS prize is small compensation given the intelligence and warmth of your comments and how much good cheer surrounds this blog. Thank you!!!

Inspiration struck mysteriously this week when I got to thinking about how much I love the covers of mystery novels. I admit–I’m not a big mystery reader. I tend to want the dark, dramatic, messy, and romantic over the light camp of cozy mysteries. But I LOVE the cheesy titles of mystery novels. So punny! It really appeals to the cornball side of me.

Also, a quick FYI here, if you like mysteries, check out the Garden Variety blog on BN: Becke Davis blogs about mysteries and gardening. It’s a great site!

So here’s a list of funny mystery titles that are packed with puns. Hope you get a kick out of them! LOVE TO READERS: Let me know which one tickles your funny bone!

Best,

Lisa Dale

Did you know there’s a town—a whole town—in British Columbia that lives and breathes books? With only 11,000 residents, Sidney boasts a whipping 12 bookstores. There’s a bookstore on just about every block. There are bookstores that sell new books, used books and rare books—whatever kind of book you want.    

But Sidney’s not the first ever booktown. Here’s a quote from an article in the Star-Ledger about Sindey that was sent to me by my aunt: “Sidney is billed as Canada’s only booktown, a place that emerged from the bluleprint of Britain’s Hay-On-Wye booktown on the English Welsh border with 1,500 people and 30 bookstores.”

In this country, the first booktown was Stillwater, MN—which earned the booktown designation in 1994. Apparently, being a booktown isn’t about how many books vs. how many people are in the town. It’s about modeling the town on Hay-On-Wye.

The concept of a booktown feels as fanciful to me as “The Big Rock Candy Mountain” song—you know, that kids song where hobos get endless tobacco and everything’s made of high fructose corn syrup.

How much would I love to live in a town that loves books as much as I do—where the question of “So what are you doing this weekend?” is rephrased as “So what are you reading this weekend?”

Or where the people who usually stand in line on a Friday night at the movies are instead standing in line at a hot new bookstore, waiting for a new release.

And where the people of the town actually know that there are more books worth reading than Harry Potter, Twilight, and Dan Brown.

I’d like to petition my own town to be a booktown, but sadly, we don’t even have one bookstore! Incidentally, we also don’t have any liquor stores either. Apparently imaginative and/or chemical escapism is a no-no in this town.

So what’s your town like? How many bookstores? Are they new or used? Indy stores or big chains?

FYI- I’ll announce the winner of Octobers LOVE TO READERS prize later in the week; so any comments left on this post will count toward the November contest.

Later!

Lisa Dale

This past weekend I went to a fantastic writer’s conference, Put Your Heart In a Book, sponsored by Romance Writer’s of America’s New Jersey chapter (of which I am a happy new member). So for my blog this week, I present unto you, a list of reasons why going to a book conference of any sort is totally worth the entry fee.

The tote bag. Who doesn’t love the obligatory conference tote? Sure, if you go to enough conferences you end up with more totes than you know what to do with—a person can only get so many totes before they’re bulging out from under her bed, her closet, her trunk… But the bag is always a big perk and you’ll need it. Because there’s

Lots of books. Here’s a picture of all the books I went home with (most of them free!). And what amazing thing did I do to deserve all these awesome books? I sat down to eat. Yup. Breakfast comes with a side of hash browns and steampunk. *Sigh* Don’t you wish every meal did?

Conference wine. I don’t know about you, but it seems to me there’s a certain obligatory “conference wine” at every conference ever. It’s usually a drinkable white or red that—no matter what the label looks like—tastes the same no matter where you go. So what’s so great about conference wine? It’s free. Bottoms up, book worms!

You get to meet cool writers. I was walking out off the literacy book fair when I heard someone say “I’m looking for my unique and sexy Rita-award winning novel The Edge of Impropriety” (okay, she didn’t say unique and sexy Rita-award winning. I put that in myself). And who did it turn out to be but one of my personal heroines, Pam Rosenthal. You bet I walked up and said hi!

You get to meet cool people. Aside from meeting great authors, just about everyone you’ll talk to at a book conference is there to talk books. So everywhere you go, you’ve got a friend—and more often than not the friend might be as socially awkward (and therefore socially forgiving) as you are. Or am I just talking about me?

And there’s another reason…but I’m not sure if it bears mentioning. You know–there’s that whole “learning” element. But that’s clearly eclipsed by a nice new tote.

The women of the Jersey chapter did an amazing job this weekend, and if you get a chance to go to this conference, do!

LOVE TO READERS: Leave a comment to enter to win this month’s prize. Have you been to a writer’s conference or book conference? Would you want to go? What am I missing on this list?

It’s a busy week for me because I’m going to Put Your Heart In A Book tomorrow. (Wow, that sounds like a threat!) But for tonight, a quick post.

First off, I wanted to pick a winner for the “Tell a friend” contest that ended Wednesday. The winner will be notified privately, but in the meantime, I thought it would be fun to announce it here!

So, chosen randomly, the winner of the book lover’s care package (and the winner whose friends will get copies of my first book Simple Wishes), is…..

Nyla T! (I don’t know if I should post her last name, so I’m erring on the side of caution today).

Congrats to Nyla!

Thank you so much to everyone for entering and for helping spread the word about It Happened One Night! I think it’s going to be worthwhile to read! Can I share with you another great review of the book  that I just found on romancejunkiesreviews.com?  

This riveting story contains lots of humor, passion, and is thoroughly entertaining. The characters are very believable and have amazing obstacles that they have to overcome. IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT made me cry more than once, but not always in sadness. Ms. Dale is a talented author that I intend to keep up with. I plan on checking out her debut book, SIMPLE WISHES, as I have not read it yet.

I always sweat a little as the reviews start to come in, so I was very pleased to find that one! Thank you, pamelalynne, for the review!

Finally–one last little treat that I hope will brighten your day. I found this blog called Awful Library Books that features wacky book covers. Cracked me up! Here’s a few of my faves from the site.

Leave a comment! Tell me which of these pictures you made you laugh to enter to win my monthly LOVE TO READERS prize.

I’m in a huge time crunch this week with the new book coming out, and more conferences in two weeks than I’ve done all year!

But I wanted to make sure my blogish friends got in on the last contest that I’m running for my book. The mailing list knows about it (www.LisaDaleBooks.com), but I couldn’t leave you guys out! You’re the highlight of my week! 

It’s super easy to enter, and there are unlimited winners!

Here are the details:

Go to: http://lisadalebooks.com/books/it-happened-one-night
 
and click “Tell a friend” on the right hand side to fill out the form.
 
ONE TOP WINNER (possibly you!) will get a book lover’s care package (with lots of beautiful bookmarks, an adorable, hand-made hide-a-book cover, accessories for bath-time reading [candles, soaps, a bath pillow, etc.], an autographed copy of It Happened One Night, and much more!)
 
AND if you are the winner, every friend that you tell about my books will receive a free autographed copy of my first novel Simple Wishes!
 
COMMON SENSE FINE PRINT: I won’t send your friends any e-mails or keep their addresses (that would just be mean). I ask that you not “cheat” by filling in your own personal email addresses and pretending they belong to someone else (that would also be mean). If you’ve already used the “Tell A Friend” feature, there’s good news for you! You’re already entered into the contest. Of course, you’re welcome to enter again, if you like. The more friends you tell, the better your chances of winning!
 
Please share this opportunity by forwarding this contest to the women in your life who love insightful, emotional stories of love and personal growth. 
 
Good luck!

I hadn’t planned a blog post for the weekend but this one just dropped in to my lap–and when the muse of blogging (Blog-alliope?) gets in a snit she must be appeased.

I got an email from my brother the other day and I just had to share it with you. Here’s the whole of the email:

Vook. Weird name: http://promo.simonandschuster.com/vook.

So, if you’re like me, you’re thinking, “What the vook is a vook?”

A vook is the newest in interactive reading. It’s a digital book–an e-book–and you can watch key scenes of the book acted out for you. You can also connect with other people reading the vook via social networking.

Here’s the official book trailer–I mean vook trailer–from S&S.

So is it video? Is it a book? Nope, it’s a vook (because apparently “bideo” was even more awkward than “vook”).

The whole concept of a vook seems very surreal to me, like if a vook could talk to a roomful of books, it would say Greetings, unenlightened tomes of ages past. I’m you from the future. Wow, the rumors are true! You guys really do stink like feet. Pew! But don’t worry. In the future you (I) don’t have to worry about BO and brittle spines. Soon, you’ll transcend your physical form to find digital enlightenment!  

For nonfiction, a vook makes great sense to me. I’d love to be able to push “play” in Wordpress for Dummies to see how I’m actually supposed to fix this silly API error.

But for fiction I’m not so sure.

Imagine if you were reading Pride and Prejudice…you’re reading along, and then when you get to the scene where Darcy proposes, you can press “play” and watch it.

Or, you’re reading Twilight and Edward pushes Bella out of the way of a car, and after you “see” it in your imagination you can go on to see it on screen. (I wonder if they’d just use clips from the movie?)

Or say you’re reading a juicy Hannah Howell novel and you get to the part where the Highland warrior can no longer resist the temptation of his fair-haired heroine, and so he–I’m just going to stop here. You know where this is going.

For me, books (even e-books to a certain extent) are a kind of sanctuary from being plugged into visual images. The experience of a scene is richer and more intense when it’s not flattened out on a television screen.

The other thing to consider is that screenwriting and book-writing are extremely different! A novelist doesn’t write dialogue for the sake of having it acted out; she writes it in a very specific way that is meant to engage the individual’s imagination through text alone. In other words, book dialogue is different than TV dialogue. Will they change the language for a vook?

It’s hard to say if vooks are a tactic to generate PR, or if this is a commendable effort by a publishing house to bring in new readers who are more comfortable with TV than with text. Whatever the backstory, vooks are a sign that the publishing industry is on the brink of change. And since no one quite knows what that change will be, the guesses just keep getting weirder and weirder.

Perhaps the next big advance in books will be books you don’t have to read at all. And here’s an idea, we can call them movies.

In the meantime, Simon & Schuster, I would just like to let you know that if you’d like to make any of my books into a vook, I’d be thrilled to oblige.

LOVE TO READERS: Would you read a vook? What’s your take on all of this? Are you plugging in to the digitial book revolution?

I’ve got two great contests planned this month to celebrate the upcoming release of my new book, It Happened One Night! I hope you’ll enter one or both of them!

So here’s how to enter today’s contest to win this really cool BOOK LOVERS GIFT BASKET. It includes all kindsa stuff (worth about $100 I’d guess - since the annotation kit alone is $40) and a copy of It Happened One Night! It’s everything you need to curl up on the couch with a good book (except for the couch, obviously).

Basically, the way you enter is you post this video on any blog, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, or Web site (obviously, one that you own). Then email me the URL (lisa@lisadalebooks.com). If you can’t enter this contest because you don’t have a Web site, fret not! You can always ask a friend to post in on your behalf. PLUS, there’s another (bigger) contest in the making! Directions below.

If you already did enter, thank you! I’ll be picking the random winner on October 14!

Here’s the trailer!

 
TO POST THIS VIDEO ON FACEBOOK
1) FIRST, friend me (http://www.facebook.com/LisaDaleBooks?_fb_noscript=1).

2) Then cut and paste this link into your status update: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpnzluEePUs.

3) Then send me a message on Facebook or at lisa@lisadalebooks.com to tell me you’re in the contest!

TO POST ON TWITTER

Just tweet this: Win a Book Lover’s Gift Basket for It Happened One Night by @LisaDaleBooks: http://bit.ly/2m6UAk

OR

you can also tweet: Book Trailer for It Happened One Night by @LisaDaleBooks http://bit.ly/2ladVR

TO POST THIS VIDEO ON A WEB PAGE, MYSPACE, OR BLOG

1. Copy this  code: <object width=”480″ height=”295″><param name=”movie” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/tpnzluEePUs&hl=en&fs=1&”></param><param name=”allowFullScreen” value=”true”></param><param name=”allowscriptaccess” value=”always”></param><embed src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/tpnzluEePUs&hl=en&fs=1&” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=”always” allowfullscreen=”true” width=”480″ height=”295″></embed></object>

2. Paste the code into the HTML friendly fields on your blog, your Web site, or your MySpace.

3. Email me the exact URL where the video appears. (lisa@lisadalebooks.com)

Can’t wait to give this cool basket and book away! And stay tuned for the upcoming prizes as well.

The contest ends October 14!

More soon. And thank you so, so much for your support and for sharing this trailer with others. Please do let me know what you think of the trailer, and you’ll be entered to win this month’s LOVE TO READERS prize!

Time to pick the winner for my montly LOVE TO READERS prize. But before I do that, I wanted to share with you my VERY FIRST REVIEW of It Happened One Night. It’s always so nerve-wracking waiting for reviews to come in, so you can bet I was thrilled beyond measure when this little gift arrived in my inbox!

Romantic Times says 4.5 Stars! “Lisa Dale is adept at weaving beautiful, romantic, heart-wrenching stories. She pays attention to the finest details, and the effect knocks the wind out of you. Every single scene, character conflict and reaction is perfect. The only downside is that the story concludes, which means our time with these wonderful characters comes to an end.”

Whew. What a relief that was! There’s always a chance that when you put your heart into a book, the story won’t resonate with others like it does with you. But I have high hopes for this one.  

Anyway, on to picking a winner. Thank you to everyone for your great comments this month!

And the winner (picked by my friends just now on Twitter) is….

Mary Claire!

Drop me an email at lisa (at) lisadalebooks.com and let me know what prize you’d like to receive from my LOVE TO READERS page.

Please note: I’ll be hosting a couple “extra” contests this month apart from the LOVE TO READERS prize. So keep an eye out!

All good wishes to you!

Personally, I think the whole idea of banning books is kinda sexy.

Hear me out. We bookish types aren’t always looked at as the type of people who live life on the edge. I can’t think of a moment in my life when confessing my reading habits inspired any kind of dazzled reaction. I mean, it’s not like anyone is out there pitching a reality TV show about the secret lives of book worms.

Wow, you read Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale this weekend? Whew. You are one daring woman. I wish I was that edgy and wild.

OR

Did you say you’re reading Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses for your book club? Oh man. That is SICK! You’re not actually telling people that, are you?

Obviously what I’m getting at here is this: books are inherently unsexy by reputation. Scholarly books are for the dull and professorial. Mainstream books are for the insipid middle-of-the-road baby boomers. Genre fiction is for the brainless plebes.

So when a book gets banned…look out! The sexy factor goes way up. Being told that Huck Finn was banned and bashed by just about everyone suddenly made it that much more interesting to read back when I was in eighth grade.

And remember Are you There God, It’s Me Margaret? I couldn’t wait to get my grubby little prepubescent hands on that book (which the PTA did NOT want me to read).

So as far as I’m concerned, let us give thanks to those nut-nuts who wish to ban certain books; it’s not the worst thing in the history of ever.

Go ahead! Let them throw fits in the letters to the editor sections of small town papers. Let them leave nasty comments on forward-thinking blogs. Let them torment their soft-spoken, underappreciated town librarians who will fight them tooth-and-nail for the freedom to read.

Why? Books ARE powerful. They change us. They force our decisions, make us crow with pride or  second guess ourselves, and they challenge us to become bigger, different people.

Those who fear the power of books fear it rightly. Maybe the world needs to be reminded of that sometimes when us mild-mannered, bookish-types are getting our nerd on–unsexy reading glasses and all.

As always, leave a comment to enter to win my LOVE TO READERS prize; I’m picking a winner this week!

Nothing.

Yup. That’s right. Nothing. I slept in late Saturday, didn’t get dressed until two in the afternoon, didn’t clean a thing, etc. This is a VERY rare occurrence in my life, and I just loved it!

I’ve been reading Stephen King’s Dark Tower series, and on Saturday I walked in the sunshine to pick up book two of the series and on Sunday I finished it and went back for book three.

I know horror-fantasy isn’t normally my genre, but I’ve been itching to read a story that’s really BIG—you know, intense characters with complex relationships, a challenging but enthralling plot, and something outside of what I usually read.

At first, I thought The Gunslinger, which is the first book in the series, was one of those books that works for adults or kids. When I plucked it from the shelf at the library, the copy was old and yellowing, and published by Plume (which I may or may not remember being the publisher of a number of books I read when I was a kid). Then, to further cement my misunderstanding, the book was illustrated!

Yup, it had all these watercolor pictures sporadically stuck into the pages. I thought for sure it was young adult friendly….

Boy was I wrong. King—whom I’ve read before—is one twisted mind. Let’s just say that not too far into the book the Gunslinger is pretty much raped by a disembodied oracle. And that’s one of the tamer moments of the first book!

Anyway, while Dark Tower isn’t my usual gig, I’m really interested in it and will likely finish reading the series of seven books. I want to know how other writers can balance and maintain a story so long and epic (I’ve got dreams up my sleeve).

Here’s some of the pictures associated with the Dark Tower series (below), to give you an idea of what I’m looking at. To me, they’re interesting but they’re a distraction too. I’ve got my own idea of what the characters look like and what the scenes are like, and the pictures conflict with my imagination.

LOVE TO READERS: What do you think? Ever read a book with illustrations? Did it work for you?