Joshua Palmatier

Review Contest!

My next novel, THREADING THE NEEDLE, will be released on July 5th, but I’ve designed the following contest so that the lucky winners will get an ARC (Advanced Reader’s Copy) of the novel in JUNE! Nearly a full month early! That way, a few of you can enjoy it before the rest of the world. (And hopefully help spread the word about it when it does hit the shelves at local bookstores.)

So, what do you have to do in order to have a chance at one of the ARCs? Simple: Just write a review of SHATTERING THE LEY, the first book in the series, and post it on Amazon.com. It doesn’t have to be a complicated review, just let everyone know what you thought of the first book. A few sentences, that’s it (whatever the minimum requirements are for posting a review on Amazon.com). I’d like to get the reviews on Amazon.com up as high as possible (50 would be a good number) and this is one way for all of you to help, with a chance at an ARC as well.

Official Rules for Entry: Post a review on Amazon.com. Then send an email to jpalmatier@sff.net with a copy of the review in the message along with your name. That will get your name in the drawing for the ARCs to be sent out in June. If you’ve already posted a review, don’t fret, you can simply send me an email with a copy of the review and that will count as your entry. So only one review/entry per person. I’ll send everyone who emails their review entry a response, so everyone will know that they’re in the drawing. Deadline for posting a review and sending me an email is June 10th, 2016. I will not count any emails that arrive after midnight EST on June 10th, 2016. [Extended due to the email sent out by DAW on May 31st.]

So, get out there and post that review! Then send me an email with a copy of it, and you’re in the running for an ARC of THREADING THE NEEDLE! Good luck!





Threading the Needle Back Cover Copy:

The Nexus—the hub created by the Prime Wielders to harness the magical power of the ley lines for the city of Erenthrall, the Baronial Plains, and the world beyond—has Shattered, the resultant pulse cascading through the system and leaving Erenthrall decimated, partially encased in a massive distortion. The world has fared no better: auroral storms plague the land, transforming people into creatures beyond nightmare; silver-white lights hover over all of the major cities, the harbinger of distortions that could quicken at any moment; and quakes brought on by the unstable ley network threaten to tear the earth apart. The survivors of this apocalypse have banded together in desperate groups, both in the remains of Erenthall and without, scrounging for food and resources in an ever more dangerous world.

Having survived the initial Shattering, Wielder Kara Tremain and ex-Dog Allan Garrett have led their small group of refugees to the Hollow, a safe haven in the hills on the edge of the plains. But the ley system is not healing itself. Their only option is to repair the distortion that engulfs Erenthrall and to fix the damaged ley lines themselves. To do that, they’ll have to enter a city controlled by vicious bands of humans and non-humans alike, intent on keeping what little they’ve managed to scavenge together.

But as soon as they enter the streets of Erenthrall, they find themselves caught up in the maelstrom of violence, deception, and betrayal that the city has descended into—including the emergence of a mysterious and powerful cult calling themselves the White Cloaks, whose leader is called Father . . .

The same man who once led the terrorist group called the Kormanley and brought about the Shattering that destroyed the world.

Earlier this month, we had a contest here where readers could win an autographed copy of The Silent Dragon by Irene Radford, the first book in her new series The Children of the Dragon Nimbus. Irene has just gotten in touch with me to announce the two winners! Here's the official word from Irene:

Congratulations to "Lightofthemoon12" aka Frances Tinney and jollymoon aka Ed Parton for being first in with all the correct answers to the treasure hunt on Irene Radford's website. I have already contacted the winners to arrange delivery of the autographed books.

Thanks to all who entered We'll try something similar with my next book. The Broken Dragon, Children of the Dragon Nimbus #2" by Irene Radford due out in about a year from DAW Books.

Congratulations, Frances and Ed! Stop on by after you've read the book and let us know what you thought of it! The book discussion for this book will be going up shortly.

As part of the promo for the After Hours: Tales From the Ur-bar release, I figured I’d highlight all of the contributors to the anthology individually. And while we’re at it, run a contest as well! So here’s the deal, to enter the contest you have to either friend the afterhoursurbar community here on LiveJournal OR you have to like the After Hours: Tales From the Ur-bar Facebook page (search for the title of the anthology to find the page). If you do both, you’re entered into the contest twice! The contest will end March 31st, 2011. Prizes will include copies of the contributors books (sometimes entire trilogies), After Hours: Tales From the Ur-bar M&Ms, and perhaps other prizes. They will be awarded by random drawing from those who’ve liked or friended the appropriate pages. If you’ve already friended or liked the pages, then you’re already entered into the contest! Find out more about the anthology at its website: http://www.sff.net/people/benjamintate/afterhours/afterhours.html.





And now for the second contributor: S.C. Butler (scbutler)! Sam’s contribution to the anthology is the short story Why the Vikings Had No Bars, which takes the Ur-bar a little farther north and a few years forward in time. Here’s the official description:

“Why the Vikings Had No Bars” by S.C. Butler: When the Ur-Bar appears outside Hedeby, Odin can’t resist “helping” introduce the bar to the locals . . . with a typical Viking brawl answering the question of why the Vikings had no bars.

I’ve known Sam since we met at a convention (I can’t remember which one), probably at the bar (which would explain why). I loved his Stoneways Trilogy, enough to blurb the third novel before it came out. Excellent books. Here’s his author bio from the anthology:

S.C. Butler is the author of the Stoneways Trilogy: Reiffen’s Choice, Queen Ferris, and The Magicians’ Daughter. A relative once complained to him about all the underage drinking in his books, but who ever drank the water in the Middle Ages? His favorite drink is a glass of Pinot Grigio, and his favorite place to drink it is the bar deck of the Lawrence Beach Club on a summer evening, with two hundred yards of sand and fifty miles of the Atlantic Ocean spread out before him.

A copy of his first book, Reiffen’s Choice, is being offered as one of the prizes in the contest, so skip on over and friend or like the appropriate pages for your chance to win!

Yay!! The German release of The Skewed Throne, retitled Die Assassine, has officially hit the shelves today! If you're in Germany, read German, check it out! And if you're not in Germany but you read German, check it out online. And if you don't read German, but you know someone who does, please let them know about it. I know some of you have already done this and I thank you profusely. It would be spectacular if the book took off in Germany.





I've been running a contest, giving away copies of the hardcover US edition of the book for the last 10 days, and the winner for the last day is . . . evaleastaristev! Congrats! Send me your address either here on LJ as a message or at jpalmatier@sff.net. Give a name if you'd like it personalized, otherwise I'll just send a signed copy.

And for the rest of you, never fear! There will be future contests. In fact, there's going to be a new contest right now! This contest was inspired by a situation that arose at the last signing, in Paramus, NJ:

The signing went on for four hours, but as invariably happens, when it came to an end and everyone was packing up, we had a rush of people who wanted to know what was going on, etc. We usually sell books at this point, and this time wasn't an exception. Someone wanted me to sign a copy of the book for them, so I asked their name--"Dave"--asked them to spell it (just in case, I never assume it's spelled the usual way), and they said "D . . . A . . . V . . . E" with a smile. I started to sign the book and Dave asked, "Do you prefer Josh or Joshua?" I said that it doesn't matter, Josh is fine with me . . . and promptly signed the book "To Josh."

*headdesk*

I got a new book and signed that one to Dave, of course, and then I bought the book I'd screwed up. So, I have a paperback copy of The Skewed Throne signed "To Josh" . . . and I figured I'd run a contest with that as the prize. Why not?

To enter, simply comment here with a reason why YOU deserve a book signed "To Josh." The entry with the best reason, whether I decide it's the most humorous or simply the most deserving (if your full name is Josh Joshua Joshuapus, for example), is totally up to my discretion. So give me your best response and we'll see who gets this special copy.

And finally for today, I had a few of you ask why the one panel didn't go so well . . . it was a combination of things. Mostly though, I went into the panel with the idea that it would be about HOW to write gender issues (it was called "Writing Gender Issues"), with us giving tips and tricks on how to do that, ways to be careful on how you treat those issues yet still allow yourself to be free to write what you want, etc. Instead, it ended up being a discussion of the issues to some extent. I figured I was on the panel because I'm a man who wrote a first person, intensely personal story of a woman and part of the panel description was about that (men writing women, women writing men). But we didn't spend much time on that before it became more about sexuality representations in novels. Which is fine as a panel topic, but I don't think it was the intent behind the panel. Since I wasn't that prepared for that, I kind of sat back after I'd had my say on the "men writing women" issue at the beginning and let the panel run its course.

But anyways, I'm back. I need to do some work on fallout from the con (contacting people, sending out projects, etc) today, get the prizes ready to mail for the contest winners (since I was away for a good chunk of the contest), and begin to obsessively watch the Amazon.com.de ranking numbers for Die Assassine. *grin*

So yesterday was my light day at the con. I got up and around and headed over to the Delta hotel for the writing workshop. Basically, three aspiring authors had submitted their material for critique and I'd read them and now we were getting together for two hours to go over what everyone thought. Except that our session went longer than two hours. We needed three. I think it's simply because everyone had some good things to say on all three of the projects. In any case, once we finished I had a break and went back to my room to take a small rest and to change for the DAW dinner. The DAW dinner is always spectacular and is at a good four-star restaurant. I always feel like I'm on Top Chef. And last night's dinner was no exception. I sat between the two Pats: Patrick Rothfuss and Pat the Blogger, from Pat's Fantasy Hotlist. Since I was on a corner of the table, I also got to chat with Kristen Britain and Betsy Wolheim (one of the editors from DAW). I think a good time was had by all and the food was excellent. There were three courses and I had the wild mushroom pie (with beef tartar and foue gras), guinea hen (with assorted accoutrements), and a chocolate club sandwich with pineapple french fries. I would have liked to have tried the white asparagus soup as well, but . . . *shrug* The dinner usually runs for three to four hours, so by the time this one was done I headed back to my hotel and crashed. Mostly because I have a meeting with my editor this morning and need to be somewhat coherent and awake. *grin*

But you don't care about that! You want the contest. So here it is!

The winner for Saturday is calendula_witch! Congrats! Get in touch with me here on LJ in a message or email me at jpalmatier@sff.net with the address I should mail the book to and a name if you want me to personalize it. Otherwise I'll just send a signed copy.

For everyone else, there's still 2 days left! I will be giving away a first edition signed hardcover of The Skewed Throne, one per day, for the next two days. The drawing will be done at random based on the comments received on that day's LJ entry. So if you enter today, you're in the drawing for today only; you have to come back tomorrow and enter again for a chance to win in the drawing tomorrow; then come back again for the next day, etc. You have to comment on that day's LJ post to enter for that day, so if you stop on by and I haven't had a chance to put up the post for that day yet, you'll have to come back when it's up to enter. You can enter as many days out of the 10 as you wish, even if you win on one of the days (if you win multiple copies, or already have a copy of the book, I assume you have some friends you can give the book to, or perhaps you can donate it to your local library, etc).

This contest is to celebrate finishing the revisions of the new book Well of Sorrows, coming out in May 2010 in trade paperback, AND to celebrate the release of Die Assassine, the German version of The Skewed Throne, which will hit the shelves on August 11th in Germany. Here's the incredible cover:





So if you're in Germany or can read German, RUSH--I say again RUSH--out and buy Die Assassine! Once it's out of course. (It is available for preorder on the German Amazon.com, along with book 2, "Die Regentin," to be released in January 2010.) And please, please tell all of your friends about it, since it's going to be impossible for me to do many signings and other stuff to promote it in Germany. Especially since I can't speak or read German very well.

And there you go! Enter the contest (just comment!) every day for the next 2 days, and buy my German book!

That is all. Carry on.

Well, I survived the 6 hour drive, which was uneventful until I hit Montreal itself where, about 5 miles from the hotel, everything came to a dead stop on the highway. And it started pouring rain, just when I needed to start looking for signs. Why didn't it rain on the 170 miles stretch on the same road? Hmmm?

In any case, I registered, ran into a ton of people, checked out the dealer's room (lame), put out promo stuff, went to a reading by friend and fellow OWWer Ian Tregellis (the first book of his trilogy is coming out from Tor in April 2010), went to the Opening Ceremonies, then HIT THE PARTIES! *grin*

Last night was the Tor party, so I spent most of the night there, talking to Ian. Just to name drop, George R.R. Martin was there. Neil Gaiman was there. Tom Doherty was there. I didn't talk to any of them because mostly they were surrounded by groupies and fans, but still. . . . *grin*

I got back to the hotel room around 2pm, talked with my roommate S.C. Butler (scbutler), and crashed. I had no panels or anything yesterday. Here's my schedule for today:

12Noon: SFWA Table Signing
2pm: Reading
3:30pm: Preparing to Write a Series

There were requests for posts on my panels topics, which I plan on doing after the con. These posts will be mostly my thoughts on the topic, but I'll take notes if anything interesting gets said and report on that, too. Now, off to the con!

***********************

But first, the on-going contest!

The winner for Thursday is dogzilla30! Congrats! Get in touch with me here on LJ in a message or email me at jpalmatier@sff.net with the address I should mail the book to and a name if you want me to personalize it. Otherwise I'll just send a signed copy.

For everyone else, there's still 4 days left! I will be giving away a first edition signed hardcover of The Skewed Throne, one per day, for the next four days. The drawing will be done at random based on the comments received on that day's LJ entry. So if you enter today, you're in the drawing for today only; you have to come back tomorrow and enter again for a chance to win in the drawing tomorrow; then come back again for the next day, etc. You have to comment on that day's LJ post to enter for that day, so if you stop on by and I haven't had a chance to put up the post for that day yet, you'll have to come back when it's up to enter. You can enter as many days out of the 10 as you wish, even if you win on one of the days (if you win multiple copies, or already have a copy of the book, I assume you have some friends you can give the book to, or perhaps you can donate it to your local library, etc).

This contest is to celebrate finishing the revisions of the new book Well of Sorrows, coming out in May 2010 in trade paperback, AND to celebrate the release of Die Assassine, the German version of The Skewed Throne, which will hit the shelves on August 11th in Germany. Here's the incredible cover:





So if you're in Germany or can read German, RUSH--I say again RUSH--out and buy Die Assassine! Once it's out of course. (It is available for preorder on the German Amazon.com, along with book 2, "Die Regentin," to be released in January 2010.) And please, please tell all of your friends about it, since it's going to be impossible for me to do many signings and other stuff to promote it in Germany. Especially since I can't speak or read German very well.

And there you go! Enter the contest (just comment!) every day for the next 4 days, and buy my German book!

That is all. Carry on.

I finished the main revisions on the short story "Mastihooba" yesterday . . . but I still need to cut some words. Out of the 800 I needed to cut when I started the revisions, I'm down to only needing to cut 250 at the moment. I'm going to go through the story one more time today and see what I can do, but if I can't get it down to 7000 exactly (or less) then I'm going to send it in and hope it's fine with the editor of the anthology.

In addition, today I have to PACK! For Worldcon, that is. Which means I need to prepare. And I'm doing the writers workshop while I'm there, so I need to read the three submissions for my section, and . . . and . . . and . . . well, you get the idea. So I'm off to get some of that done, I hope. I'll post my finalized Worldcon schedule tomorrow, before I hit the road.

Oh, and one last thing: I got the email today from Germany that my Amazon.com.de order of the German edition of The Skewed Throne, Die Assassine, has shipped! Hee!

And now, the on-going contest!

The winner for Tuesday is jongibbs! Congrats! Get in touch with me here on LJ in a message or email me at jpalmatier@sff.net with the address I should mail the book to and a name if you want me to personalize it. Otherwise I'll just send a signed copy.

For everyone else, there's still 6 days left! I will be giving away a first edition signed hardcover of The Skewed Throne, one per day, for the next six days. The drawing will be done at random based on the comments received on that day's LJ entry. So if you enter today, you're in the drawing for today only; you have to come back tomorrow and enter again for a chance to win in the drawing tomorrow; then come back again for the next day, etc. You have to comment on that day's LJ post to enter for that day, so if you stop on by and I haven't had a chance to put up the post for that day yet, you'll have to come back when it's up to enter. You can enter as many days out of the 10 as you wish, even if you win on one of the days (if you win multiple copies, or already have a copy of the book, I assume you have some friends you can give the book to, or perhaps you can donate it to your local library, etc).

This contest is to celebrate finishing the revisions of the new book Well of Sorrows, coming out in May 2010 in trade paperback, AND to celebrate the release of Die Assassine, the German version of The Skewed Throne, which will hit the shelves on August 11th in Germany. Here's the incredible cover:





So if you're in Germany or can read German, RUSH--I say again RUSH--out and buy Die Assassine! Once it's out of course. (It is available for preorder on the German Amazon.com, along with book 2, "Die Regentin," to be released in January 2010.) And please, please tell all of your friends about it, since it's going to be impossible for me to do many signings and other stuff to promote it in Germany. Especially since I can't speak or read German very well.

And there you go! Enter the contest (just comment!) every day for the next 6 days, and buy my German book!

That is all. Carry on.

So, what's been happening with the revisions? They're done, right?

Well, yes and no. The run-through of the revisions are done, yes. I've been through the entire book and changed everything that was on my list. But some of the things on that list weren't necessarily that specific of a change. Remember the multiple levels of changes. The bottom-level of changes were easy to fix, since they were things like "mention a knife in chapter 12, need to set the knife up in chapter 5." So you go back to chapter 5 and add in a sentence or two about the knife and walla! you're done. The mid-level revisions are less specific, but still easy to cross off the list. These were things like "add in a few scenes from Garius' POV after the meeting to get across the politics of his race." So you find a spot after the meeting where you can squeeze in a few scenes without interrupting the flow. But notice that "add in a few" part. There's some wiggle room there. How many scenes are necessary? How many do you need to get the point across? And Garius is a new POV character in this revisions as well, so you have to spend some time developing his character and backstory a little while you're explaining the politics of his race in those scenes. (Remember, every scene needs to do two or more things.) And then the top-level stuff, like "add in more about the Andovan culture!" Vague. How much do you add? How much is enough? Have you pushed the line and added too much? Did you info-dump? When can you safely cross this off the revision list?

As you can see, in the mid-level and top-level stuff, there's some leeway as to whether or not you're "done" and can cross things off the list. So what I've been doing the last few days is NOT actively working on the revisions, but actively THINKING about the revisions and asking myself, "Is what I did to fix this enough? Too much?" And overall, I think what I did was fine. You can drive yourself crazy thinking about this, so at some point you have to just say, done. There's only one thing that I think I need to "fix" before I do the official print out and send this back to DAW and my editor, and it has to do with Garius and his POV scenes that I added. Like I said, he's a new POV character in the book, so I can't just add the scene that tells of the political situation for his race. I need to develop his backstory a little bit, give him a life, give him motivation, basically make him a full-fledged character, even if I only have a few scene to do that. I did that during the revisions (he has a warrior son who's angry because of the death of his brothers, while Garius' wife just wants the fighting to end because she's already lost three sons to the war, and doesn't want to lose Garius or her other son, etc). I also added in alot more about the culture of Garius' race, to worldbuild, all in two scenes. BUT . . . I think I need to add one more scene, toward the end of the book, from Garius' POV. Basically, the role of this scene is to wrap up Garius' storyline a little bit. I made him a character, I gave him a storyline, and that storyline needs to have a conclusion of some sort.

Today, I will go back to the end of the novel and find a good spot to insert a scene from Garius' POV where I can finish off his story and that of his race. At least for this book.

In addition, I'm going to start revising (and hopefully finish revising) a short story called "Mastihooba" for that anthology I was invited to participate in. So revisions continue today!

But you probably don't care about that. You want to know about the contest!!! So here we go:

The winner for Sunday is shartyrant! Congrats! Get in touch with me here on LJ in a message or email me at jpalmatier@sff.net with the address I should mail the book to and a name if you want me to personalize it. Otherwise I'll just send a signed copy.

For everyone else, there's still 8 days left! I will be giving away a first edition signed hardcover of The Skewed Throne, one per day, for the next eight days. The drawing will be done at random based on the comments received on that day's LJ entry. So if you enter today, you're in the drawing for today only; you have to come back tomorrow and enter again for a chance to win in the drawing tomorrow; then come back again for the next day, etc. You have to comment on that day's LJ post to enter for that day, so if you stop on by and I haven't had a chance to put up the post for that day yet, you'll have to come back when it's up to enter. You can enter as many days out of the 10 as you wish, even if you win on one of the days (if you win multiple copies, or already have a copy of the book, I assume you have some friends you can give the book to, or perhaps you can donate it to your local library, etc).

This contest is to celebrate finishing the revisions of the new book Well of Sorrows, coming out in May 2010 in trade paperback, AND to celebrate the release of Die Assassine, the German version of The Skewed Throne, which will hit the shelves on August 11th in Germany. Here's the incredible cover:





So if you're in Germany or can read German, RUSH--I say again RUSH--out and buy Die Assassine! Once it's out of course. (It is available for preorder on the German Amazon.com, along with book 2, "Die Regentin," to be released in January 2010.) And please, please tell all of your friends about it, since it's going to be impossible for me to do many signings and other stuff to promote it in Germany. Especially since I can't speak or read German very well.

And there you go! Enter the contest (just comment!) every day for the next 8 days, and buy my German book!

That is all. Carry on.

OK, for the very, very, very last time, I promise: A SIGNING IN PARAMUS, NJ!!!!

MULTI-AUTHOR SIGNING!

AUGUST 1st, 2009
Noon-4pm @
Borders Express
Paramus Park Mall
600 Paramus Park
Paramus, NJ 07652
including:
S.C. Butler; Barbara Campbell
Laura Anne Gilman; Jackie Kessler
Joshua Palmatier; Anton Strout


Hope to see a few of you there!

And now for the contest: I will be giving away a first edition signed hardcover of The Skewed Throne, one per day, for the next ten days. The drawing will be done at random based on the comments received on that day's LJ entry. So if you enter today, you're in the drawing for today only; you have to come back tomorrow and enter again for a chance to win in the drawing tomorrow; then come back again for the next day, etc. You have to comment on that day's LJ post to enter for that day, so if you stop on by and I haven't had a chance to put up the post for that day yet, you'll have to come back when it's up to enter. You can enter as many days out of the 10 as you wish, even if you win on one of the days (if you win multiple copies, or already have a copy of the book, I assume you have some friends you can give the book to, or perhaps you can donate it to your local library, etc).

This contest is to celebrate finishing the revisions of the new book Well of Sorrows, coming out in May 2010 in trade paperback, AND to celebrate the release of Die Assassine, the German version of The Skewed Throne, which will hit the shelves on August 11th in Germany. Here's the incredible cover:





So if you're in Germany or can read German, RUSH--I say again RUSH--out and buy Die Assassine! Once it's out of course. And please, please tell all of your friends about it, since it's going to be impossible for me to do many signings and other stuff to promote it in Germany. Especially since I can't speak or read German very well.

And there you go! Stop by and see me in Paramus if you can, enter the contest (just comment!) every day for the next 10 days, and buy my German book!

That's all. Carry on.

OK, I've thought about what I could do for a contest for the German foreign sales rights of the Throne of Amenkor series. Some of the ideas included:

1. Getting people to post pictures of themselves in lederhosen.
2. Beer drinking contest. Who can stay standing the longest!
3. Best translation of some text written in German. Naughty text of course.
4. Best video of people dancing/singing to German folksongs.

All of these were way too complicated to arrange, or way too expensive. So I decided to keep things simple. All you have to do to enter is post a comment to this post and you'll be entered into a random drawing for a copy of "Die Assassine", the German edition of The Skewed Throne. You have until November 21st to post your comment. Everyone who posted a comment congratulating me on the sale in this post or the follow-up post have already been entered into the contest and do not need to post again. A winner will be selected sometime after November 21st. The prize will be sent as soon as I manage to get my hands on my author copies, which won't be until sometime next year, but you can brag about eventually owning such a copy to all of your friends. I'll sign the copy of course. *grin*

So that's it. I'll probably run another contest when the book is actually released. But for now, comment and possibly win! And have a tankard of virtual German ale with me to celebrate!

************

PS--Dont forget about the "Spirit of Giving" contest still going on, as well as the free book you could win by commenting over at the dawbooks blog, where I just posted a discussion about R.M. Meluch's U.S.S. Merrimack science fiction series, since the newest book in the series Strength and Honor is one of the new releases this month.