Raffle Madness

A sampling of lovely raffle baskets

I have returned from my first-ever Reader Author Get Together. It’s Tuesday as I write this and only today have I felt like myself. It was an overwhelming experience that I’ll soon discuss with another post but first I want to talk about a wonderful part of it; the Raffle.

Every year, authors, readers, publishers, you name it, donate gifts to a raffle at this event. This year, there were over 250 items donated and they raised more than 13,000 dollars for a charity, One Way Farm Children’s Home, www.OneWayFarm.org.

Since I only have one book out at this time, and my second isn’t going to be available until fall, I spent some time trying to come up with something interesting. Since I don’t shop at Bath and Body Works, a basket of spa items was out, so I decided to offer up the chance to name a character in my next published book. I thought it would be a fun prize for someone and I would enjoy sharing the experience of submitting, editing, designing cover art, and finally release day with an interested person.

My prize was drawn in the final round Saturday night. I stuck around despite being very tired and was excited to meet the winner, Joyce Boyd (Hi Joyce!). Joyce and I are going to work through this process together and I’ll be sure to post updates as they occur.

Here’s the first one; I met with two editors at RAGT, both requested full manuscripts, and I have sent those and synopses out as of today. Whew! It’s stressful to prep a submission because you want to re-read the whole manuscript for the umpteenth time, you second guess yourself and your story, and when the panic really hits, you try to think of reasons NOT to send the thing to anyone because you fear rejection. But I have overcome all those obstacles, hit the send button twice, and plan to celebrate tomorrow with a nice lunch out. Then it will be weeks of waiting and checking my email constantly and when I do get a message, being afraid to open it because of the aforementioned fear of rejection.

Oh, in case you are wondering, I didn’t win anything. I never win anything.

my raffle prize...kinda cute