Wednesday, September 27, 2017

The easiest giveaway ever

UPDATE: All books have been claimed so I ended the international portion of the contest too. Congrats to my winners :) For more chances to win, check out my You, a Friend, a Stranger giveaway (INT) where you can score $100 in prizes or my latest retweet giveaway on Twitter (US.) Both of those end on 9/30, but after that I'll be participating in YASH, so come back in early October for blog hop and giveaway madness :D

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Hi peeps. So I basically sucked at staying off Twitter for September, but I did manage to stay almost completely off FB and Instagram, so there's that. And mostly Twitter pulled me in because I wanted to share info about the proposed healthcare legislation and keep up on info about people affected by the hurricanes and how to help.

Anyway, I've been planning this giveaway forever, but I got sick when I was going to post it as Free Books Friday last week so here it is as Free Books Wednesday Night ;)



Here's the deal. I released four traditionally published books so far this year if you count paperbacks, and I realized I have several ARCs and extra author copies hanging around. So I'm going to give some away. I'm too tired to set up a complex giveaway so it's going to be this simple: First, read the rules. Second, email me at pstokesbooks [at] gmail [dot] com and specify which ARC/book you want and if no one else beats you to it, it's yours. I am going to do one book for ages 13-19 and one book for ages 20+ for each title, just because I have readers who are teens and some who are older and I want to distribute the books to both groups. So, like this:

  1. A hardcover of GATU from Book Outlet--has black mark on bottom pages, anyone can claim
  2. A paperback of GATU--age 13-19 can claim
  3. A paperback of GATU--age 20+ can claim
  4. An ARC of TIHIH (w/ missing page inserted)--age 13-19 can claim
  5. An ARC of TIHIH (w/ missing page inserted)--age 20+ can claim
  6. An ARC of Vicarious--age 13-19 can claim
  7. An ARC of Vicarious--age 20+ can claim
  8. An ARC of Ferocious--age 13-19 can claim
  9. An ARC of Ferocious--age 20+ can claim

I will cross off the book when it has been claimed, resulting in what I hope will be few people who email to request a book that's already been claimed. If you do get beat by someone else or you miss out on this contest, join my mailing list if you want to be included in the next one, because I'm going to do this again sometime this year with newsletter subscribers.


THE RULES: (Some of them are more like guidelines, but whatevs)
  • This part of the giveaway is US only because it costs more to mail any of these books than it would cost to buy them in a foreign country. International people, see below.
  • If you have won a book from me in the past 90 days, please refrain from requesting a book from this giveaway. Sharing is caring, right?
  • I am hoping (but not "requiring") people who claim these books will read and review them, so don't claim a book if you have a 100+ TBR list just because you can't resist free stuff.
  • Don't claim a book just to turn around and sell it to someone else. My projected writing income for 2018 is currently less than $3000 and will remain at that level unless I manage to sell another book, something I have been trying to do since the beginning of the year. I am not giving these away because I am a super-rich writer-person, so I am asking you nicely not to exploit this giveaway for profit. My goal is to get the books to people who really want to read them, so if you know someone that fits that criteria, especially a teen, send them this link :)
  • Books will ship media mail. I am not responsible for lost mail.
  • I'm not going to promote this on Twitter or FB until 10/1 to give priority to anyone who reads my blog (Hi Mom ;D Just kidding, my mom doesn't even read my blog), but I'll end this by 10/5 if there are still books up for grabs.
  • Be sure to tell me which book and your age category when you email. You can give me a first choice and second choice, but each person can only have one book.
  • Again reviews are appreciated but not required. Here's a post that highlights some of the reasons why reviews matter, though note that the giveaway in that post is over.


INTERNATIONAL PEOPLE:

You know I can't leave you guys out totally but I can only afford to offer you one finished copy of any of these books at the moment, so I'm making you an easy, breezy Rafflecopter. I'm not expecting more than a few entries here because I have regular international contest entrants and most of them have won a book from me in the past 90 days. Please observe the above rules, and fill out the Rafflecopter below. Good luck :)

Want more chances to win stuff? Why not enter my You, a Friend, a Stranger giveaway (INT) where you can score $100 in prizes or my latest retweet giveaway on Twitter (US.)


a Rafflecopter giveaway
Got questions? Put them in the comments :)

Friday, September 1, 2017

You, a Friend, a Stranger Giveaway!

Hi :) I am going to keep this short(ish) because you're all here for the giveaway, aren't you?




So here's the thing. I've had some definite writing setbacks over the past few weeks. I wouldn't say any of them were unexpected, but I don't know, things don't really hurt me less just because they didn't surprise me. It's a different kind of pain I guess, like another bag of bricks added to an already heavy load.

But despite that, I am trying to focus on the positive. I'm strong and I'm healthy, so I can carry those extra bricks. I have a new nursing job which admittedly is extremely stressful and probably not a good fit for me, but it allows me to be a positive force in the lives of mentally ill people and addicts--many of whom are often surrounded by negativity. This job also pays enough so that I can donate to hurricane relief and GoFundMes and buy books to support my writer friends (even if I have no time to read the books--I am sorry, writer friends!) These are all things I was not able to do for years when I was struggling to survive as a full-time writer, and that weighed heavy on my heart. So trade-offs, right?

I also have an amazing volunteer position with Transition Projects, a local homeless-to-housing charity here in Portland. Between work and volunteering, I spend a lot of time listening to people who are often disparaged or ignored by the public. There is something powerful and life-affirming about validating the very real struggles these people go through every day. I am constantly awed by their strength and inspired by the solidarity they show to each other. So yes, I am feeling kind of beat down, but I am also finding peace and hope in the world around me.




In the interest of finding even more peace and hope, I've decided to take a bit of a break from social media for the month of September. I'm going to concentrate instead on improving my mental and physical health, becoming a better psychiatric nurse, being more aware of the world around me so I can better help people in need, and revising a "book of my heart" that was passed on by my publisher. [Gentle reminder that unless you self-publish, the only guaranteed time you can write ANY story you want is before you get an editor and a publisher. I actually had two projects rejected by publishers in the past two weeks and both of them are over 25% written. So please, please, if you are pre-published, do not squander that magical time by being sad about not having a book deal. Book deals are great. So is the freedom to write wildly and freely about anything inside your soul without being constrained by editor preferences, profit and loss sheets, sales figures, acquisitions teams, etc.]


I'll be reading email and logging onto Twitter every couple of days to read my @ tweets because my readers matter to me and I will always have time for you <3. Other than that, my Twitter and Facebook posts are scheduled and I might pop onto Instagram if I find something magical I want to share with everyone. I wanted to leave you guys with a giveaway, so I decided to create something kind of fun that encourages other people to also go in search of peace and hope :)

Below is the You, a Friend, a Stranger giveaway. International. One winner receives $100 in prizes as follows:

  • Winner gets $25 transferred to a PayPal account or paid out via a bookstore, grocery store, department store, or gas station gift card. It's about you and what you need <3
  • Winner's friend also gets $25, paid out via any of those gift cards. Sorry, no cash. [Int'l winners will have a limited selection to choose from.]
  • Winner gets $25 in credit to contribute to any GoFundMe or YouCaring (or you can split between two campaigns) during the month of October. I am registered and I will give the money in your name.
  • Winner gets a $25 gift card to Kiva.org. If you aren't familiar with Kiva, it's a micro-lending website where you can help finance a business loan for someone on the other side of the world. Then they pay back the loan and you can re-lend. It is literally the gift that keeps on giving.
  • Because I'm an author and I have lots of free books to give away, I'll throw in a copy of any of my Paula Stokes books, either for you or your friend who gets the gift card. [I won't judge if you keep it for yourself. My books are awesome, after all ;D]

I know that's technically you, a friend, and two strangers (or two friends if you know someone with a GoFundMe) but that just didn't sound as good ;) The Rafflecopter activities are a mix of self-care and helping friends and strangers. Most of them cost absolutely no money and don't involve driving anywhere. I tried to make them as inclusive as possible so that everyone could participate in whatever they wanted. Please use common sense when completing the activities and enter at your own risk. They're not particularly dangerous things, but most of them involve more than clicking a link, so I'm erring on the side of caution.

I created this contest so you could technically do one activity every day in September, but if you want to crush them all out in a weekend marathon of kindness, empathy, and introspection, well, that works too :)

a Rafflecopter giveaway
Can you cheat? I mean, yeah, most of these are "on your honor" activities. But this specific contest was created to help people feel better about themselves and the world. If you cheat and win, you might not regret it now, but chances are at some point you're going to feel a little down on yourself. I don't want to do that to you, so how about you don't do that to yourself either? Have fun with this. If you have a really meaningful experience doing any of these activities, be sure to leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Happy September. Best of luck in whatever goals you are pursuing this month, and as always, thanks for everything that you do <3