Author friends, here’s something fun for you from Facebook!
If you don’t use Facebook, I’ll provide a quick summary here.
Long and Short Reviews hosts two Blogfests per year, one in the summer and a second one in December.
They are currently accepting submissions from authors who want to write a guest post for them over the holidays.
They will need things from you like:
1) a prize to give to one of the people who comments on your post.
Previous participants have chosen prizes like a free ebook or print copy of one of their books, bookmarks, mugs, a gift certificate to somewhere bookish like Amazon, etc. You pick whatever sort of prize you’d like to offer, and this is otherwise a completely free opportunity to meet new fans and network within the bookish community.
2) a 250-500 word guest blog post on any winter or winter holiday themed topic that is not pure promotion for your books.
If you want a few ideas, common themes have been things like short true or fictional stories, recipes, poems, your favourite memories of winter, Christmas, Solstice, Hanukkah, New Year’s, ect.
The last day to submit your post is December 18, 2024.
The Blogfest will run from December 23 to 27, 2024.
Long and Short Reviews has just opened their submission box for their 2024 Winter Blogfest.
Who can participate: Anyone who has published at least one book (or who will be seeing their first book published soon).
What you will get: Free promotion of your book on a busy, well-known bookish site and exposure to new readers.
What you‘ll need to provide:
A 250-500 word guest post about winter or any winter holiday (Christmas, Solstice, Hanukkah, New Year’s, etc)
A small prize. Previous participants have offered stuff like a free ebook, bookmark, $5 gift card to an online bookseller, etc.
A short biography of yourself. Think 2-3 sentences on average, although longer is perfectly fine, too.
A picture of your book cover (and one additional photo to illustrate your post, if desired)
Links to your website, social media accounts, etc. (if desired)
Last day for submission: December 10, 2023 (or sooner if all 50 spots are taken before then).
How to submit: Follow all of the instructions on this page. If you have any problems with your submission, there is an email address on that page you can contact for assistance.
Publication dates for submissions: December 18 through December 29, 2023.
Your exact publication date is influenced by a few factors, including how early you submitted it and which winter holiday you picked because they try to match up submissions with the winter holidays that are currently happening as much as possible.
So, for example, Winter Solstice posts are usually scheduled at the beginning of the Blogfest. Christmas posts tend to be published in the middle of it close to Christmas, and New Year’s posts are generally saved for the last few days of the Blogfest.
This is such a fun event. I hope to see you all over there as guest bloggers and/or commenters.
Long and Short Reviews has just opened their submission box for their annual Winter Blogfest.
Who can participate: Anyone who has a book to promote and who follows the instructions.
What you will get: Free promotion of your book on a busy, well-respected bookish site.
What you‘ll need to provide:
A 250-500 word guest post about winter or any winter holiday (Christmas, Solstice, Hanukkah, New Year’s, etc)
A small prize like a free ebook, bookmark, etc.
A short biography of yourself. Think 2-3 sentences on average, although longer is okay.
A picture of your book cover (and one additional photo to illustrate your post, if desired)
Links to your website, social media accounts, etc (if desired)
Last day for submission: December 12, although the 50 available slots sometimes fill up much sooner than that!
How to submit: Follow all of the instructions on this page. If you have any problems, that page also includes contact information for the person at Long and Short Reviews who is organizing this event.
Publication dates for submissions: December 20 through December 31. Your exact publication date is influenced by a few factors, including how early you submitted it and which winter holiday it references. For example, Hanukkah posts would probably be scheduled first thing since Hanukkah happens in early December this year, and all New Year’s posts are generally pushed as close to December 31 as they can be.
I hope to see some of you over there next month! This is a fantastic event I look forward to every year.
Calling all of the authors who follow my site! I just received word that Long and Short Reviews is ready to accept submissions for their 14th Anniversary Party. From their post on the topic:
This celebration is for all fiction genres we feature and review (romance, erotic romance, YA/Middle Grade, Mystery/Suspense, SFF and mainstream fiction) as well as non-fiction books (memoirs, self-help, etc.) and poetry, and will run August 23 – 27, 2021. We expect a huge turnout, with thousands of visitors, just like we’ve had every year on our anniversary! It’s a chance for some significant exposure.…
Along with several other prizes, we plan on giving away at least two $100 Amazon/BN GCs, and several smaller Amazon/BN GCs, all of which are sure to be a draw. Number and dollar amount of prizes will be based on participation. The more authors who participate, the more and bigger prizes we’ll offer and the more eyes on YOUR book! So… share this invitation everywhere 😊
Click on the link above for more information, including the form you’ll need to fill out if you’re interested in participating.
This is a wonderful opportunity for networking, finding new readers, and discovering great authors in many different genres.
August 1 is the deadline. Some years the available slots have filled up quickly, so I’d recommend signing up sooner rather than later if you’re able to do so.
Long and Short Reviews is a large, well-respected book review site that has been around since 2007. They are currently seeking out guest bloggers for their Winter Blogfest which is scheduled to run December 21 through January 1.
This is an amazing free opportunity for authors from any genre to meet likeminded writers and introduce yourselves to new potential readers.
Here’s what you’ll need to do to participate:
Write a 250-500 word guest post that is holiday or winter themed
Offer a small prize (for example, a free copy of one of your ebooks or anything else you choose to offer)
It’s that simple.
The Winter Blogfest is open to everyone and every winter holiday. You could write about Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Christmas, the Winter Solstice, New Year’s, other winter holidays/celebrations, or the winter season in general.
In past years, they’ve published guest posts about special holiday recipes, people’s favourite memories of the season, funny stories about celebrations that maybe didn’t turn out the way the author thought they would, the history of certain holiday figures, foods, songs, etc., and so much more. As long as it’s not pure promo, let your imaginations run wild.
Participants also have the option of including links to their website, social media accounts, etc. if they wish.
Go to Long and Short Reviews for instructions on how to submit your entry and for more information. I look forward to reading your entries if you decide to join in.
The deadline to submit a guest post to this event is December 11. Spread the word!
Click on the tag “hope” at this bottom of this post to read about all of my suggestions for hopeful science fiction. If you have recommendations for future instalments of this series, I’d sure like to hear them. Leave a comment below or send me message about it on Twitter.
Recently, I discovered the Better Worlds series, a science fiction anthology of short stories and films about hope that was published at The Verge two years ago. This is the second story from this anthology I’ve covered here, and I will eventually blog about all of them.
There are mild spoilers in this post.
Online Reunion
Leigh Alexander’s “Online Reunion” was about a young journalist chronicling a vintage e-pet reunion who gets more than she expected.
One of the things I found most interesting about this tale was how little time it spent on the world building.
The Internet had changed society in some pretty profound ways over the decades, but this wasn’t something I fully appreciated until I read it for the second time. I’d definitely recommending reading this slowly in order to catch every hint about what’s really going on here.
Human Nature
Fashions may come and go, but human nature remains constant from one era to the next. The best portions of this story were the ones that quietly highlighted what has changed, and even more importantly what hasn’t changed, over the past few generations since people began using the Internet heavily.
Jean, the main character, thought she had a good idea of what to expect when she went to Mrs. Marchenstamp’s house to interview her. I was amused by the assumptions she made about the first generation who used the Internet heavily, especially once Jean realized that she might have underestimated her interview subject.
There was also something comforting in the thought of people finding new ways to connect with each other in a futuristic world where something similar to Internet Addiction Disorder is much more common and dangerous than it is today.
I can’t go into detail about that topic without wandering into serious spoiler territory, but I was pleased with how familiar this tale felt. Yes, the characters had access to technology that you and I can only dream of, and there were plenty of social problems the plot hinted at that seemed to have grown worse over time instead of better.
But I still felt as thought I could sit down and have a cup of tea with any of the characters. Other than the occasional slang term that would be used differently in their world than in ours, they seemed like people I already knew. There was a familiarity with their problems and their triumphs that made me want to get to know them better.
As much of a cliche as this is to type, people are people everywhere. I loved seeing all of the similarities between them and us.
It made me look forward to the future. What could be better than that?
Click on the tag “hope” at this bottom of this post to read about all of my suggestions for hopeful science fiction. If you have recommendations for future instalments of this series, I’d sure like to hear them. Leave a comment below or send me message about it on Twitter.
Recently, I discovered the Better Worlds series, a science fiction anthology of short stories and films about hope that was published at The Verge two years ago.
A Theory of Flight
Justina Ireland’s “A Theory of Flight” is the first instalment of this series. It was about a daring plan to build an open-source rocket could help more people escape Earth. Click on the link in the first sentence of this paragraph to read it for free or scroll to the bottom of this post to watch the short film version of it. There are mild spoilers in this post, so reader beware after this sentence.
When I first began this series, I talked about my expectations for hopeful science fiction.
This type of sci-fi isn’t about creating a utopia or brushing aside the very real challenges people face. It’s about finding hope and fighting for a happy ending no matter what the circumstances are.
Carlinda was no stranger to conflict or struggling. She was a black woman who’d grown up in a low-income neighbourhood. This may have been set in a future version of Earth, but the obstacles she faced were the same ones that people from all of these groups face today.
The big difference between her time and ours had to do with how much the environment had degraded thanks to climate change. Life on a hot, polluted planet was beyond difficult, especially for people who didn’t have the money or social clout to get away from Earth.
Cooperation
Carlinda had some money saved up from a well-paid job building spaceships for the wealthy folks who were fleeing Earth for safe colonies on Mars and Europa.
Her funds weren’t enough to get her to either of those places, though, much less help anyone else to join her. This futuristic version of society was so economically stratified that the vast majority of people were doomed to live out short, painful, poverty-stricken lives on Earth.
Or were they?
The beautiful thing about Carlinda’s open-sourced plans for rocket ships was that they could be built out of trash. Very little money was required to create them. All you needed were some workers who understood how to follow the plans and build something that could safely bring a few hundred folks to Europa.
There are some plot twists related to the political ramifications of this plan that are best left up to new readers to discover for themselves. Still, I loved seeing how the small percentage of humans who were wealthy and politically powerful reacted to the idea of ordinary folks taking their own fates into their hands.
Not only did it add a layer of urgency to the plot, it gave Carlinda and the people working with her even more of an incentive to keep building and to share their knowledge with as many other poor folks as possible.
A better world is possible, and it all begins with regular people banding together to creatively solve problems that are too big for any one person to fix on their own.
Today is the Trick-or-Treat Reads Halloween Book Event! This event was created by Patricia Lynne and is designed to give readers free books on Halloween. Click here to see what the rest of the participants will be giving away this year. There are a lot of goodies on that list!
I’m giving away copies of two of my books.
Tumble is a short story about a girl named Elle who is being raised in the middle of nowhere by an over-protective single parent. Now that she’s turned eighteen, she’s ready to start making her own decisions in life. But her father only grows more protective of her the further she pulls away from him. What secrets might he be hiding?
Waiting for Earl to Die and Other Stories is an anthology of short science fiction and horror stories. Every character in this collection has a story hidden deeply inside themselves, but not everyone realizes exactly what that story might be.
This event is so cool I decided to dedicate a full post to it today.
On October 31, blogger Patricia Lynne is going to be hosting a Trick-or-Treat blog hop for anyone who is looking for free, new e-books to read.
Authors, you have until October 31 to hop on over to her site and share a link to your free book or books.
Bloggers, readers, and reviewers, the full list of free e-books will be available on that site on October 31. Be sure to go check it out then if you need something new to read. The hashtag they’re using on Twitter is #trickortreatreads, so keep an eye out for that, too.
I’ve already added the link for my books. If I find any titles there that fit the theme of my blog, you may see reviews of them here in the future. A big part of the reason why I wrote this post is so that I can link back to it over the coming months to explain how I gained access to so many free books at once if this pans out as well as I hope it does.
These freebie posts are so much fun!
Leigh Alexander’s “
