Friday Findings - Blogfests & Tours Galore!

Welcome to my second installment of Friday Findings!  I promise, I won’t give a count every week, just while it’s still new .

We’ve got a lot on the plate today, with something fun at the end, so hang tight everyone!

So the last few weeks, I’ve been keeping my eye out for any blog fests, tours, and campaigns that catch my eye.  I’ve got a few new ones I’m doing, and boy do I have a lot on my plate for the next few months!

So let’s get started . . . 

First up is the Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy Blog Tour.  I first found this group on Facebook right before NaNoWriMo started last year, and so I put off joining them until this year.  I’m so glad I did, I just got my first ARC (Advance Reader Copy, fyi) for this, and I can’t wait to get started on it!

The purpose of the CSFF Blog Tour is:

While the speculative genres have been popular in the general market for some time, Christian publishing houses, notable those belonging to the Evangelical Christian Publishing Association, have been slow to put out significant numbers of science fiction or fantasy titles. The CSFF Blog Tour is a grassroots movement among writers and fans of the genre intent on drawing attention to the works that are available. We have three primary goals:

1) to highlight the Christian science fiction and fantasy genres

2) to inform readers about the books and webzines available

3) to increase traffic to our own blogs

So, if any of that sounds like something that interests you, please go to CSFF and sign up!  It might be a while before you hear a response, but you will get one!

Next up is the 2012 Debut Author Challenge.  I found this one through Jessica Therrien at Imagination to Publication.  Her brand-new, first-ever book is one of the books for this challenge.

The point of this challenge is to read and review books by new YA authors.  I’ve got three I’m going to be reading soon – Jessica’s book, Oppression, Halflings by Heather Burch, and A Breath of Eyre by Eve Marie Mont.

You can join the 2012 DAC up through May of this year, I believe.  There is also a Traveling ARC Tour to help those (like me) who can’t afford to buy that many books. That’s how I’m getting Halflings and A Breath of Eyre.  You have to be participating in the DAC to take advantage of the ARC Tour, though.

Can’t forget the Fourth Writer’s Platform Building Campaign, either! I’m not going to go all-out on this one, though, since I already did that in Monday’s post.

The final stop on our blog-tour-tour is the 2012 A to Z April Challenge.  The goal is to create a blog post almost every day of April that corresponds with a letter of the alphabet, in order, from A to Z.

We’ll see if I survive this one.

Now to the fun stuff!

Okay, that other stuff was fun too, but this is stuff you don’t have to sign up for . . .

First, read an awesome article today.

Courtesy of Terrible Minds, here is 25 Reasons that Writers are Bug-F*** Nuts.  Yes, I censored the title.  There is a bit of language in this, so if that bothers you, don’t read.  If you can overlook it, though, the article is well worth it.

Especially for reasons 1, 2, 3, 15, 17, 18, 19, 21, and 23.

And last, but not least, I have another freebie for you this week!

I met Tamara Hart Heiner last October at the Ozark Creative Writers Conference.  She is a super-sweet lady, and was thrilled that I and my four other gals were all there, because she was the ONLY person in our age group at the conference in 2010.

Well from today until February 14th, her YA thriller, Perilous, is free on Kindle.

Enjoy!

EDIT: Last minute addition:

Farsighted by Emyln Chand, a YA Paranormal novel, is free for Kindle today.  Here is where you can read a review of the book by my friend, the Chipper Muse.