One Week from Today! A New Family & A New Series!

Are you ready for the Abbotts of Vermont? I’m very excited for next Tuesday when All You Need Is Love, Book 1 in my new Green Mountain Series, becomes available everywhere e-books, print and audio books are sold. This release is different from most of my others because there’s a publisher involved—Berkley Publishing, a division of Penguin-Random House. I’ve had a great time working with the team at Berkley to bring the Abbott family to you. I wanted to make you aware of a few things about the upcoming release, including contest information!

The first thing I want you to know is All You Need Is Love is my first MAJOR print release, meaning it’s going to be EVERYWHERE, which is very exciting! You can find it at Target, Barnes & Noble, WalMart, Books-A-Million, in airports and just about everywhere books are sold. How cool is it that it’s going to be in AIRPORTS? That makes me want to book a flight just to see it there! Because this is my first really significant print release, the publisher wanted to give the print book an extra boost, thus the added content in the print release. The short story, To Know Her Is To Love Her, will only be in the print version—at first. It will be released to e-book readers at a later date, and as soon as I know when I’ll let you know. I believe the intent was to release it ahead of Book 2, I Want to Hold Your Hand, in June. I want to make sure my ebook readers know that the short story is a “fun extra” and isn’t new story. It’s more of Will and Cameron, the hero and heroine in All You Need Is Love, so it’s something fun to look forward to in a couple of months.

Second, if you ordered a signed print copy of All You Need Is Love from Island Books, my local independent bookstore, I am signing those copies today, and they will go right in the mail. Watch for them by release day if you are in the U.S. and shortly after overseas. If you decide later you want a signed copy, you can still order them through Island Books. We will keep the order form live for future requests at http://www.islandbooksri.com/all-you-need-love-autographed-author-marie-force. You will also be able to order signed copies from Island Books of the Fatal Series books that are coming to print beginning next month with Fatal Affair. Because both of these series are governed by publisher contracts, this is the only way I can offer them to you signed. This differs from my self-published books (the McCarthy and Treading Water Series, in particular), which are not governed by contract restrictions, so I am able to sell them directly to you. I know all of this can be confusing, so feel free to email me at marie@marieforce.com if you have questions about how to get signed copies of any of your favorite print books.

Third, some of you have asked why I gave away advance print copies and not ebook copies. The answer to that is simple—I had the print copies to give away, and I don’t have an ebook version at my disposal. And to be perfectly honest, I don’t give away advance ebook copies of any of my books because I’m always fearful of the digital copy ending up in the wrong hands. In today’s digital world, protecting my books from pirates is a big part of my job, and keeping the digital copies close is one way to reduce piracy. I know most of you are perfectly honest people who wouldn’t dream of misusing a digital file, but it only takes one dishonest person to ruin it for everyone. I hope you understand my need to protect my hard work from people who would steal it from me.

Fourth thing I wanted to make sure I told you is to remind my reader friends in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and India to look for the book under the title Your Love Is All I Need—same story with a slightly different name and cover.

Now, on to the fun stuff! Contests galore! We have several different ways to win great prizes around the launch of All You Need Is Love!

As we have done in the past, there will be a quick 25-question quiz designed to be “open book and easy to pass” that indicates you read the book during release week. Why then? The more of you who read the book the first week, the more likely it is to be a bestseller, and that would be an awesome way to welcome the Abbotts to our book family! There will be one version for ebook readers and another for print readers that will include bonus questions from the short story. The prizes for both are the same and everyone who takes the quiz will be entered into the drawing:

Grand Prize (Two Winners)

A trip to the June 2014 Vermont Launch Party for All You Need Is Love and I Want To Hold Your Hand, The Green Mountain Series, Books 1 and 2. This trip will include the following:

• Two nights lodging for up to two guests in Vermont.
• $750 toward airfare for two from anywhere in the United States. If you are overseas, you’ll have to get yourself to the U.S. We suggest flying into Manchester, NH (2.5 hours away), Burlington, VT (2.25 hours away), Hartford, CT (2.5 hours), Albany, NY (1.75 hours) or Boston, MA (3 hours).
• Reimbursement of up to approximately $300 for car rental and fuel to be used for transportation from the airport to Weston, VT.
•  A special breakfast with Marie for both winners and their guests.
• $100 gift card to the Vermont Country Store
• $100 gift card to Bryant House Restaurant at the Vermont Country Store
• Your very own stuffed “Fred the Moose”
• Signed copies of All You Need Is Love and I Want to Hold Your Hand

Second Prize (One Winner)

• $100 Gift Card to the Vermont Country Store
• $100 Gift Card to the e-book retailer of the winner’s choice
•  Your very own stuffed “Fred the Moose”
• Signed copies of All You Need Is Love and I Want to Hold Your Hand

Third Prize (One Winner)

•  $100 Gift Card to the Vermont Country Store
• Your very own stuffed “Fred the Moose”
• Signed copies of All You Need Is Love and I Want to Hold Your Hand

Runners Up (Two Winners)

• Vermont prize pack with maple syrup, pancake mix and other local treats
• Your very own stuffed “Fred the Moose”
•  Signed copies of All You Need Is Love and I Want to Hold Your Hand

**Note the signed copies of I Want to Hold Your Hand will be sent in May ahead of the June release of Book 2.

Selfie Contest!

And there’s more! Since this is my first major print release, we want to document all the many places you see the book—and we want to see YOU with the book. Send your “selfies” of you holding All You Need Is Love, along with your name, email address, location and the store where you saw the book to author@marieforce.com. Our goal is to receive photos from all 50 states and as many countries as possible. We will post the photos on Facebook throughout release week! Everyone who sends in a photo will be entered into a drawing for one of FIVE $100 gift cards to the book retailer of your choice. The more photos you send, the more chances you have to win!

Preorder now here:
Kindle US:http://amzn.to/161ScB8
Kindle CA:http://amzn.to/IHnLs4
iBooks:http://bit.ly/1feiIsD
iBooks CA:http://bit.ly/1f45JvA
Nook:http://bit.ly/139VI8d
Google:http://bit.ly/1glkJFt

Those of you looking for it in PRINT, start checking your favorite retailers this weekend:
Amazon: http://amzn.to/1fWNCvj 
Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/1hnZWBW
Walmart: http://www.walmart.com/ip/27204304 
IndieBound:http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780425266762

The print version will also be available in Target stores. 

I can’t wait for a fun release week! Please let me know if you have any questions about any of the offerings listed above. As always, you can reach me at marie@marieforce.com.

xoxo

Marie

Dear Diary: The Beautiful Thing About Ebooks

There are so many beautiful things about e-books. They are easily accessible, user friendly and never go out of print. They are available on a moment's notice and fit neatly on groovy devices we take with us everywhere we go. From the author's point of view, they are also easily updated, which is what I spent this morning doing. I updated the entire McCarthy series and created new files for the various retailers. I redid the Author's Note in each book to account for the fact that there will soon be five books in the series, and I updated the About the Author pages, as well as the reviews and list of available books to include new ones. It was a good "housekeeping" job that needed to be done. I'll also be refreshing the book descriptions on the various retail sites to include reviews, testimonials and a listing of the other books in the series. While all of this takes time and effort, I'm thrilled to be able to do it myself.

Speaking of housekeeping, I've just done a slight overhaul to my website. I've added a "Connect" button that lists all the ways readers can connect with me, from this blog to the reader groups on Facebook to Twitter and beyond. I've added a "Reviews" link to keep all my reviews in one central place, and we added a tab for the Treading Water Trilogy. The website is always a work in progress, so if there's anything you'd like to see there that I've missed, just let me know. On the back end, my lovely web guy Dan helped me to set up a sidebar feature that will allow me to make a single update to the sidebar that will then show up on every page. That might seem like a small thing, but as the site grows, it's a huge time saver to be able to hit every page with one update. It's the little things that make my life easier!

On the writing front, I hit 12,000 words on Fatal Attack yesterday. It was one of those perfect days when everything is firing on all cylinders. That book is off to a great start and the hardest part—the set up—is done now. I got to write a really fun Sam and Nick at home scene last night that I loved. I so enjoying hanging out with them. At this point they feel like old friends, and I know them so well that writing them gets easier all the time. The hardest part of the Fatal books is always the police investigation portion. I like where that part of Fatal Attack is heading. While at the gym yesterday (let there be no wasted time), I figured out the nuts and bolts of what will be the book after Attack, Fatal Mistake. That one is going to have a sports theme to it, and I'm looking forward to writing that. I'm also plugging away on my historical, Duchess by Deception, and thinking about the opening chapter of Season for Love, book 6 in the McCarthys of Gansett Island Series. I'll need to do that opening chapter soon so I can include it in the back of book 5, Hoping for Love, when that's released in March. So, there's a lot going on inside my poor tired brain, but it's all good and I'm having so much fun!

The new dog Louie seems to be settling in well. It's amazing how fast he and Brandy have worked out things like whose bowl is whose, who is allowed on what portion of the sofa, who I belong to (BRANDY, if you ask her, and LOUIE, if you ask him) and various other pack details. I posted a video of them playing tug of war with one of their toys last night. They sound like cute little one-horsepower motors! Since we're still training Louie on the invisible fence, we're not letting him run free in the yard yet, so we have to walk him out to his rope on the tree (hopefully, for just another day or two). One thing I have noticed about him is for a skinny little 39-pound dude, he is FREAKISHLY strong. Yesterday, I was bringing him in, lost my balance and ended up face down on the cement porch with skinned knees and a bruised elbow. I imagine it was quite a sight for any passing motorists! I managed to hang on to him as I recovered my senses, but it was a lesson to make sure I'm being careful where he's concerned. He's small but scrappy! I also discovered today, much to Dan's dismay, that Louie is a digger. Brandy went through a fierce digging phase that has only recently ended. Poor Dan...he fights a losing battle with the grass and the digging dogs are not good for growing grass. I see a lecture from Dad in poor Louie's future... I wonder if he will listen?

Song I can't get out of my head: still Set Fire to the Rain by Adele. Day five.... My family is going to shoot me any minute.

Who I love on American Idol: Phillip Phillips. My daughter predicts he will win. What do you say?

Looking forward to: More Idol as well as Grey's and Private Practice tonight

Hope you're having a great day!
xoxo
Marie