Ruminations on Website Contests

I diverge a little from the Regency this week to ruminate on website contests. I am running a new one on my website at http://www.lesleyannemcleod.com/contest.html.
The prize in the new contest is a copy of the Fashions of Regency England Colouring Book. If you sign the guestbook before August 30, you have a chance to win the prize. This is my usual promo blurb and I've been posting it in lots of places.

We authors run website contests for profoundly commercial reasons. We want to drive traffic to our websites. And also we want to gather names and addresses for our mailing lists. And our ultimate goal is, of course, to sell more books to the people visiting our websites and populating our mailing lists. These are very self-serving reasons for running website contests.

But they are very real reasons too. If I don't sell books, I can't afford to write. Oh, I can write for myself, or for my family, but I can't afford to take the extra time and energy to put my books before the public if I don't do everything I can to sell them.

'Everything I can' means writing this blog, maintaining my website, appearing on Myspace, Twitter, and YouTube. It means offering a prize and publicizing that prize to encourage people to visit my website and hear about my books.

When I began my website contest, I had a store of romance-themed book posters left over from my ownership of a bookstore. The posters had been too pretty to throw out but I had no use for them. I thought perhaps other people might enjoy them, so I offered them as my first prizes. People really enjoyed them, but eventually I ran out of them, and looked around for other prizes.

I turned to books--Regency and history-themed non-fiction books mostly--they seem appropriate and some are out of print. And I have some other interesting prizes in the offing--hand made Mardi Gras style masks and some handmade jewelry. But right now, I'm giving away prizes from Regency Fancies--because I'm so delighted with our products and thrilled with results of placing Shakoriel's art on useful objects. I'd like to know what you find interesting for prizes and I'd appreciate your opinion on website contests in general.

So I give away these prizes on my website for commercial reasons. I also give away things because it's fun. It's often said that the giver receives more than the recipient. That is certainly true for me and my website contest. It pleases me to give someone pleasure, to give them a chance to win something, to give them something pretty or useful. The gift helps my business of course but, more than that, it gives me a lift every time I notify a winner.

I hope you will enter my contests, and I hope you will win. Don't forget to sign my guestbook--www.lesleyannemcleod.com!

Until next time,

Lesley-Anne

Picturing the Regency

I have a new contest up on my website. If you'd like to enter it, please visit the home page http://www.lesleyannemcleod.com/ and go to the guestbook to sign up and be entered in the draw. The prize this time--for March and April--is a blank, lined journal with Shakoriel's Regency art on the cover. The journal is from our CafePress store, Regency Fancies www.cafepress.com/regencyfancies


When we started the CafePress store, I just wanted Shakoriel's Regency art to find a bigger market. It is so good, so evocative of the Regency period, that it seemed to me it deserved a larger audience than it could find if it remained only on my website.


I am so fortunate to have a resident artist. And I am so lucky she doesn't charge me an arm and a leg for every illustration. She's just starting out, glad for the commissions, and I'm happy to give her the work. Because you see, there just isn't a lot of Regency art available for use, for reasonable prices.

I need art for website information, for book trailers, for promotional materials and for covers. I comb out of copyright books (thank goodness for Google Books and Project Gutenberg), free clip art sites and Dover's invaluable clip art series for appropriate illustrations. There is a Regency romance writer who does a great deal of promotion, and she uses literally dozens of the grand Regency artworks to illustrate her essays, blogs and newsletters. I don't know how she affords it. I certainly can't. Most of the Regency art that you will see on book covers, websites and various publications is all copyrighted at stock art agencies. It costs a fortune to use original Regency art--at least $300-$500 for a single time use. Places like Mary Evans Picture Library, and Corbis.com, and Clipart.com, are invaluable, but they cost, big-time.


If the picture is from a book, you can't use it without permission or licensing. If it's on a website, you need to make sure it hasn't come from somewhere else without permission. I tried to get permission from the publisher to use Barbosa's art from Theresa Chris' out of print book. They didn't even answer my letter. So I am using it but with full attribution, and even then, it's a risk. The Internet is a huge problem for artists--as much as it makes their work available to the world, it also makes it available for pirating. As I work in the creative field, I am concerned about pirating. And I want my illustrations to be legal and above-board. But I do want to have lots of Regency art.

As I've said before I'm a visually oriented person. I want to see what the Regency looked like and I want to show my readers what it looked like. Shakoriel helps me do that.

Thanks, Shakoriel!

Till next time,
Lesley-Anne

New contest October 30; website updates too

I can't believe it is the end of the month already; and it's the end of the bi-monthly contest on October 30 as well! I'll post the winner here as well as on my website contest page http://www.lesleyannemcleod.com/contest.html The new contest will begin October 31 and the prize, to be drawn on December 30 will be an out-of-print book "Everybody's Historic England" by Jonathan Kiek. It's a delightful little book, full of interesting facts about all periods of English history, as well as excellent maps, photos and drawings.

I will be putting a number of updates on my website at the end of the week as well. The Castles and Cathedrals page will have a number of additions, and there will be a new colouring picture by Shakoriel, my 'artist in residence'.

I finally finished the book trailer for "Carolina's Walking Tour" so it is up on my youtube channel at http://www.youtube.com/regencylady, on my myspace page at http://www.myspace.com/lesleyannemcleod or at my Regency World at http://www.lesleyannemcleod.com/novelettescarolinaswalkingtour.html

The first review for "The Education of Portia" came last week from Coffee Time Romance. Here is an excerpt: Ms. McLeod pens an outstanding Regency. It pulls you back in time, where you can feel the era and the romance. Creative characters and important secondary characters set the stage for events. Mystery, intrigue and romance follow. Ingram's young daughters offered a lot of emotion to this tale as you could see their relationship unfolding with Portia and their needs being filled. Romantic and sweet, this romance is just right for a good bedtime read.

Do join me at my website on Friday and view the updates, and enter the new contest. Or visit http://www.myspace.com/lesleyannemcleod --I'd be delighted to be added to your friends!

Talk to you soon,
Lesley-Anne

New Contest on www.lesleyannemcleod.com

Regency romance number seven--The Education of Portia--is finished! I sent it to my editor a couple of days ago, and I was even ahead of schedule by a week. I'm glad it's done; now I can do all the things that I've been putting off because of lack of time!

Shakoriel is working on the cover for Portia. It's going to be really great--the hero and heroine are often at loggerheads and Shakoriel has captured that perfectly. I can't wait to display the cover.

I have a new contest on my website. I am giving away a paperback copy of Georgette Heyer's great Regency novel, Venetia. You can see the book at www.lesleyannemcleod.com/contest.html Venetia is one of my all-time favourites; if you haven't read it, you are in for a treat. Please sign the guestbook at my website www.lesleyannemcleod.com to be entered for the prize draw.

Shakoriel has done another Regency fashion colouring picture for the colouring book. There are four pictures now; we are aiming for twenty. I am going to post my own coloured versions so you can see how they can look. We are talking of doing a paper doll as well--paper dolls are another of my passions.

I have finished another book trailer; it's for my 'Novel Byte' from Uncial Press titled Comet Wine. You can view the trailer on my youtube page at http://www.youtube.com/regencylady or on the Comet Wine page on my website at http://www.lesleyannemcleod.com/novelettescometwine.html

I'm also catching up with reading now that I am finished The Education of Portia. Next time I'll report on a couple of Regency books I'm enjoying.