Generosity Makes Us All Winners

It's SO true. As corny as it sounds, it is so very true. I have never felt so good about anything I've done before, including getting published, than I have about organizing, pimping and then success at having reached my goal with the Animal Compassion Network raffle. First, we all owe Amy a huge debt of thanks for making that basket, all the time she has donated to me this year to see you all get your prizes and gifts in a timely fashion (cuz if you left it up to me, I would forget all about it, I promise you that) and the enormous effort she and her mother are putting into making the book thongs and key chains you've seen. They are also building up the stock of 400!!! thongs/chains I need for my party bags at the Romantic Times Convention! Not to mention she is storing huge amounts (and LBS!! Thank you very-strong-and-manly hubby Sean!) of goodies I am putting into the bags! Needless to say, I owe Amy, her mom and Sean a huge Yule gift. :) And these bags I am giving away at my party...well, let's just say they are legitimate gift bags, just for you guys, and will be bursting with delicious rewards.

I plan on generating a newsletter this coming year. It's goal number one. In that inaugural newsletter, I would like to introduce the Fan Club, finally. Joining the club will mean committing to the newsletter (electronic only I am afraid) and some sort of introductory gift package. Of course there will be some kind of fee if there has to be, but it will be more about balancing the cost of the gifties than it will be about me making some kind of profit off of you. I already get my percentage. I am happy with that. The Fan Club will have mailings, too. Either promotional gifts or release reminders. I also hope to integrate that with projects like my anticipated bi-annual raffle for the ACN. Yeah, bi..as in two. One in the fall and one in the spring. I figure you won't mind being generous twice a year, especially considering the cause and considering Amy and I plan to get better and better at these baskets.

Okay so...here it is...the moment you have all been waiting for!!

WHO IS THE BIG WINNER OF THE RAFFLE???

I don't know!! Well, not yet. Here's what I did. I asked Amy to pick the number. She had no access to my list of buyers, had no idea who bought what when or where, had not bought any tickets for herself for obvious reasons (she gets everything she wants from me already lol...but she and her mom both made donations without wanting tickets!) and therefore was completely unbiased. I needed to do this since my largest supporters were very good friends of mine. If one of them should be chosen, I want no cries of fair or unfair or fixed or whatever. So I left it all up to Amy. Then Amy made her son practice writing his numbers 1 thru 100 lol!! The numbers went into a 'hat' and I am sure she let him pick out the winner...which she emailed to me a little while ago.

Sound fair enough to everyone? Good. The winning ticket number iiiiiisssss....

86!!

Great number! Maxwell Smart's brilliant companion...or a number indicating nixing/killing something off. Just the same, it was lucky for somebody. I should go to my little list and see who bought ticket number 86...heh...but I won't. Not yet. I set your numbers in emails to you and you shoulda kept track of em. (Don't worry, if you lost it or whatever, I have the list) But it is far more fun to send you all scrambling for your tickets (emails) to read the numbers! So the name is my secret until the winner gives a shout out on here...or tomorrow when I coldly and cruelly force you to wait for the name to go with the number. To be fair, I won't look for myself until tomorrow either. I wanna be surprised too!

Congratulations Winning Ticker Number 86! You have won our gorgeous basket. Please email ASAP with your mailing address where you would like the basket sent so I can forward it to Amy.

Now, for a moment of mourning. It is official. I lost ALL of my books in the move. And when I say MY books...I mean MY books. All of my author copies of Jacob and Gideon and all of the Elijah ARCS are gone. So is all my Christmas wrapping. Turns out, I have a small closet that, when you open the front door of my former apartment, you cannot see that it is behind that door. So everything that was in there is gone. Now, were it me...when I repainted the place and saw these things had been missed, I would have called the former owner and let her know. But, clearly the management saw no need and chucked it all. (Are you wincing and groaning in agony? Can you feel the pain? Ugh! I felt the exact same way when I realized I couldn't find my holiday wrap and it confirmed my hypothesis!)

Anyway...this leaves me with no stock of my own (although, luckily, I had just signed about half of my stock and sent it home with Amy for future prizes...but I do not believe that included ARCS. Damn shame.) I will have to see what I can do about this, but the ARCs are gone forever. There's no getting those back. It occurs to me that a couple of people may have won ARCs in contests I had floated out there and never gotten them. If you are one of those people, please write me at jacquelynfrank@hotmail.com citing the contest, it's date and it's conditions as well as who sponsored it and I will come up with an alternative prize for you. I am so sorry this happened. Also, at RAW, Lora Leigh's Readers Appreciation Weekend, I put an ARC up for raffle and never chose a winner...because I could never find the darn books! I will select one of those names right now (yes I still have the bag! Although, the kittens did get ahold of it and tussled with it across the living room...I managed to salvage all the entries!) and will send the raffle winner and alternative prize: an official Nightwalkers Nightshirt and one of my new 2008 Nightwalker Calendars.

The winner I just picked for that RAW prize is Francesca Rodriguez of NY. I will be emailing her a link to this blog so she can see what is going on lol. I hope she forgives me for taking so long to figure this all out.

Okay! That has to be it for now because I am freakin busy!!! I gotta wrap up Damien and send the edits back by tomorrow. I gotta get the house in shape for family and company...I gotta give sick kitties medicine!

ACK!

Okay...I'm better. Good luck guys! See you soon!
Hugs and Kitties
Jacki