“I WON, I WON!!!” – Aren’t Contests Fun?

I’ve never been all that into contests, mainly because I never, ever win them. And then I won one, totally unexpectedly.  And it launched my publishing career!

My church has a Holiday Bazaar every year in November (indeed, this year’s starts tonight; I’ll show you the goodies I score next week). They usually have a raffle and I always buy $10 worth of tickets, sometimes without even knowing what the prize is. I’m just trying to help out my church.

A few years ago, I was shocked when I heard my name being called out the last day of the Bazaar. For a minute I reverted back to childhood and thought I’d done something wrong. A woman’s voice kept loudly and persistently calling my name, and then she called out, “Please come to the raffle table.”

Holy Moly, I’d won! They’d pulled one of my lovely little Christmasy-colored raffle tickets out of the box!

I didn’t even remember what the prize was. I approached the table and the woman, DeeDee, handed me a tan box. All it said on the outside was Amazon. And then it clicked. I’d just won a Kindle! Cool, I thought.

Not much of a reaction, huh.

You see, I’m a bit of a techno-idiot. Up to that point, I hadn’t given e-readers much thought. Just another annoying newfangled gadget, I’d assumed. For a few minutes, I even considered giving the Kindle to someone on my Christmas list. Boy, am I glad I didn’t do that!

It took me about a month to figure out how to use my new toy, but after I got the hang of it, I loved it!

And then I went to a writers’ conference and one of the presenters was talking about how e-books were turning the publishing industry upside down. I also met misterio press’s co-founder, Shannon Esposito, at that conference.

I won’t bore you with the details but that conference set things in motion. Shannon and I hatched a plan, and we started looking for top-quality mystery writers to join us (we’re still looking for a few more, by the way; we’re a bit picky). A year later, misterio press was born!

And it all started with that contest. If I hadn’t won that Kindle, I wouldn’t have really understood what that presenter was even talking about.

So now I LOVE contests!  And we’re holding TWO right now here at misterio press.

One is to celebrate Kirsten Weiss’s launch of The Shamanic Detective. Hurry, that one only has three more days to go! I’ve also got a contest going because I’ve just launched Book 4 in my Kate Huntington Mystery series, Celebrity Status.

We love contests so much here at misterio that we’re holding another huge one in December, so stay tuned!

The Shamanic Detective (3rd in the Riga Hayworth series)

Win this fabulous swag pack:

HURRY! Contest ends November 18th! Enter HERE to win!

 AND the Celebrity Status (Book 4 in the Kate Huntington Mystery series) CONTEST!