More Book Giveaways Coming Soon

Watch for more great books I'll be giving away on this site. Here's a sneak peek of what's coming:
My Fairy Grandmother by Audrey Mace, signed
Missing by Ronda Gibb Hinrichson, signed
The Ball's in Her Court by Heather Justesen, signed

Agent In Old Lace Giveaway, signed copy

Shannon Tanner has it all a perfect family, a perfect job, and a perfect boyfriend. Or so she thinks. What Shannon doesn't know is that her boyfriend, Mark, is stealing money from her father and making millions doing it. When Shannon learns Mark's secret, he turns on her, and Shannon's life abruptly goes from perfect to perilous.

In an effort to protect Shannon, the FBI assigns their only female agent to go undercover as her personal bodyguard. But when the agent is injured the day before the assignment, they turn to the next best thing: their top agent, Rick Holden in a dress.

Life seems safe again for Shannon with Rick by her side and Mark apparently gone for good. Then Shannon gets word that her best friend has been kidnapped, and it becomes clear that Mark isn't going to stop any time soon. Shannon realizes the only way to save herself and her friend and stop Mark once and for all is by sending Rick, her only source of protection, away. Can Rick save Shannon before it's too late?



About Author Tristi Pinkston: I'm LDS fiction author with four published novels, and I'll be starting a new mystery series in March. I'm a stay-at-home mom, homeschooler, and media reviewer. I also work as the Senior Editor at Valor Publishing Group, where I proudly wear the title, "Darth Editus." Visit her blog at www.tristipinkston.blogspot.com Thanks for donating your book to my giveaway!

Enter the Contest to Win a signed copy of Agent in Old Lace
Now through February 5th (winner announced within 2 days of contest deadline)
You must be a follower of my blog to win.
1 entry - comment on this post.  Any old comment will do; say hello, tell us why you love to read, write a bit about yourself...really, anything. Please remember to provide a way for me to reach you if you win.
2 more entries - link this contest on your Facebook page. Please provide a link so I can check it out.
3 entries - blog about this contest. You can blog about each specific giveaway for 3 entries for that giveaway or you can blog once about the entire contest (let me know which book you want the 3 entries to go for).
1 grand entry - let me know if you have preordered my book and I'll give you one automatic entry in every drawing for the month of February. It might not sound like it but I'm really not trying to get you to preorder, or even order my book. However, I want to show my gratitude to those who have ordered and I thought this might be a good way to do that.

You've Gotta Laugh at Yourself

I'm done with my editing-I think. It's now in the hands of the editors at Cedar Fort. I'm not really sure when it goes to press but I think the end of this month. The date has moved around a time or two so we'll see. I can't wait to see the finished product.

One other bit of good news, I have a book signing scheduled for April 13th at the South Towne Barnes and Noble from 7-9pm. I assume it will be with several other authors. I'm thinking that since I have so many kids, if I have them stagger themselves and come every 15 minutes or so I should have a steady stream of visitors--ok, make that a steady trickle.

Now comes the worrying part. What if nobody buys it? What if no one shows up to my book signings? What if people do buy it but then don't like it? Am I making a fool of myself? It makes me laugh. My daughter and I just watched a couple of internet clips of American Idol tryouts. You know, the bad people were really funny. Sam said all the kids at school are singing this song about "Pants on the ground" that this older guy sang. It was really funny and a lot of fun. This is all just about having fun. So my plan is to buy a book from the author next to me and if all I get done is reading while I'm at my book signing, it will have been a great day. (And they will have sold a book.)

Most Common Question

So the most common question I've gotten when people find out that I've written my book: What's it about?

Here's the brief synopsis of The Mark:
She's had it forever. A tiny mark on her hand. No big deal, right? But when Tori discovers that her ordinary freckle is really some kind of microscopic tattoo, she doesn't know what to think, especially after meeting Eric, a guy she feels strangely connected to--and not just because he has a mark too.

All too soon, Tori and Eric realize that atheir marks are only the first clue to a mystery that will change everything. And with each new discovery, Tori finds herself pulled deeper and deeper into a world she could never have imagined.

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog! I know it's not much yet...buy hey, I'm just getting started. I wanted to let you know about a few upcoming things.

First and most importantly, the first week of February will begin my gratuitous begging for more traffic to my blog by giving out a bunch of free stuff. In the meantime take a look at Cami Checketts site (see the link on the side) and check out all the stuff she's giving away. I'll look around for other sites and add them on the sidebar as well.

Second, I'm busily working on the final edit of my book, The Mark, so that it can be sent to the publisher. Once it's sent in I can publish a sneak peek at the first chapter. Oh, and I love the cover design and can't wait to post that as well as soon as I get the ok.

Third but not least. Ok, maybe this is the most important. I'm planning a trip to New York to hear my daughter sing in Carnegie Hall with her choir. I don't know, but I'm kind of thinking--once I do THAT my life will be complete.

So thanks for visiting, don't be a stranger. Make sure to check in so you can win some of the free stuff I'll be giving away. Oh, and tell all your friends.

Don't You Just Love Free Stuff?

Starting in February I plan to do some book giveaways. Watch for more information coming soon. In the meantime you might want to check out some that are already running. I'll post links on the sidebar of my blog as I find them. The first one I posted is amazing. Cami Checketts is giving away tons of books. Check it out!

It's On Sale

BTW you might be interested to know (or maybe not) that my book is on sale at Barnes and Noble. They have a discount if you pre-order it!

Things are Moving Forward

Two great things happened today.

1. I got a preview of the cover! I don't have permission to post it until it gets the final approval but it looks pretty cool. Of course I might be distracted my my name at the bottom of the front cover...

2. I now have the "author's proof" of my book. So I need to go through it and make a couple of last minute changes and make sure I can't find any errors. Don't you hate it when you're reading a book and you find grammatical errors? You'd think enough people have gone through it at this point that there won't be any left but I would be surprised if I don't find any.

So being a total newbie to the book publishing world, I wasn't sure what I would get for the author's proof. It's a document from title page to my bio at the end (all 280 pages). Basically everything between the covers. I can't change it at all  so what I do is look it over and then create a separate document that lists the page number and the change I want made, then they change it. They don't want me to change too much at this point though. 

Coming Together

We just got back yesterday from our cruise. Since the newest addition to our family just joined us in October, and since my oldest son will be leaving soon to serve a 2 year mission for our church, we decided we needed to have a family vacation with everyone while we still could. It was a good thing to spend time together.

We left cold snowy Utah and went to Florida, where we experienced record cold temperatures. From there we went to Honduras, Beliz, Costa Maya and Bahamas. The weather was great for the last half of the week. We visited an orphanage in Honduras and were able to play soccer and marbles with the kids. A great day.

Interesting thing about a cruise is that it pulls you away from everything for a week. We didn't hear about the earthquake in Haiti until a couple of days after it happened. The adoption agency we went through to adopt our son from Taiwan also works with Haiti. Of the two orphanages they work with there, one was still standing and they believe that everyone was able to evacuate the second one before it tumbled. It looks like the children are all ok for now.

It is a heartwarming thing to see people come together in times of need to help others. What a helpless feeling to hear of the suffering going on and not really be able to do much to help. We can throw money at it but what would really be satisfying would be to personally hand water to someone who needs it, pass out food to the hungry, and care for the injured. Instead we rely on others to do it in our place, and we work together to give them the means to give the much needed help.

And we pray.

Burning Down the House

I just about burned my house down the other day. No kidding. I left a pot on the stove and left the house. For 2 1/2 hours. Not good. When the kids and I got home I could tell there was a problem right away. I walked up to the front door (the garage door was broken at the time but that's another story altogether) and I could hear the fire alarms blaring. That was when I remembered the pot of ham and bean soup on the stove. When I opened the door thick, black smoke poured out. I ran in and turned off the stove. In a nutshell, we had to replace the pot...and the stove. The house and all of our clothes reeked for quite a while. I think it's mostly gone now but it's hard to tell because we've all kind of gotten used to it.

"The burning incident" was 2 days before Christmas and we can still smell it a bit here and there. It's dissipating, slowly. My daughter washed all of her clothes the night before school started and hid them in her closet so they wouldn't be contaminated by the stench in the air. The kids have all developed a cough--it could be a coincidence, right? We've packed away all our Christmas stuff and now we are hoping that next Christmas when we take the decorations out of the boxes they won't bring the smell back as well. Oh, and one more thing, the kids voted to tape a note on the door to the garage: "Have you turned off the stove?"

That might just be a good idea.

Editing Process

I just finished editing my book! Ok, let me clarify, I just finished the first edit. Wow, I had no idea how this worked.

So I sent it to an independant contractor, named Kimiko, who agreed to help me out. She edited chapter by chapter, sending comments and ideas for how to improve my book and my writing. Small things like spelling out the numbers (why does that matter? who knows) and larger things like scenes that weren't convincing and questions she had after reading it. And even larger things like changing the beginning AND the ending.

Then I would get the chapters back from her and implement the changes and ideas she had. I'd wondered how much of a book "belongs" to the auther and how much "belongs" to the editor. Now I know. I think my book has gone through some pretty significant revisions but what she did was give me suggestions. I still did the writing. Bottom line, I still feel good putting my name on it. It's still my work.

So now I send it all on to my editor at Cedar Fort, Heidi. She will edit it again. This one will be a quicker edit since it has to get to the publisher by the end of January. We'll see...

For now, I'm just thrilled to be done. What a Christmas. Now I'm going to go clean my house--yikes.