Well the month of October has passed us now, and I have a (somewhat brief!) moment to reflect...

The first three weeks of October I was involved with the Fiction Frolic for All Hallow's Read promotion, together with nine other authors, which raised a total of 328 books for the charity Books for America, and gave away a number of free books and cash prizes to the lucky winners (who've been contacted already). -You can read details about how the event went here.

This last week in the lead up to Halloween itself, I've been involved in the Coffin Hop promotion, together with over a hundred other horror artists, where we've each written articles (on our own sites and others) and had giveaways, competitions and general craziness.

(These events have been in addition to the other things I'm doing at the same time, like the "day job", upcoming projects and having some semblance of a social life haha)

But all in all, I have to say both the Fiction Frolic and Coffin Hop events have been a great success for me, and I certainly intend to do more of them! In the month of October, I've gained around 250 new followers on Twitter and Facebook, had around 1000 visits to my website, and generally had a lot of fun! But really, I'm all too aware of how difficult the battle for publicity / awareness actually is, and know that for everything I do manage to do, there's at least three, and probably at least ten times as many other things I should be doing as well... But I'm getting there ;)

-Not that I'm sure where "there" is as yet, but at least it's somewhere different from where I've been :)

So anyway, onto the winners of my giveaway (whom have by now been notified by email):

The following three people are each receiving a signed paperback copy and t-shirt for The Dark Horde in their chosen size:

Jennifer Ricketts, Julie Saffold, Lauren MacKay.

And the following thirteen people have each been emailed a free pdf copy of The Dark Horde:

Adele Symonds, Aniko Carmean, Georgina Morales, Jeanette Jackson, Jennifer Mathis, Jessica McHugh, Kim Koning Author, Mary, Neil McGrory, Paul Smith, Rob Smales, Scott Hilton, Shane Garvey

Congratulations to you all!

-I did have to draw more people than the initial sixteen, due to (a) some people being drawn twice (apparently Rafflecopter doesn't account for this) and (b) three people who won pdf copies but already had one (whereupon I've organised alternatives with them, and re-drawn).

For all those that missed out, fear not, you can always grab an e-copy for $3 on Amazon HERE ;)

I hope you all had a great Halloween (although sadly if you're in NE America and copped Sandy and its aftermath you probably didn't)...  I'll be back with some more news / stuff I hope is interesting soon!