The Summer 2013 Blogger Book Fair starts tomorrow, and it is going to be a HUGE event this time! There are about 200 authors and bloggers involved, representing over 400 books! There will be great deals, giveaways, fun events, and lots more!

But, how do you actually make use of the event? If you’ve never been involved in a previous Blogger Book Fair, you may be wondering just what it’s all about and how to enjoy it. Here’s a little info on what you’ll see this week and how to find it all. I’ll also give you a heads-up on where I’ll be and what I’ll be doing during the event, as well as the guests I’ll be hosting here.

First, it helps to understand that the premise of the event is to be an online book fair of sorts, where authors and book bloggers come together to cross-promote and have fun. Think of each blog as if it were a booth at a real book fair. Some blogs will have multiple events each day, others will have only one thing going on each day, and others might only have a few events throughout the fair. Part of the success of the event is that it’s open to all book bloggers and authors, but if you’re the busy sort, you can limit your participation to a reasonable level. Alternately, if you’re ambitious, or have lots of time to devote to it, you can go really crazy with it.

So, how do you find all this fun stuff? The very best place to start is at the Blogger Book Fair Directory, at the BBF site. From there, you can navigate to other pages at the site to find the different offerings throughout the fair. As of this writing, early Sunday morning the day before the fair, there are a few bits not quite finished in the directory. But, come Monday, the event will be in full swing and the directory will have links to all the different sorts of things you can do.

From the directory, you can find a list of all the participating bloggers, as well as listings of all the authors participating as well. Browse through these and see if anything catches your eye. The authors are listed by first name, so you can find me in the Authors A-D section.

There will also be a page listing all of the giveaways going on during the fair. Check this out for sure to win some great prizes!

In addition to the giveaways, there are also many authors who are offering their books for free during the event, as well as many books priced at 99 cents. You can find a list of these from the directory page as well.

Aside from these basics, there are also many other events going on, including flash fiction events, and lots of other fun things. You can get to the event listing from the directory, or go straight to the Events Page.

Finally, there’s also the Readers Choice Awards! All of the books in the book fair are entered and you can vote for your favorites in each category. I personally hope you’ll swing by and vote for Frostwalker in the horror category, as well as my short story The Card in the short stories category!

But what about myself? During the course of the week, I will be offering the ebook edition of my novel Frostwalker for a new lower price of $2.99. Also, I’m going to be running a giveaway that you can enter to win a free paperback copy of Frostwalker – more on that at the bottom of this post. Who knows, maybe I’ll do something else fun along the way?

I’ll also be swapping guest posts with three other authors. Come by this week to see guest posts and more by:

Appearing on Tuesday, July 23rd

J.C. Martin is a butt-kicking bookworm: when she isn’t reading or writing, she teaches martial arts and self-defence to adults and children.

After working in pharmaceutical research, then in education as a schoolteacher, she decided to put the following to good use: one, her 2nd degree black belt in Wing Chun kung fu; and two, her overwhelming need to write dark mysteries and gripping thrillers with a psychological slant.

Her short stories have won various prizes and have been published in several anthologies. Her debut novel, Oracle, will be released by J. Taylor Publishing on July 30th, 2012.

Born and raised in Malaysia, J.C. now lives in south London with her husband and three dogs.

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Appearing on Monday, July 22nd

Michael Brookes is an Executive Producer with a leading UK games developer. Working in games and writing are two of his life passions and he considers himself fortunate to be able to indulge them both. He lives in the east of England, enjoying starry skies in the flattest part of the country. When not working or writing he can sometimes be found sleeping. Which is good as that is where many good ideas come from.

 

 

 

 

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Appearing on Wednesday, July 24th*

Elizabeth Barone writes drama with grit: stories powered by strong, intricate characters who are plagued by realistic problems and situations.

She graduated high school in 2006 with a technical degree in Culinary Arts, and received an A.S. in 2008 in Multimedia/Web Authoring. She always loved writing, but a college creative writing course made her fall head over heels with it. She led a successful career as a web designer and social marketing consultant until early 2011 when she realized she would rather be broke writing stories than be rich writing code.

Luckily, Elizabeth promises to be a successful author. Her debut novel, Sade on the Wall, was a quarterfinalist in the 2012 Amazon Breakthrough Novel award contest. Her serial, Sandpaper Fidelity, has received multiple five-star reviews on Amazon and Goodreads.

*Date subject to change.

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You can click their author photos above to visit their websites! Speaking of their websites, I’ll be making guest posts at their sites during the fair. Catch my posts at their sites on the following days:

Tuesday, July 23rd @ http://elizabethbarone.net/blog/

Wednesday, July 24th @ Michael Brookes’s Blog

Thursday, July 25th @ J.C. Martin’s Blog

Be sure to swing by their blogs and check out my guest posts so you can enter the giveaway for a paperback copy of Frostwalker!