LaunchElectionVacationreturnAwardnom Day!

Just got back from London last night! More on this later, when I’ve had time to recover from the jetlag and post photos, but it was a fantastic trip. However! I’ve come home to an inbox full of good news.

First, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms and The Broken Kingdoms have both been nominated for Romantic Times 2010 Reviewers’ Choice awards for best SF/F novels! I’m positively chuffed, as the folks across the pond would say.

Also, this is Launch Week for The Broken Kingdoms! According to Amazon, it’s officially out in all English-language markets as of November 3 (Nov. 4 in the UK, go figure), but it’s actually been available in various places for the past few weeks, I figure we can be a little flexible with the dates. So let’s focus on another day. Like… today.

November 2 is midterm/congressional Election Day in the United States. So to tie in with that, I’m doing a giveaway! USians — if you go vote on Nov. 2, take a photo of yourself at the polls. Email it to me, or post it in your own blog and email me the link, along with your name and address. I will randomly select a winner from among the people whose photos I receive. (Let me know if you’re OK with me posting your photo!) That person will get a free, signed set of The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms and The Broken Kingdoms from me! I can even give you 100K in German, if you want it. (If you wait awhile, Polish, Spanish, and French too.*)

Non-USians, you can play too! Send me a photo of yourself nagging your USian friends to go vote! Yell at a phone, waggle your finger using email emoticons, beg via Twitter — anything you feel comfortable sharing. Or, if it’s a voting day in your locale, do the photo-at-the-poll thing. Capisce?

Off to go vote myself! ETA: Dun voted! See?

*I can only give you the English version of The Broken Kingdoms, note. I have two versions — US and UK — but the French, German, etc. editions of this book are not yet out. Sorry!

ETA2: As folks have pointed out; I posted this late; some of you might’ve headed to the polls already by the time you saw it. Therefore, USians are also able to participate by photographing themselves nagging others to vote!