It’s been a while since I’ve posted here on my third Friday of the month. We’ve led a very peripatetic (love that word) existence the past few months, traveling all over. As you read this, I’m en route from Las Vegas, hopefully still wearing a shirt. Last month I was on a research trip in Wales, the setting of my current WIP, and London. The month before that I was on a Caribbean cruise. Next month it’s RWA in New York and after that I’m going to collapse!
But one upside of my wanderings is that I got some great royal wedding swag in England that I’m giving away on my May website contest, along with an ARC of the August anthology Improper 
Gentlemen! Go click and enter!
I love to give stuff away, and just ordered some new bookmarks for my upcoming Brava books. Aren’t they pretty? Of course, it helps to have the fabulous Kensington art department in my corner for the original cover art. And Frauke of Croco Designs is a genius.
What goodies do you like best from authors? What images do you like on covers? I adore the clinch covers I’ve gotten for the Courtesan Court Trilogy, and will never forget seeing the first one. I cried! (tears of joy, of course *g*) I want to thank Kristine Mills-Noble and Alan Ayers for the exquisite designs and imagery. I’m having all the covers framed for my office so I’ll have lots of inspiration all around. 
Hi Maggie! I’m tired just reading about your traveling, but it sounds fantastic. Hope you get home from Las Vegas with all your clothes.
As for author swag, I tend to like giveaways that are closely related to the books themselves. Besides free books–who doesn’t love those?–getting a taste in an excerpt book is fantastic. The new idea of romance trading cards is so fun, too.
I also really like bookmarks because they jog my memory about the book’s cover. They’re best of all when they list all the books in a series (if that’ll fit on one bookmark) so I can see if I’m caught up on a series or when the next book is coming. Sort of a romance cheat sheet…not that my memory is scatty.
Your bookmarks are beautiful, just like your covers–congrats!
Hi Maggie! Love the book markers! I love to keep for myself as well as I give away standing in the bookstore! And too they know me there and let me put bookmarks on the table! I find others there and find authors I haven’t read that way too! I shall go look at a close up of yours at your site! Sounds like you had a beautiful time!! I don’t travel at all but some day would so love to go on a vacation and it would be a first since my honeymoon LONG ago! So would love to go to London some day! I so treasure reading historical romances so it was like those I read watching the wedding! Welcome back! And congrats on the new release!