Annual Hero Poll II

Greetings, Champions! I hope you all had a lovely Valentine’s Day, and got a chance to vote in the Hero Poll! Today marks the launch of the second part of the poll, but first, the results!

There were 1,036 votes total–which means approximately 340 of you participated in the poll! The results are….

1. Stil of Rumpelstiltskin is reigning champion with 181 votes!

2. Farrin of the Snow Queen books was an upset with 144 votes

3. Merlin of King Arthurs AND Friedrich of Cinderella tied with 105 votes

4. Next Captain Arion led the charge with 95 votes

5. Asher and Aaron of Life Reader were a surprise with 87 votes

6. Azmaveth of Princess Ahira with 61 votes

7. Devin of the MBRC with 41 votes

8. Falk of Wild Swans with 40 votes

The rest of the boys all received less than 40 votes. I will admit, I am VERY surprised by the rankings! (For those who are participating for the first time, usually I tried to match up similar personalities–Like Friedrich and Asher & Aaron–so the poll wouldn’t be so HUGE.) Splitting the pairs up made a huge difference. For instance, Stil has been the leader since his book launched, but the entry of Friedrich and the twins and the entry of Prince Severin of BB and Arion of Red Rope were always in second and third place. I assumed Friedrich alone carried the twins, and Severin was more popular than Arion, but the twins proved their popularity, and apparently Arion actually was the lure for Severin–who only had 30 votes this year.

I was also surprised that only four of the fairy tale heroes made the top nine entries. You might think that’s reasonable given that it’s almost half, but there are far more fairy tale heroes than there are heroes from my other books, so it did come as a shock that my other books (which don’t sell as well) are just as appreciated!

I did want to add that I thought it was really sweet some of you wrote in my heroines for the poll–Odette, Britt, and Briar. (Technically this was the “main male protagonist popularity poll,” but that didn’t fit very well on the banner, so it got shortened to ‘hero.’ This summer the gals will have their chance too as they’re going to get a popularity poll as well!)

Now comes Round 2!

I want to know what kind of male archtype/heroes you would like to see in future books! I can’t make any promises that I’ll use the suggested characters because depending on the book/adventure/heroine, the winning archtype might not work. But even so I still appreciate your input because I use this poll to take your pulse, so to speak, so I can see what sort of male protags are popular, and make my plans accordingly.

I gathered a bunch of ideas from you guys–and from Facebook–but I threw in a few archtypes that weren’t mentioned as well. The rules are the same–you get to cast your ballot once, but you can vote for three archtypes. The poll will close March 2, so you’ve got two weeks! Here’s the link!

Thank you to everyone who voted–both in Round 1 and Round 2 of the poll! I appreciate your input and, to be frank, it’s also just a lot of fun to put on. Thanks for reading, Champions, and may the best man win!

Annual Hero Poll

Greetings, Champions! It has been a long time–I feel like I’m dusting everything off!

First item of greatest importance: Endings. The final King Arthur book is doing wonderful, and it’s nearing completion of the planned word count. Unfortunately, the characters insisted on adding a few extra side adventures, so the book is going to be longer than the initial word count I estimated. As such, no, I have no idea when I’m going to release it. It’s taking longer to write, so I doubt a February release is still possible, so I would recommend you prep yourself for a March release. (But hey, I was planning for it to be the length of two King Arthur books smashed together, and now its going to be even longer than that, so that’s something!)

Additionally, I’m not going to respond to emails/comments about Endings. I’m doing my best to splatter this information across my social media accounts so everyone sees it, but I’m getting 1-5 comments/questions a day about Endings, and answering them isn’t a good use of my time when I’m already behind due to my mischievous characters. (I’m blaming Lancelot. It’s his fault, he went off on a loop!)

I do have some fun news to share, though! The K. M. Shea Newsletter crew voted, and selected Red Rope of Fate as our Valentine’s Freebie for February 14 2017! Please mark your calendars and snag a free copy for yourself or a friend!

Finally, we have our annual Hero Poll! Vote for up to three of your favorite K. M. Shea heroes, but you can only cast your vote once, so choose carefully! Due to some comments last year, this year I designed the poll so each hero gets their own vote, instead of attempting to double up similar personalities. The poll closes February 20. I can’t wait to see who wins this year! (For historic reference, usually Friedrich, Asher & Aaron, Severin, and Arion rule the top.)

Because the hero list is sooo big, you’ll need to click here to go directly to the poll, Champions, as it otherwise breaks this post!

But wait, there’s more! Once the winning hero is picked, I’ll be holding the second half of my annual poll, in which you vote for the kind of hero you would most like to see in future books. Alexsei of Swan Lake was modeled after last year’s winner–the overlooked sweet/good guy, so I do take your votes seriously. In preparation for that poll, please shout out what kind of hero you would like to see in the comments below! (Keep your descriptions limited to a few words, like “alpha male” or “batman-esque” or “cute nerd,” etc.)

Thanks for reading, Champions! Have a lovely week!

The celebration…

Greetings, Champions! I have some exciting news to share! First off, a reminder that tomorrow marks the beginning of the awesome Fantasy Romance sale I’m taking part of. A bunch of fantasy-romance authors, myself included, decided to band together and discount one book each from July 24th to July 27th. (Mine is the Little Selkie, which will be 99 cents!) There’s a pretty big list, and the organizer of the event–E. D. Walker–was kind enough to give each book a heat rating, so you know exactly what you’re buying! If you’re looking for some new books, I suggest you take a peek. Click here to go to the list and landing page for the promo!

But that’s not all! Today, I would like to introduce you to my amazing summer intern, Britta Vana!

Britta: Heyo!

Britta has actually been working behind the scenes for a few weeks, adjusting the Goodreads reading lists we’ve been populating together, but I wanted to take this opportunity to introduce her to you all. Tell us a bit about yourself, Britta.

Well, to start off, I am a reading maniac with two overflowing bookshelves, a Kindle, and a library within walking distance. I especially love Lord of the Rings and all of Kitty’s books! (My favorites are the Snow Queen series, Rumplestiltskin, Swan Lake and Princess Ahira.) I have numerous other hobbies, which go through phases, but reading has been my favorite pastime for as long as I’ve been able to make sense of the letters on the pages. Currently, I also enjoy calligraphy and drawing. I’m excited for this opportunity to be part of the team!

(She is far too kind regarding my writing, but I love being able to talk books with her!) I’m really excited to welcome Britta to our community—particularly because with her help I’ll be able to do a few things that I otherwise wouldn’t have the time to pull off. Which brings me to my next point!

This summer has been a huge thrill between getting Red Rope of Fate made into an audio book, releasing Swan Lake, welcoming Britta on board, and launching Heart of Ice and Sacrifice into paperback format, so I thought we should celebrate! For a limited time (aka, until we run out) I’ll be giving out Heart of Ice postcards!

Ta da! To snag one of these postcards just send me a self-addressed, stamped envelope to this address:

PO Box 357

Oconomowoc, WI 53066

(To make things perfectly clear, this means you send the self-addressed, stamped envelope inside an envelope mailed to the above address.)  Britta will check the PO Box and mail off the postcard back to you, but if you want to include a letter or something to me feel free to—Britta will put it aside and I’ll receive it the next time we meet up.

Britta: (These postcards are awesome, trust me! I snagged one for myself :P)

Britta’s right–Myrrhlynn adjusted the Heart of Ice cover so it was a perfect fit on the postcard. But when I was signing postcard #150, I wasn’t feeling quite so perky about it. Ha-ha. Anyway!

As we couldn’t really estimate how popular the postcards will be—I refrained from asking you all since I wanted it to be a surprise, and let me tell you that was tough—we have a limited number of them. I would suggest sending out your envelope sooner than later if you’re interested, but if we run out fast I’ll order another batch. When we’re winding down I’ll make an official announcement that the giveaway has ended, otherwise I’ll keep a mention of the postcard giveaway in the top post, so please tell your family and friends about it!

Unfortunately, at this time we’re mailing out postcards to Champions living in the USA Only. As this is our first time doing this I thought it was in our best interest to keep things as simple as possible, but don’t worry! Once we get a system in place we’ll offer this to Champions who live world-wide!

And I think that’s plenty to slam you with today. I hope you guys enjoy the postcards…and my messy scrawl on the back of them. Thank you, Britta, for joining us today, and thanks for reading, Champions. Have a lovely weekend! (PS: Sorry for the wonky formatting in this post!)