Give-away in celebration of my latest arrival!

UPDATE: We have winners! Congratulations to:

Julie McKeever
First Baptist Church
Kenner, LA
http://bountifulthanks.blogspot.com/

Christina
Lighthouse Christian Center
Tacoma (Puyallup), WA
christina-everythingelse.blogspot.com


Guess what I got in the mail yesterday? My author copies of my latest release: 5 Conversations You Must Have With Your Daughter (Bible study) and the accompanying DVD kit for church use! And oh my, are they perty, perty, perty. Usually I receive copies of my books BEFORE they hit the store shelves, but the Bible study actually released to the stores about a week and a half ago. In fact, I was at the You & Your Girl event in Kentucky and was pleasantly surprised to hear that it was for sale in the on-site bookstore! Now, for an author, that's kind of like someone seeing one of your babies after he/she is born and getting to hold him/her before you do. Kinda weird.

I was actually signing some of the Bible study books during my book-signing at the event and asked the first woman who handed me a copy of the Bible study (in pic below) if she minded if I thumbed through it for a minute! She looked at me a bit strangely, but like a new mother who has just been handed her little one for the first time, I had a sudden urge to do the ten fingers/ten toes check. Never mind that a line of people patiently waited while I examined my new baby. The only thing missing was the attractive hospital gown and a cup of ice chips on a tray beside me. On a positive note, I looked a bit more presentable for this mother/child photo opp.












Now, this story has a happy ending and since my publisher also manages my events, one of the staff was able to sweet-talk the bookstore manager into sparing me a copy, so I could peruse the book and watch the DVD sessions on my way home. Thank you, Kris Seidenkranz! All that to say, you can only imagine my excitement to receive my author copies yesterday. But, the first thing I noticed after Mr. UPS Man brought the boxes into my foyer was this:









Take a close look at the name on the mailing label. "Victoria?" My birth name is not "Victoria," but I've always wished it was! Anyway, it was kind of fun to see it on the boxes and have the UPS guy ask me if I'm "Victoria Courtney" before I signed off on the delivery. I was tempted to say, "I'm sorry. What was that you just said?" in an effort to hear it one more time, but he seemed in a bit of a rush, so I refrained. I have an editor who calls me "Victoria" on occasion, so I have a sneaking suspicion that he had something to do with the temporary name change on the label.

In celebration of my new release, I am going to give away two copies of the DVD kit which includes: a member book, leader's guide, and six DVD teaching sessions ($149.95 value!). All you have to do to enter the drawing is comment below and tell me that you'll use it for group study or pass it along to your church for future use. I would love to also know the name of your church and city/state, just for fun. And don't forget to include an email address in your comment if you don't have a blog profile where we can track you down if you win. We'll draw two winners on Wednesday, May 6th and announce them one week from today. Good luck and thanks for celebrating this release with me!









Oh, and here's a short promo clip about the study that my publisher put together for churches who need a tool to announce the upcoming study. It will give you an overview of the basics: