Lancelot's Lady by Cherish D'Angelo (aka Cheryl Kaye Tardif) is a Semi-finalist in the Dorchester "Next Best Celler" Contest Hosted by Textnovel.com

November 4, 2009

When Canadian author Cheryl Kaye Tardif decided to dust off an old romance manuscript and enter it in the Dorchester Publishing Next Best Celler contest over at Textnovel.com, she had no idea how popular Lancelot's Lady would become.

NEW YORK, NY, November 04, 2009 /24-7PressRelease/ -- When Canadian author Cheryl Kaye Tardif decided to dust off an old romance manuscript and enter it in the "Next Best Celler" contest sponsored by Dorchester Publishing and hosted by Textnovel.com, Cheryl had no idea how popular her debut romantic suspense would become. In fact, Lancelot's Lady was the #1 Most Popular entry for the first three months of the contest, and now it has made the Top 20 Semi-Finalists. The prize Cheryl and the other semi-finalists are pursuing is a publishing contract with Dorchester Publishing.

Branching off from her regular suspense and thrillers, Cheryl embraced the idea of writing a romantic suspense and came up with the perfect pen name for this endeavor--Cherish D'Angelo. She didn't just pull this name out of a hat; the name has actual meaning for her. You can read about the birth of Cheryl's pseudonym Cherish D'Angelo on her blog.

In a recent blog post, Cheryl describes her journey with this contest as "kind of like a writing triathlon" where authors had to not only write and edit their work, but also promote it to get votes. Besides blogging about her adventure, she used a variety of social networks, including Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and Goodreads to promote Lancelot's Lady.

Cheryl was also one of the first authors in this contest to offer her own special contests, "to engage my fans and thank them". She held monthly Giveaways and her "Create a Corpse" contest, where entrants suggested a name for a character that would be killed off in Lancelot's Lady. "The winner, Waheed Rabanni, gave me the perfect name--Winston Chambers," Cheryl states. "Winston has proven to be one of my most interesting and well-hated characters ever, and I love that!"

What Cheryl found most inspiring about this contest was the amount of feedback she received from other writers and readers. As positive comments began filling the main comment page and the individual chapter pages, she left replies in response. "I feel if they took the time to let me know what they felt about my new novel, then I owed them a response. And it was a pleasure to do so." It was this support that kept her motivated, along with a compelling drive to deliver her first venture into the romance genre, in the hopes that she'll be discovered as "the New Voice in Romance".

Stan Soper, literary agent and founder of Textnovel.com, commented, "We have experienced a significant amount of interest and increased traffic as a result of the Dorchester Next Best Celler Contest. It's gratifying to see experienced authors like Cheryl Kaye Tardif participating."

On November 1st, 2009, judges selected the top 20 Next Best Celler semi-finalists based on novels with the most votes and subscribers. On November 15th, 2009, the top 10 finalists will be selected based on votes, subscribers, comments, story quality and publishablity. The winner will be announced in early February 2010.

"I'm determined to win this competition," Cheryl says. "Dorchester is a respected publisher and I have many more novels to write."

Cheryl and her New York agent Jack Scovil are looking for a new publisher to take on 3 new works and possibly her backlist. She has 1 movie deal in the works, plus a movie deal and TV series deal being considered.

Lancelot's Lady still needs your vote: http://textnovel.com/stories_list_detail.php?story_id=928

To learn more about Dorchester Publishing, please visit: http://www.dorchesterpub.com

Note: 24-7PressRelease.com is the official sponsor of Lancelot's Lady.

Contact info:
Cheryl Kaye Tardif, author
cherylktardif@shaw.ca
http://www.cherylktardif.com



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