The year 2012 is on its way out, and it’s time to start look­ing toward 2013. Here are some things I’ve got on my sched­ule. And I’m look­ing for input from you. There’s a link to a quick sur­vey at the end of this post. Please click through to let me know what you think.

Con­tests:
Four great authors are join­ing my Jan­u­ary newslet­ter give­away, but the only way you can enter is to be a newslet­ter sub­scriber. Look for offer­ings from Terry Ambrose, Karla Darcy, Dana Mar­ton and Mag­gie Tou­s­saint.  And, of course, I’ll have a book to give away as well. Click the Newslet­ter tab to make sure you don’t miss out.

As I sched­ule this, I’m almost at 500 likes on my Face­book author page. If you haven’t liked the page, you can click over there and speed up my Box of Books give­away. The con­test won’t open until I hit 500. But there will be another con­test and another Box of Books when I hit 1000, so even if I’ve hit 500 when you’re read­ing this, that’s no rea­son not to Like the page.

Dates to Save:
Feb­ru­ary 4–8, I’ll be host­ing a sem­i­nar at Cof­fee­time Books. The sub­ject: Indie pub­lish­ing: Is it for you? I’d love to know what peo­ple want to hear. If you have any ques­tions, or things you’ve learned, leave a com­ment, or con­tact me using the con­tact form.

March 4, I’ll start a 4 week class on the 12 Steps to Inti­macy at Savvy Authors.
Ever won­der why some­times a touch is sexy and some­times it’s a major ick-factor? It’s not just who’s doing the touch­ing, but when.

I also signed up to attend Thriller­Fest in New York City July 10–13, and Boucher­con in Albany, NY Sep­tem­ber 19–22. Maybe I’ll see some of you there. If you’re going, let me know.

Things to Share:
I’m always look­ing for recipes for What’s Cook­ing Wednes­day, and pic­tures for my Fri­day Field Trips. I’d hate to have to dis­con­tinue these fea­tures, but I need more con­tri­bu­tions to keep them going.

Ques­tions for you:
I’ve been blog­ging since July of 2006. That’s a long time. Part of the rea­son I keep this blog going is for me—frankly, I enjoy it. But another part has to be for you, my read­ers. Over time, there have been changes, from lay­outs, from host­ing sites, to con­tent. I’m not one to stick to some­thing sim­ply because ‘that’s the way it’s been done for years.’ For exam­ple, my per­sonal bias is to avoid pro­mo­tional type posts. I don’t really enjoy read­ing them, so I steer away from them. But if you, my read­ers, like see­ing excerpts, pro­mo­tions, inter­views, I’m happy to change my focus. To that end, I’ve cre­ated a sim­ple sur­vey to see what you’d like for 2013. Click here to take the sur­vey (or you can leave your opin­ions in the comments)