There’s a swag pack up for grabs to help celebrate Read It in Houston‘s 100 Followers Giveaway Palooza! As of right now, the giveaway is for swag for The Nightmare Affair (bookmark + student guide). However, I’ve decided to throw in an Avalon bookmark and a bookplate to the pot! The lovely blog owner, Kelly, has told me that she will give 2 extra entry points to anyone who emails her with the code MINDEE in the subject. Her email address is [email protected]. Good luck!
W00hoo! The wonderful, gorgeous, to-die-for cover for The Nightmare Dilemma is up over at YABC. There’s also a giveaway for an annotated arc of The Nightmare Affair and an arc of Dilemma. Easy to enter. Hope you like it!
If you haven’t yet heard, my Dear Teen Me letter is up. This is just what it sounds, a letter addressed to my teenage self. But be warned; it’s quite a bit different from my usual lighthearted stuff, but I hope you enjoy it regardless. There are also a couple of “epic” pictures of me as a teen. In fact, I had so much fun digging through old photos I decided to display the rejects below. They are fairly amusing, at least to me. Anyway, check it out, have a laugh, and then head over to Dear Teen Me for the heavier stuff.
Civil War Reenacting is cool. End of Story.
Tall Boots are cool too. So are whips.
My cheerleading phase was short lived.
Can you tell my happiness is genuine? I had a professor once tell me that education is one of the things in life that nobody else can ever take from you. He was right.
Lots of fun stuff going on here. I turned in edits for The Nightmare Dilemma, which is now going into production, aka “will be a real book soon.” The cover reveal should be any day now as well. I can’t wait.
I’ve also finished First Pass Pages of Avalon aka “the last time I get to make changes” stage of book production. This stage might be my favorite, because I get to see a bit of what the book will look like it. For example, this is wickedly awesome, give-me-chills Title Page:
Or the even more wickedly awesome, sci-fi cool first page and chapter heading design:
Anyway, to celebrate the completion of this important stage, I’ve decided to giveaway a signed Avalon bookmark to the first twenty people who comment on this blog post (see a picture of said bookmarks, modeled by my lovely Poseidon statue below). This giveaway is open internationally, and I’ll leave it open until next Monday or until the first 20. Good luck!
That’s right! The awesome, badass cover to my upcoming YA sci-fi thriller Avalon has finally been revealed. You can check it out over at Epic Reads. You’ll find the synopsis and you can enter to win 1 of 5 Advanced Readers Copies. It’s super easy to enter. Also, the book is coming out January 21, 2014!!! If I’ve got my math right, that’s only 7 months. Woohoo! So go take a look and I’d love to know what you think.
Thank you so much to everyone who participated. I’m pleased to announce the following winners:
Grand Prize – Rachel Spring
Runner Up – Atalia Melendez
Runner Up – Jessica Reid
Runner Up – Rabiah Rowther
Emails have been sent to the winners. Congratulations again!
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Today I’m so excited to participate in a massive giveaway for Kara Taylor’s Prep School Confidential. Kara is not only my agent mate but a fabulous writer and one of the nicest people I know. I know you’re going to love her book! Details on the giveaway, which includes a signed copy of The Nightmare Affair, below.
About the Book:
Anne Dowling practically runs her exclusive academy on New York’s Upper East Side—that is, until she accidentally burns part of it down and gets sent to a prestigious boarding school outside of Boston. Determined to make it back to New York, Anne could care less about making friends at the preppy Wheatley School. That is, until her roommate, Isabella’s body is found in the woods behind the school.
When everyone else is oddly silent, Anne becomes determined to uncover the truth no matter how many rules she has to break to do it. With the help of Isabella’s twin brother Anthony, and a cute classmate named Brent, Anne discovers that Isabella wasn’t quite the innocent nerdy girl she pretended to be. But someone will do anything to stop Anne’s snooping in this fast-paced, unputdownable read—even if it means framing her for Isabella’s murder.
About the Author:
Kara Taylor wrote PREP SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL in her first semester of graduate school, in between pulling all nighters and listening to her dad say writing isn’t a real job. Now, she lives on Long Island and writes full time. She is represented by Suzie Townsend of New Leaf Literary and Media.
About the Giveaway:
First Prize winner will receive a signed ARC of Prep School Confidential, a signed copy of The Nightmare Affair, a paperback copy of Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo, and a PSC Swag Pack (see the awesome pick below)
3-Runner’s up will receive 3 PSC swag packs
Open US/Canada only
Runs May 29 to June 11
No purchase necessary to enter
Be sure to read the terms and conditions on the giveaway
Just a quick reminder that I’m doing a dual signing and author talk with the lovely Liz Coley this coming Saturday at 1:00 at the Beavercreek Barnes & Noble.
If you’re still looking for a signed copy of The Nightmare Affair, you can enter to win one AND raise money for the Oklahoma disaster relief over at The Lucky 13s. I’m also giving away a Query Letter + 5 Pages Critique.
You can also enter to win a copy of The Nightmare Affair and a bunch of other awesome books over at the 2014 Debut Authors group, OneFourKidLit.
In other news, the cover reveal for Avalon is coming very soon, sometime after June 5th. And speaking of cover reveals, I’ve created 2 annotated ARCs of The Nightmare Affair that I’ll be giving away as part of The Nightmare Dilemma cover reveal. I’m not sure when that one will be, but it should be very soon as well.
Good news! I ordered bookplates, and they turned out great! (See proof below 😉 ) Thanks goodness I have such an awesome sister who knows how to design cools things like this for me. Anyway, if you live in the United States and would like a signed bookplate for your copy of The Nightmare Affair, please email your address at [email protected]. I apologize for anybody international out there who wants one, but I don’t know if I can hack the shipping. But don’t fret; I’ll look for alternate ways to get them overseas.
Oh, and I’ve got big, big news regarding Avalon, as in the cover reveal and official release date announcement will be coming very, very soon! Like two weeks or so. I can’t wait!
And for my local peeps, don’t forget I’ve got a signing/author talk coming up at Beavercreek Barnes & Noble on June 1st (details on the events page).
So the news isn’t mine, but it’s still completely and utterly awesome. My friend and critique partner, the supremely talented Lori M. Lee finally got to her announce her two-book deal! I say finally because we’ve been waiting for official permission to announce for SEVEN months. Seriously, I can’t even begin to describe the frustration of wanting to scream this good news to the world. Anyway, below’s a snippet of the announcement, and you can go here to congratulate Lori personally. Oh, and you can add The Gates of Thread and Stone on Goodreads here. (I’ve read. It’s totally rocks. You want to add it.)
In other news, I’ll going to be at the Ohioana Book Festival tomorrow! I can’t wait because I have discovered I absolutely love festivals and conferences and anything that allows me to interact with readers and other writers. The festival is in Columbus Ohio and opens at 10:00. My panel, Books for Teens and Tweens, is at 11:30. I get to hang out and discuss books with Rae Carson, Laura Bickle, Leah Clifford, and Liz Coley! How cool is that?
Answer: very cool
Anyway, you can find out more about the conference and download the complete schedule here. I’ll be spending the rest of the day at a table signing books for anybody that wants one. Hope to see you there!
Last week I had the tremendous privilege of going to TLA 2013 in Fort Worth, Texas. Without doubt, it was the highlight of my publishing career so far. I had an absolute blast. I got to meet a ton of librarians, teenagers, bloggers, and fellow authors. I won’t go into a lot of details, because I have pictures and videos below to demonstrate the awesomeness already. But I want to give a HUGE thank you to Tor Teen for giving me the opportunity to experience the conference.
The Tor Booth with The Nightmare Affair on display with some fabulous company
My fellow Tor Teen authors Kristen Simmons (2nd from left) and P.J. Hoover (right) on their panel along with Joelle Charbonneau (left), Marissa Meyer (2nd from right), and Ilsa J. Bick (not pictured)
Tor Teen author Kendare Blake (2nd left) on her panel with Tessa Gratton (left), Libba Bray (2nd right), and Bree Despain (right)
The gorgeous Jennifer Haight of HipMamaJenn and A.G. Howard
Sadly, I went to dinner with the awesome Kari Olson of A Good Addiction but failed to get in pictures. I know, I know, I’m fired.
And now for some video proof of the fun:
Kendare Blake reading from Anna Dressed in Blood
Libba Bray reading from The Diviners
And on Saturday, Kendare Blake and I joined a bunch of other YA authors for an all-day signing at Edgefest 2013, a huge rock concert in Dallas Texas. In the video below you will find the dancing delights of Victoria Scott, Brodi Ashton, Susan Dennard, and Erin Bowman.
