Jeri Smith-Ready

Tidbit Tuesday #4 - book giveaways galore!

Last week I did almost nothing but write WVMP #4 (which I'm once again leaning toward naming Lust for Life). My goal was to reach 50K words before the Olympic cauldron was lit last Friday night, because I knew the Olympics would suck up a lot of my time.

I didn't quite make it (I never do--on the few occasions I actually reach a goal, I assume I haven't set it high enough), but I'm watching the Olympics, anyway. Just watched the USA men's and women's curling lose to Germany and Japan, respectively. I won't make the obvious World War II joke.

As the sports go down on TV, I'm attempting my own Olympian tasks:

1. Catch up on e-mail
2. Mail all ARCs, books, bookmarks, and bookplates I owe people
3. Put actual things on my Facebook fan page
4. Update my MySpace profile (or maybe just delete the thing--does anyone ever go there anymore?)
5. Get the Street Team stuff together
6. Read manuscript of a book I've been asked to blurb

And during the day, tackle a few of the 40 interviews and guest blogs I have lined up.

One of them is already done--yay! If you go read it over at Babbling About Books and More!, you can enter to win a signed copy of Wicked Game and Bad to the Bone.

Deadline: February 19

International entries eligible: Yes

Also, the awesome new blog For What It's Worth is continuing its charity auction for Haiti relief. This week you can bid to win signed a signed copy of Wicked Game and Bad to the Bone PLUS signed copies of Cynthia Eden's Eternal Hunter and Kresley Cole and Gena Showalter's Deep Kiss of Winter. Plus some nummy stuff you can eat and drink and a possible bonus book. All for such a good cause.

Deadline: February 21

International entries eligible: Yes

The Daily Dose blog ran a lovely Valentine's Day feature on the class of 2K10 and our thoughts on teen love. Sometimes it still feels like yesterday.

Are you following the Olympics? What's your favorite sport? Do you follow any of these sports outside of the Olympics? Is there a sport more mesmerizing than curling?

Labels: class of 2K10, Contests, interview, vampire series, YA series

• posted by Jeri @ 8:51 PM
• 5 comments

Tidbit Tuesday #2 - new books, music & MISHA IS FAMOUS(ish)!

Don't faint. I'm actually doing a weekly feature more than one week in a row. If you need help with the shock, put your head between your legs, or breathe into a paper bag. An empty paper bag.

First, as always, les livres! (Sometimes I break into French for no good reason.) Two more of my fellow class of 2K10 members had releases last week. We're already more than 25% of the way through our year's debut novels, and it's only (*checks calendar*) some day in January.

Jennifer Hubbard's debut, The Secret Year, came out on Thursday. I picked it up to "leaf through" and spent the next half hour standing in my living room reading the first several chapters. All while the five books I'm in the middle of reading glared at me from various spots in the house (most had to glare through the ceiling and walls). Jennifer also has a wonderful blog that fills me with awe.

Irene Latham's Leaving Gee's Bend arrived on the same day. I was psyched to see that it's set in 1930s Alabama and concerns a sharecropper's daughter who sets out on her own to find help for her ailing mother. Being a giant fan of early Delta blues music, that place and time has always fascinated me. For a great interview, check out our fellow classmate Denise Jaden's blog.

In music, Vampire Weekend has a new CD out today! They were not a love-at-first-listen band for me, but the songs from their last album really grew on me over the months. The new stuff sounds even better.

I've gotten three minor pieces of good news from my agent in the last two days, none of which I can share at the moment (but they're minor, so you're not missing much). But by far the most exciting thing to happen today occurred in this video interview with Jason Scott, owner of and Twitter transcriber for Sockington, the world's most popular cat.

Sockington has over a million followers on Twitter (listen to the interview to find out why), including my cat Misha (who has his own Twitter account). Misha, along with several thousand other cats, dogs, rabbits, hamster, geckos, etc., is officially part of Sockington's army. Back in May (May 16, to be exact, three days before the release of Bad to the Bone), I happened to be passing by Socks's page and noticed he was about to pass 500,000 followers.

Ten minutes later, he did, then asked Socks Army to "represent" with the American Sign Language sign for cat. Somehow I managed to get Misha in the proper position and sent a link to the photo to Sockington. It was a fun moment of goofing off with my cat, nothing more.

Three days later, Socks had a new video up, and holy crap, Misha was in it (at minute marker 1:47, to be exact)! Yes, it was the release day of my new book, and the happiest moment was my cat appearing in another cat's video. (You might wonder if authors get blase about their new books, maybe when they're not the beginning of a new series and when they know it has a snowball's chance in hell of hitting a bestseller list. Instead of "blase," I would use the word, "calm.")

Fast forward to today and the interview with Jason Scott (aka Fatty). Our little man-cat's picture can be found at minute marker 2:58 (disturbingly, as Jason is talking about people whose cats are no longer with them, which I can assure you Misha is. With us. Demanding food, so I better go.)

Labels: class of 2K10, pets, reading

• posted by Jeri @ 10:20 PM
• 4 comments

Tidbit Tuesday #1

Happy Tuesday, folks! I'm starting a new thing (and now that I've called it a "thing" I'll probably never do it again), Tidbit Tuesday (unless y'all prefer "Tuesday Tidbits" or something less cutesy like "Tuesday Trash," or more cutesy like "Tell-It-To-Ya Tuesday," or a Monday night feature called "'Til Tuesday"--hey, I like that one). I'll mention new book/music releases I'm excited about, plus news items I don't have time to elaborate on at the moment.

--First, the books! Two fellow Class of 2K10 members have their very first books out today and tomorrow (and another on Thursday, which I'll mention then). Today marks the release of Kitty Keswick's Freaksville. You can read more about it at her launch post, including a short interview with her brilliant editor at Leap Books.

Bonnie Doerr's debut, Island Sting, comes out tomorrow. I'm particularly excited about this because it features an environmental theme. I tried twice unsuccessfully to get a "green" novel published, so I'm cheering for this one to do well so we see more of them in the future. Also, she's a big fan of one of my favorite authors, Carl Hiaasen, so I know the book has to rock. There's a great interview with Bonnie over at Aurora's Reviews.

--Speaking of Class of 2K10, the Page Turners blog did a mini-interview with all of us, asking about our first lines, how and whether they changed from first draft to final.

--The last book I wanted to mention is actually a repackaging/re-release of three YA vampire novels, but it's very important for one reason. At the back of the second and final Christopher Pike Last Vampire compendium (Thirst #2) is...the first chapter of Shade!

Thirst #2 comes out today, but my copy arrived last Friday. Seeing Aura's words in bound printed form gave me the chills, and it wasn't just because I'd left the door open in my excitement to open the box. I'll probably wait until February to put the first chapter up on the website, so if you want to read Shade's first chapter, go check it out--the Pike books are excellent, too! Thirst #1 hit the New York Times bestseller list. If you haven't heard of The Last Vampire series, you're in for a real treat.



--I've started a new work plan for the new year. Yes, another Grand Masta plan that will make me more productive and happy! Here it is, simply put:

Instead of writing 2,000 words every day, including weekends, while trying to keep up with Stuff (blogging, e-mail, interviews, etc.), I'm going to start writing 3,000 words every weekday and take weekends off to catch up on Stuff and catch my breath.

This will allow me to have a more single-minded (some would say simple-minded) focus. Weekdays = writing; weekends (and some weekday evenings) = other. My brain likey!

So far so good after two days, but we'll see how it goes. Right now I'm off to play one of the two new Wii games we got for Christmas. After all, stress reduction is one of my goals for the New Year, and not making that goal will totally stress me out!

Yes, I'm certifiably insane.

Labels: class of 2K10, interview, writing life, YA series

• posted by Jeri @ 8:55 PM
• 13 comments

Happy Release Day to Alexandra Diaz & OF ALL THE STUPID THINGS!

One of my fellow Class of 2K10 authors is kicking off our year a week early with the release of her debut contemporary YA novel, Of All the Stupid Things.

You might remember Alexandra from her Blogtoberfest guest post. The lucky winner of the ARC in that contest has already posted her review. She tells a harrowing story of her worst trip ever on today's class of 2K10 blog.

You can learn more about Alexandra and her book through these interviews and guest posts:

Janet Fox's Through the Wardrobe blog
YA Edge
Author Denise Jaden

My copy just shipped from Amazon today. I can't wait to read it! I absolutely adore that yummy cover.

Coming tomorrow, my Top 9 Reads of 2009! (If you missed my Top 9 Songs of 2009, check 'em out in yesterday's post. Crank it up!)

Labels: class of 2K10, reading

• posted by Jeri @ 3:01 PM
• 0 comments

2K9 Grad party & an SHADE ARC anniversary giveaway

Before I forget (and while the link is still in my clipboard, before I go and copy something else and then have to copy it again, frustrated with my porous powers of attention), the class of 2k10's graduation party for the class of 2K9 continues today with another big book giveaway! My readers who love music might especially enjoy J.T. Dutton's Freaked, about a teenage Deadhead. Go forth and enter! Then come back.

Today marks one year since the auction for Shade, originally known as Generation Ghost. The climate in publishing was frosty, to say the least (paralyzed with fear, to say the most). Black Wednesday had occurred only five days before, when three major publishing houses announced major cutbacks. We were all pretty scared. (Come to think of it, we still are, but Black Wednesday was a heaping concentrated dose of ACK!.)

But Generation Ghost sold, on proposal, no less, to the publisher I'd dreamed of for years, since I'd first started reading YA: Simon Pulse. There was much rejoicing!

Even as it happened, I never realized that a year later I'd be sitting here with a box of Advance Review Copies (ARCs).



(Click for larger version.)

To celebrate the first anniversary of this unlikely occurrence, I'm doing a low-key giveaway of an a Shade ARC. This will probably be the only copy (other than the Blogtoberfest prize) to be given out before Christmas, because I still need to figure out how many ARCs are going where for what purposes. (I snagged myself a short extension on my Bring on the Night rewrite until next Monday, so I'm still slammed for time.)

So to enter to win a Shade ARC, tell me what odd anniversaries you celebrate. Something other than birthdays, deaths, weddings. First dates? Adopting a pet? The first time you saw Star Wars in the movie theatre?

---

Tedious Rules to keep my butt from being sued:

1. Contest open to U.S. residents only. This isn't because I'm cheap and don't want to pay international postage. It's because I'm trying to keep this contest legal and can only keep track of one country's laws at a time. Sorry!

2. Retail value: $0. ARCs can't be resold. But why would you want to?

3. Odds of winning depend upon the number of participants.

4. To enter, simply leave a comment. On Tuesday, December 15 at 11:59pm, a winner will be drawn using a random number generator. NOTE: THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED TO ENTRIES. The winner is Carrie!

5. Names of winners will be posted in the comments of this post, and in the first post to appear after the drawing. Winners have one week to claim their prize by contacting me via e-mail at jeri AT jerismithready DOT com. If the winner does not contact me by that time, I will draw another name at random.

6. No purchase is required.

Labels: class of 2K10, Contests, YA series

• posted by Jeri @ 11:02 AM
• 66 comments

Class of 2K10 official launch!

Poking my head out of the Deadline Cave for a few minutes:

As I might have mentioned, I’m a member of the Class of 2K10, a group of 2010 debut young adult and middle-grade authors. Even though I have six published novels as an adult author (writing for adults, that is, not that I’m a true adult myself, because most people would dispute that), they were nice enough to let me in, since Shade will be my first YA novel.

Anyway, the class is holding a huge graduation party for its predecessor (named, not surprisingly, the class of 2K9) all month. We're giving away a copy of each debut novel by this talented group of authors. Visit our blog for details.

In case you're feeling too lazy to click over to our site, check out our trailer, and maybe you'll change your mind:



For a shortcut to a list to all our books and release dates (with convenient purchase links--ha!), check out our Amazon Listmania compilation.

I have another Girlfriends' Cyber Circuit tour coming up tomorrow, and then some thrilling Shade news on Thursday, so stay tuned!

But for now, back to my regularly scheduled hermitage.

Labels: class of 2K10, Contests

• posted by Jeri @ 8:24 AM
• 2 comments