Winners!!

Once again, Happy New Year! I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm beyond thrilled to be in the third day of 2010. And what great slogans you dreamed up to get us off on the right foot!

And I did reach 110 followers (WOOT!); however, #110 didn't sign up until January 2, so rather than giving 2 books each away, I'm compromising and adding a 4th winner to the contest. Happy for me, because I loved all the entries and picking winners was a challenge!

It was tough, but I've selected the four winners for the 2010 slogan contest:

Dani - "2010: The Year We Go Broke (from buying too many books)"

TeamMagnusBane - "2010, when the girls are obsessed with sparkly men, men try to be like Edward Cullen, and when the Nerds out shine them all."

SuzyHaze - 2010 "The Year The People Rediscovered The Book" In an odd turn of events humans and otherworldly things began flocking to bookstores and libraries, large and small, in order to sniff the glue binding and escape reality, only to find out that BOOKS ARE WONDERFUL and they escaped into the words (instead of the glue) by the billions

Krista Ashe - "2010,The book biz's best that's ever been The year authors are really gonna win Making all those readers heads spin With Tales of Zombies, Vamps, Angels, and furry kin First love, first lust, and MC's showing some skin. Ah, 2010, authors pick up those pens!"

Winners send an email to adrcremer (at) gmail (dot) com with your mailing address and your choice of 1 book from the top 9 o'nine list and I'll post it to you stat!

Thanks again for participating in my inaugural blog contest many more contests to come in 2010!!

10 for 2010

It's here, the first year of the new decade. And my novel's birthday! While I still have to wait until October (ack!) for NIGHTSHADE's release date, having the year 2010 on the calendar makes it all the more real.

I don't do New Year's Resolutions, but I do goals. So here are my 10 goals for 2010 (next year you can check in and see how I've done).

10. Have patience, enjoy the ride (this one is last on the list because I have no patience and thus expect to spectacularly fail at meeting this goal)

9. Find a title I love for Book 3, NIGHTSHADE and WOLFSBANE were easy. Book 3 is killing me. Not the book, just the title.

8. Speaking of Book 3, finish it.

7. Write Book 1 of new series. This book currently has a smattering of pieces that add up to a few thousand words (I don't write chronologically). My goal is to bring them together into a coherent whole, complete novel.

6. Prioritize WIPs. Other than said Book 1 of new series I have half a dozen, give or take, WIPs floating around my laptop - and in my head - that need some sorting out. Hoping my agents and editor will help out with this one.

5. Speaking of my fabulous NIGHTSHADE Pack at InkWell and Penguin: meet agents and editor. *coughs* Okay, this is kind of cheating because I've already booked my flight. Will be in NYC in January and again in May. Cannot wait (see above, no patience).
4. Learn to speak German. Okay, I'm talking beginner German here, not fluent German. But I really would like to be able to speak with NIGHTSHADE readers in languages other than English. I already speak Spanish (passable) and French (sort of), but not German and I want to fix that. Plus my husband, father-in-law, and brother all speak German. So in theory I should have help. In theory.

3. Move. I love my apartment, but it's too small. I've written before about how I'm a messy person, naturally inclined to clutter. But lack of storage really pushes clutter into tornadic-strewn piles of notes, books, etc. We need more space. The move will happen.

2. Read all The Tenners books. 2010 debuts rock!!!!

1. Get NIGHTSHADE into the hands of every person I know, meet, bump into on the street. I love this book, I love the characters, I can't wait to share it with the world!!! I would also like Bret and Jemaine (Flight of the Conchords) to help me with promotion. I'd even get them a new sign for their booth.

CONTEST!: Top Nine O'Nine

It's three days until 2010 - a year that I am awaiting like no other - and I thought I'd send 2009 out with a bang, contest style.

This is my first (and last, of 2009) CONTEST (many more to come in 2010!) - expect all contests to be quirky - because I love quirks - and here is Andrea's Quirky Contest #1. *Trumpets blare*

The time honored tradition of countdowns easily turns into overkill this time of year, but lists are addictive and it's oh so much fun to review the things you loved about the past year (hopefully glossing over those bits you loathed).

The other great thing about the New Year is predicting what's ahead. Isn't playing fortune-teller always fun?

For this contest I'll be mashing these two ideas together.

Top Nine O'Nine (aka Andrea's first blog contest)

The contest: Create a 2010 slogan and post it in the comments section below. Slogans can be silly or serious.

Or, a combination: 2010: The Year Polar Bears Strike Back
The best will be clever, cunning, cataclysmic - you get the idea. I encourage wackiness and snarf-worthiness. Enter as many times as you like, though you can only win once. Bonus points for linking to this contest on your blog!

The prize:

Here come the Top Nine. It's been a great, great year for books (but watch out for 2010 - I think it will only get better!). I'll be awarding prizes for Winner, 1st Runner Up, and 2nd Runner Up. Each winner receives 3 books, a trio from my top 9 books of 2009.* The list is below in alphabetical order by author.

Cassandra Clare, City of Glass (Book 3, Mortal Instruments)
Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire (Book 2, Hunger Games)
Becca Fitzpatrick, Hush, Hush
Laurie Halse Anderson, Wintergirls
Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, Beautiful Creatures
Cynthia Leitich Smith, Eternal
Sarah Rees Brennan, The Demon's Lexicon
Carrie Ryan, The Forest of Hands and Teeth
Maggie Stiefvater, Ballad**

1st, 2nd, and 3rd place may pick one book from this list they're itching to read, and I'll send it to get 2010 off to a fantastic reading start! Go, slogans, go. Deadline: What else? Entries accepted until 11:59 p.m. (CST) December 31.


**New twist: Since I'm loving the entries so much - here's an added incentive. If I reach 110 (because ya' know, it' s the '10 that matters!) blog followers by the end of this contest, each winner will receive 2 books from the list!
*Disclaimer: Ack!! Picking just 9 books was so hard! So many more I long to add - plus, so many just released books I have yet to read...remorse, remorse!!
** I loved Ballad and Shiver, but it didn't seem fair to have both books on the list and I loved Ballad an eency bit more, so it's the book for this list.