BRIGHTLY BURNING pre-order giveaway
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If you've pre-ordered Brightly Burning (THANK YOU!) or were on the fence about it, my wonderful publisher, HMH Teen is running a pre-order giveaway with signed book plates and BATH BOMBS!!!
All you have to do to is head over to www.hmhteen.com/brightlyburning, fill out a form & upload your proof of purchase, and you'll get the pre-order items in the mail in a few weeks! You just have to do this by April 30. And this is US only, sorry my beautiful international peeps!
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How to get signed copies of BRIGHTLY BURNING!
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If you can't make it to one of my in-person events, but still want a signed copy of Brightly Burning, you can now order signed copies exclusively from The Ripped Bodice! This is a fantastic indie bookstore in Culver City, and I'm so excited to work with them on this!
It's super easy: Just order from the link below, and I will go over to The Ripped Bodice to sign your book and they will ship it to you! ALSO, an exclusive bonus: order from The Ripped Bodice and you will also get one of my shiny, new bookmarks! Only available at my in-person events this summer & fall and via The Ripped Bodice.
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Upcoming Events & Appearances
BRIGHTLY BURNING Launch Party!
May 1 @ 7 PM
Vromans in Pasadena
YALLWEST
May 5 @ Santa Monica High School
11 AM: SIGNING
1 PM: PANEL – TRICKS OF THE TRADE – PRACTICAL TIPS TO WRITING A BOOK
2 PM: PANEL – TRICKS OF THE TRADE – SHARING PUBLICATION STORIES
Barnes & Noble @ The Grove
Los Angeles
May 27, 2 PM
With Adrienne Young, author of SKY IN THE DEEP
Denver Comic Con
Denver
June 15-17
DragonCon
Atlanta
August 30-September 4
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YouTube Video Roll Call
Here are some of the highlights from my YouTube channel since the last newsletter:
If you have any topic requests, drop them in a comment on any video, or tweet me!
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Portrait of an author in the lead-up to her book release
Okay, this is not so much advice as a peek behind the curtain. Here is where I am at, 5 days from official release... with a bit of a look-back to what the last weeks have been like! Here are some of the things I have been working on/had to do:
- Writing blog posts for my blog tour--still working through these! When you debut, if your publisher is doing a blog tour for you, you will be expected to write these in the two weeks leading up to release.
- Writing letters for book boxes. I'm going to be in a few boxes (COOL!), and each one needs a unique/specific letter for their subscribers. It's, uh, harder than you'd think to write generally but also specifically and differently about your book multiple times
- Setting up signed books with my local indie. I did this last week, super late, but it was easy to do and The Ripped Bodice got it set up in just a few hours!
- Buying gifts for my publisher & agent. This is a courtesy thing that's nice to do--a pub day gift for your publishing team and your agent. My pub team is split across two offices, and I also got a gift for my agency for all their help with my UK deal, so I ended up doing four gifts, which I had to order this week to arrive in time.
- Pre-filming & editing a ton of YouTube videos. I know I'm going to be crazy busy as soon as launch hits (my book 2 revisions are also due shortly thereafter!), so I pre-filmed a ton of videos over the past few weeks, between deadlines, so I won't fall behind on my posting schedule during a critical time.
- Buying supplies for my launch party. You don't have to go overboard, but I decided to color-coordinate my table settings and buy a cheese board and star-glitter for Instagramming... and more. I bought $100 in supplies and I REGRET NOTHING. This weekend, I have to buy the food (cheese, meats, fruit), and I tasked a friend to pick up the wine.
- Reminding myself to do this newsletter. Which I'm doing right now. *eyes emoji*
Aside from all of this, I have mostly been taking deep breaths and trying not to sweat things too much! One of the big things that happened is, well, technically my book is already OUT. If you have visited your local B&N in the last week or so, you may have already seen it/picked it up/had it shipped to your house. B&N, those rogues, decided to put my book out two weeks early. I'm not the first person this has happened to, nor will I be the last, and honestly I just rolled with it! It's been fun seeing the pictures of the books out in the wild, and seeing real readers reading and responding to the book. My editor said early sales will all be rolled into the first week number, so no biggie :)
That's just a snapshot, and I'm sure in five minutes I will think of other things that I should have told you... but I have to get back to doing ALL THE THINGS! I'll see you all on the other side and THANK YOU AGAIN so much to everyone who has pre-ordered/will buy the book/or who has simply supported me and been lovely! The last year has been a dream.
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Now that I'm almost on the other side of my debut year, what are some of my favorite resources that helped me along the way?
- Canva - for promo graphics
- Moo - for business cards that get oohs and ahhs every time
- Minuteman Press for gorgeous bookmarks that didn't break the bank
- My local bookstores. Having some in-person connection with some key bookstores in my area was a huge boon for me! It enabled me to easily set-up the signed copies I wrote about above, and to coordinate a book store event at another. If your local stores know you and know you are local, they are more likely to place orders for your book and talk you up to people.
- Fellow debut authors, for moral support. Definitely definitely join a debut group, or find other ways to network with your fellow debuts. No one else truly knows what it's like, and they'll understand when you have Feelings and need to talk about things. You can also rely on friends who have debuted a year/season before you, or are going after you, but there's nothing quite like your year or season-specific peers!
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Do you like lush, rich fantasy with gorgeous prose? Tough-as-nails girls? Slow burn romance? VIKINGS? If you answered yes to any or all of these, then you need to pick up THE SKY IN THE DEEP by Adrienne Young. It is out in the world as of this week, and it's been a book that has stuck with me for many months since I read it.
The book is about a warrior girl who discovers the brother she thought died five years ago is alive and has been living with their rival clan--and now considers himself one of them. She has to wrestle with his betrayal, and confront a lot of her lifelong held ideas and beliefs. I fell right into the book and it gripped me until the last page. Adrienne Young so perfectly cultivates a mood and sense of place, and I would have read another 100, 200 pages of it, if I could have!
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