You, a Friend, a Stranger Giveaway!

Hi :) I am going to keep this short(ish) because you're all here for the giveaway, aren't you?

So here's the thing. I've had some definite writing setbacks over the past few weeks. I wouldn't say any of them were unexpected, but I don't know, things don't really hurt me less just because they didn't surprise me. It's a different kind of pain I guess, like another bag of bricks added to an already heavy load.

But despite that, I am trying to focus on the positive. I'm strong and I'm healthy, so I can carry those extra bricks. I have a new nursing job which admittedly is extremely stressful and probably not a good fit for me, but it allows me to be a positive force in the lives of mentally ill people and addicts--many of whom are often surrounded by negativity. This job also pays enough so that I can donate to hurricane relief and GoFundMes and buy books to support my writer friends (even if I have no time to read the books--I am sorry, writer friends!) These are all things I was not able to do for years when I was struggling to survive as a full-time writer, and that weighed heavy on my heart. So trade-offs, right?

I also have an amazing volunteer position with Transition Projects, a local homeless-to-housing charity here in Portland. Between work and volunteering, I spend a lot of time listening to people who are often disparaged or ignored by the public. There is something powerful and life-affirming about validating the very real struggles these people go through every day. I am constantly awed by their strength and inspired by the solidarity they show to each other. So yes, I am feeling kind of beat down, but I am also finding peace and hope in the world around me.

In the interest of finding even more peace and hope, I've decided to take a bit of a break from social media for the month of September. I'm going to concentrate instead on improving my mental and physical health, becoming a better psychiatric nurse, being more aware of the world around me so I can better help people in need, and revising a "book of my heart" that was passed on by my publisher. [Gentle reminder that unless you self-publish, the only guaranteed time you can write ANY story you want is before you get an editor and a publisher. I actually had two projects rejected by publishers in the past two weeks and both of them are over 25% written. So please, please, if you are pre-published, do not squander that magical time by being sad about not having a book deal. Book deals are great. So is the freedom to write wildly and freely about anything inside your soul without being constrained by editor preferences, profit and loss sheets, sales figures, acquisitions teams, etc.]

I'll be reading email and logging onto Twitter every couple of days to read my @ tweets because my readers matter to me and I will always have time for you <3. Other than that, my Twitter and Facebook posts are scheduled and I might pop onto Instagram if I find something magical I want to share with everyone. I wanted to leave you guys with a giveaway, so I decided to create something kind of fun that encourages other people to also go in search of peace and hope :)

Below is the You, a Friend, a Stranger giveaway. International. One winner receives $100 in prizes as follows:

• Winner gets $25 transferred to a PayPal account or paid out via a bookstore, grocery store, department store, or gas station gift card. It's about you and what you need <3
• Winner's friend also gets $25, paid out via any of those gift cards. Sorry, no cash. [Int'l winners will have a limited selection to choose from.]
• Winner gets $25 in credit to contribute to any GoFundMe or YouCaring (or you can split between two campaigns) during the month of October. I am registered and I will give the money in your name.
• Winner gets a $25 gift card to Kiva.org. If you aren't familiar with Kiva, it's a micro-lending website where you can help finance a business loan for someone on the other side of the world. Then they pay back the loan and you can re-lend. It is literally the gift that keeps on giving.
• Because I'm an author and I have lots of free books to give away, I'll throw in a copy of any of my Paula Stokes books, either for you or your friend who gets the gift card. [I won't judge if you keep it for yourself. My books are awesome, after all ;D]

I know that's technically you, a friend, and two strangers (or two friends if you know someone with a GoFundMe) but that just didn't sound as good ;) The Rafflecopter activities are a mix of self-care and helping friends and strangers. Most of them cost absolutely no money and don't involve driving anywhere. I tried to make them as inclusive as possible so that everyone could participate in whatever they wanted. Please use common sense when completing the activities and enter at your own risk. They're not particularly dangerous things, but most of them involve more than clicking a link, so I'm erring on the side of caution.

I created this contest so you could technically do one activity every day in September, but if you want to crush them all out in a weekend marathon of kindness, empathy, and introspection, well, that works too :)

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Can you cheat? I mean, yeah, most of these are "on your honor" activities. But this specific contest was created to help people feel better about themselves and the world. If you cheat and win, you might not regret it now, but chances are at some point you're going to feel a little down on yourself. I don't want to do that to you, so how about you don't do that to yourself either? Have fun with this. If you have a really meaningful experience doing any of these activities, be sure to leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Happy September. Best of luck in whatever goals you are pursuing this month, and as always, thanks for everything that you do <3

Vicarious Gratitude Giveaway

It's time for another gratitude giveaway! I'm very thankful to Lindsay Cummings, Victoria Scott, and Kristi Helvig for providing blurbs for VICARIOUS. Scoring blurbs for a book's jacket is something that is highly stressful to most authors, and extremely so for me, because I have been rejected a lot--way more than I ever got rejected by agents. (Stuff like this is part of what I mean when I tell people the rejection part of writing increases dramatically after you land an agent.)

All three of these fabulous authors have written books that I think are good comparison titles for Vicarious, and I am grateful they found the time to fit reading my ARC into their busy schedules. If you have enjoyed their novels, chances are you'll enjoy the action-packed sci-fi storyline and tough but vulnerable heroine of my latest novel too :)

Lindsay also hosted the book's trailer reveal! Vicarious features Korean sisters as main characters. ICYMI: You can read more about why I made Winter and Rose Korean in my blog tour posts.

For this contest, I'm giving one lucky reader their choice of one currently available book by Lindsay, Victoria, or Kristi. This giveaway is INT and I will be ordering from The Book Depository or Wordery. Here's some information on each author's latest book or series.

An action-packed, blood-soaked, futuristic debut thriller set in a world where the murder rate is higher than the birthrate. For fans of Moira Young’s Dust Lands series, La Femme Nikita, and the movie Hanna.

Meadow Woodson, a fifteen-year-old girl who has been trained by her father to fight, to kill, and to survive in any situation, lives with her family on a houseboat in Florida. The state is controlled by The Murder Complex, an organization that tracks the population with precision.

The plot starts to thicken when Meadow meets Zephyr James, who is—although he doesn’t know it—one of the MC’s programmed assassins. Is their meeting a coincidence? Destiny? Or part of a terrifying strategy? And will Zephyr keep Meadow from discovering the haunting truth about her family?


Do you already own a copy of The Murder Complex? Check out Lindsay's other books here.

Ever since the Titans first appeared in her Detroit 

neighborhood, Astrid Sullivan’s world has revolved around the mechanical horses. She and her best friend have spent countless hours watching them and their jockeys practice on the track. It’s not just the thrill of the race. It’s the engineering of the horses and the way they’re programmed to seem so lifelike. The Titans are everything that fascinates Astrid, and nothing she’ll ever touch.

She hates them a little, too. Her dad lost everything betting on the Titans. And the races are a reminder of the gap between the rich jockeys who can afford the expensive machines to ride, and the working class friends and neighbors of Astrid’s who wager on them.

But when Astrid’s offered a chance to enter an early model Titan in this year’s derby, well, she decides to risk it all. Because for a girl from the wrong side of the tracks, it’s more than a chance at fame or money. Betting on herself is the only way she can see to hang on to everyone in the world she cares about.

Victoria's got two fantastic series in addition to Titans. See her whole collection here.

Most people want to save the world; seventeen-year-old Tora Reynolds just wants to get the hell off of it. One of the last survivors in Earth's final years, Tora yearns to escape the wasteland her planet has become after the sun turns "red giant," but discovers her fellow survivors are even deadlier than the hostile environment.

Holed up in an underground shelter, Tora is alone--her brilliant scientist father murdered, her mother and sister burned to death. She dreams of living on a planet with oceans, plants, and animals. Unfortunately, the oceans dried out ages ago, the only plants are giant cacti with deadly spines, and her pet, Trigger, is a gun--one of the bio-energetic weapons her father created for the government before his conscience kicked in.

When family friend, Markus, arrives with mercenaries to take the weapons by force, Tora's fury turns to fear when government ships descend in an attempt to kill them all. She forges an unlikely alliance with Markus and his rag-tag group of raiders, including a smart but quiet soldier named James. Tora must quickly figure out who she can trust, as she must choose between saving herself by giving up the guns or honoring her father's request to save humanity from the most lethal weapons in existence.

Have you already read Burn Out? Here's more information about Kristi's other books!

Enter in the Rafflecopter below. Don't forget to comment on the post and tell me one bookish thing or person you are grateful for :)

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Girl Against the Universe Gratitude Giveaway

Girl Against the Universe is out on the shelves and I can barely believe it :D It feels really good to have released a book that is fun and entertaining, but also has the possibility to be comforting, inspiring, and even helpful to some readers. I'm already blown away by the responses I've gotten from early readers who related to Maguire on a personal level.

Honestly, I'm proud of this story for a lot of reasons, another of which is the lovely author blurbs on the back cover.

I don't know how much you know about the process of authors blurbing books, but asking another author to read your book for blurb can be kind of an awkward experience for everyone. You have to put yourself out there to get rejected. You have to put another author--who most likely knows just how bad getting rejected feels--in a position to tell you no. Every book I say, "I'm not going to do it this time. It always ends with me feeling terrible." But then I do it anyway, because if *I* am not willing to advocate for my book, then how can I expect anyone else to do it? And there's hard data that author blurbs result in more sales.

But it's not just about the numbers. An author blurb helps a busy librarian, who might not have time to read your book, still be able to recommend it. An author blurb gives a bookseller information about your book months before it hits the shelves. When I see a book blurbed by an author I love, it definitely makes me more interested in reading it. And honestly, there is nothing more validating than having your peers read your work and like it enough that they're willing to put their names on it.

So this is a thank you post to my cover blurbers, Tamara Ireland Stone and Miranda Kenneally. (I received two other lovely blurbs that were too late for the cover, but I'll save them for another giveaway when the GATU paperback releases. Love you, Sarvenaz and Ann <333)

I approached Tamara and Miranda for blurbs because they both wrote books that I love, and I felt their readers would enjoy Girl Against the Universe.  They were both kind enough to take time out of their busy schedules to read GATU, and they both believed in the story enough to personally endorse it. Tam, Miranda--thank you for supporting my latest novel :)

I'm giving one lucky reader two books--their choice of one by each of these authors. This contest is INT and I will be ordering from The Book Depository or Wordery. Here's a little more about Tamara and Miranda's latest titles, but feel free to choose from their backlists as well:

If you could read my mind, you wouldn't be smiling.

Samantha McAllister looks just like the rest of the popular girls in her junior class. But hidden beneath the straightened hair and expertly applied makeup is a secret that her friends would never understand: Sam has Purely-Obsessional OCD and is consumed by a stream of dark thoughts and worries that she can't turn off.

Second-guessing every move, thought, and word makes daily life a struggle, and it doesn't help that her lifelong friends will turn toxic at the first sign of a wrong outfit, wrong lunch, or wrong crush. Yet Sam knows she'd be truly crazy to leave the protection of the most popular girls in school. So when Sam meets Caroline, she has to keep her new friend with a refreshing sense of humor and no style a secret, right up there with Sam's weekly visits to her psychiatrist.

Caroline introduces Sam to Poet's Corner, a hidden room and a tight-knit group of misfits who have been ignored by the school at large. Sam is drawn to them immediately, especially a guitar-playing guy with a talent for verse, and starts to discover a whole new side of herself. Slowly, she begins to feel more "normal" than she ever has as part of the popular crowd . . . until she finds a new reason to question her sanity and all she holds dear.

Do you already own a copy of Every Last Word? Check out Tamara's other books here.


Captain of the soccer team, president of the Debate Club,
contender for valedictorian: Taylor’s always pushed herself to be perfect. After all, that’s what is expected of a senator’s daughter. But one impulsive decision—one lie to cover for her boyfriend—and Taylor’s kicked out of private school. Everything she’s worked so hard for is gone, and now she’s starting over at Hundred Oaks High.

Soccer has always been Taylor’s escape from the pressures of school and family, but it’s hard to fit in and play on a team that used to be her rival. The only person who seems to understand all that she’s going through is her older brother’s best friend, Ezra. Taylor’s had a crush on him for as long as she can remember. But it’s hard to trust after having been betrayed. Will Taylor repeat her past mistakes or can she score a fresh start

Defending Taylor releases on July 5th, but if you don't want to wait, Miranda's got scads of other books to choose from!


Share your own thoughts about author blurbs to get the comment points for the giveaway. I'm really curious to know what you think!

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Mighty Mississippi Book Blast Recap!

I'm still kind of winding down from the #MMBB tour, having gone directly from a 12-hour driving day, to a full day of airplane travel, to getting back to work on an overdue freelance project the day after I made it back to Portland. #MyGlamorousWritingLife :)

However, non-MMBBers keep asking me how the tour went, so in the interest of not having to repeat myself (AKA general laziness), I give you:

10 THINGS I LEARNED ON THE MMBB TOUR

1. Some people are natural performers and others are not. 

Even though I knew what basic questions I was going to be asked about my book--heck, I even made up some of them--I realized after the first event in Wayzata that I had basically described my book in a rambling and roundabout way that made it sound so unappealing that even *I* wouldn't buy it. Next to me, Philip Siegel was so funny that I probably would have bought his book even if he said it was about how to mix wallpaper paste. I do believe I'm a funny person, but I'm third-draft funny. I'm funny on paper. I'm funny in my comfort zone, surrounded by cats people I know. I am not a natural performer, but that's okay. It just means I should think a little about how I want to present my book before I do it in front of an audience.

Dawn Klehr, Philip, me, and Lindsay on Day One of the #MMBB

2. It's best if I be myself (but with less swearing ;-D)

I don't mean my rambling and roundabout self. I mean if I start out nervous and then try to be funny because everyone else seems to be rip-roaring comedy club hilarious, uh, that doesn't end well. Better to be unfunny but add something else to the mix--thoughtfulness? honesty? encouragement?--than to go for the laughs but come up short. Also, it's also best to dress as myself. Is it a coincidence the two events I felt most uncomfortable at were Iowa and Dallas, the two places where I wore a dress? (Sorry, Mom. I'm just not a dress girl.) If you're doing events for the first time, resist feeling pressured to get fancy. Go in the clothes you feel best represent you...unless those clothes are pajamas...unless your pajamas are really stylish...You see where I'm going with this. People who buy your book because of how you are dressed are probably not readers that you need.

Us in Iowa with bookstore owner, Sue. I look uncomfortable, don't I?

3. Acting silly never stops being fun.

Lindsay Cummings and I played Blair Witch with her phone cam in the bed & breakfast where we stayed in Dubuque, sneaking up to the deserted third floor in the dark. Either the stairs in that place were the creakiest stairs ever or Lindsay and I are really bad ninjas. Anyway, the third floor was deliciously creepy by the light of my cell phone. In one of the rooms we found...FACELESS DOLLS. 

More silliness, in group form. Team Anderson's poses for pix after the event.

4. Doing events gets easier with time and experience.

I'll never look forward to bookstore events because I'm just not an extrovert, but it did get easier throughout the week. Or maybe I was so deliriously tired by the time I got to Houston that I just didn't have the energy to be stressed anymore. Also, I really liked the events that were more about giving writing advice to aspiring authors and less about singing the praises of my books. I love my stories, but it's way less awkward to be my own book cheerleader when I can hide behind the interwebs.

Team Houston, with blogger Sara. Yep, I look pretty tired.

5. Hanging out with other writers is informative and inspirational.

I'll be the first to admit I'm prone to writer jealousy, so you might think that hanging out in groups of authors, many of whom are more successful than me, would be a recipe for disaster. But that's not what happened at all. Part of the reason I even thought I could plan this tour was because I'd heard Victoria Schwab planned tours on her own. I admire so much how she has made a name for herself by being prolific and tenacious. Hearing her and all of the other authors talk about their successes just filled me with this sense of "Hey, I can get to where they are someday, too!" Everyone was so incredibly kind and gracious to each other. Victoria Schwab, Courtney Stevens, and Heather Brewer in particular all shared such wise and thoughtful words that I felt uplifted just being around them.

Memphis was a laid-back event where we spent a lot of time talking about writing craft.

6. Everyone is nervous about the future.

Just like I found inspiration and energy from hearing about other authors' successes, I found comfort in realizing that everyone shares the same fears about their publishing futures. The only way to stay in the industry is to sell more books, and that's never a guarantee until your books have their own theme parks. Hearing authors talk about diversification, hybridization, working with multiple publishers, trying out new genres, etc. made me realize that there are a lot of options when it comes to building a career as an author. 

Dinnertime with Phil, Lindsay, Lydia Kang, and Whitney Miller.
People wearing pink in the back, please :-D

7. Making connections with indie bookstores has a lasting effect.

Setting up a tour like the #MMBB wasn't just about trying to sell a few more copies of our books to a few cities. Unless you are mega-famous, a tour would never pay for itself in that way. For me, it was all about the connections: meeting readers, meeting other authors, and meeting booksellers. When you set up an event with an indie, often times they let you sign stock. Then, after you're gone, your books will continue to sell well because they're signed. And then, maybe the booksellers will remember you and continue to hand sell your books. Maybe they'll be more likely to order your next book. No guarantees, of course, but I sold more than twice as many books in Chicago and St. Louis the week of the tour than I signed on event nights, so I have to partially credit that to the connections made with the bookstores. Indies forever!

Look at all those LAINEYs! Signed copies available throughout the Midwest!

8. St. Louis will always be part of me.

When you spend 35 years in a city, it gets inside of you. As much as I just cannot handle the St. Louis weather anymore, being back in town made me super-nostalgic. I miss my St. Louis author pals like Cole Gibsen, Heather Brewer, and Sarah Bromley. I miss my writer-blogger friends Christina and Jamie. I'm so glad I made the decision to set THE ART OF LAINEY in St. Louis, to highlight the Cardinals and the Arch, Forest Park and Wash U. Sure, some of the places are made up, but many are based on real places where I spent a lot of time--Mississippi Nights? Pi Pizza? Kayaks Cafe? Look hard and you'll find them :) And I'm so glad I got to do this big event with the amazing people at Left Bank Books. They brought me to St. Louis Comic Con, something that will forever be one of my greatest writer experiences. If I ever get famous, I'm signing all the books for Left Bank, no matter where I live at the time. I LOVE YOU GUYS!

Me with Christina from Ensconced in Lit

Me with Jamie from This Isn't Rocket Science

9. Power comes from doing the things that scare you.

A blogger in Houston (hi Nikki!) asked what dystopian world we could survive in and I said I'd be Dauntless in Divergent-land. [Sidebar: Everyone else said they couldn't survive in ANY dystopia and that they'd be killed/eaten first in an apocalypse scenario. This saddened me. Step it up, guys! When the zombie apocalypse comes I want GOOD people for my team :D] I always tell people I'd be Dauntless because even though everything scares me (seriously, everything), I do it anyway. I was scared to plan the tour, scared to go to the events, basically terrified to drive most of the way. I was scared to move to Portland, again terrified to drive there, scared to apply for a new nursing job, scared to quit said nursing job when I sold more books. Going further back, I was scared to live in Korea, scared to pet tigers, scared to ever show my writing to industry professionals. But I did all these things, and now none of them own me. To be honest, I wish I had done most of them sooner. Bravery isn't about not being scared. Bravery is about being scared but doing it anyway! 

Hey! We made the digital sign in Dallas! It doesn't get more powerful than that, right?

10. In the end, it's about the love of books.

Networking and selling copies is great, but in the end a tour should be about celebrating the joy of books with other readers. From Minnesota to Houston, the #MMBB was blessed with good-sized, attentive crowds who were enthusiastic and engaged. I am so grateful to each and every one of you who came out, and to those of you who couldn't make it but still mail-ordered books or spread the word about the events. I say this on basically every Acknowledgments page, but it all comes back to you guys. Without readers, there would be no authors. Thank you for making it possible for us to live our dreams <333

Amazing book cheerleader, blogger, and librarian: Mary from Mary Had a Little Book Blog.
(I swear we're not related. She's just that cool.)

St. Louis had the biggest crowd, but Naperville probably had the most teen attendees.
Thanks for coming to see us! We love you guys!

#Gratitude

The Art of Lainey doesn't officially go on sale until tomorrow, but copies of the book are already appearing on bookstore shelves. Check it out!

Looking fancy at a Florida Books-a-Million!

It's such an exciting and terrifying feeling, but mingled in with all that is this tremendous sense of gratitude. And so today I've created a sort of hybrid playlist** and extended acknowledgments page.

I've talked a lot in different blog posts about how thankful I am to have an agent who is the perfect mix of tough and honest and supportive. She's more than that, though. She's insanely well-connected and business-savvy. She's attentive. She's efficient. She puts up with long angsty emails where I basically worry for pages about nothing, and then she manages to make me feel better in two sentences.

I'm also so grateful for my editor, who really understood my vision for the book and pushed me to make it even better. She was always there to say, diplomatically: "a little too much, maybe?" Who? Me? :-) Yes--it's true. I am the Queen of Too Much when I write. I never hold back. It's easier to remove stuff that's not working than remember that thing I wanted to do but didn't because I was too afraid to go for it. My editor also listened to me obsess over irrelevant minutia and fielded an endless barrage of questions about editing things, promotional things, and other burning concerns. Despite all that, her enthusiasm for Micah  the book never waned.

"How about me enjoying a moment for once?"

(I really wanted that to be a clip of Boyz II Men's Thank You, but I couldn't find a licensed video for it. If you do the Spotify thing, you should check out that song too. Oh, and, just a warning. Alanis Morissette is naked in that video. Don't ask me. It's a good song.)

My friends and family have also been awesome throughout this journey, as have my coworkers in Portland, and my lovely YA Valentines co-bloggers. And #TeamLainey--I have a fantastic street team of people from all over the world who are tweeting and posting and making fan art, some of them for a book they still haven't read! Basically, I am incredibly lucky to have such a fantastic support system.

"Oh, and I might fail. Oh, I might succeed

Whatever the outcome is just keep your faith in me

Just believe in me and I will be there."

But here's what really blows my mind: the immense outpouring of support from strangers who read my book and liked it. Part of my self-guided promotional plan involved reaching out to "big bloggers" and asking for reviews. Most of the people I reached out to read the book and liked it. And then, in many cases, they told their friends to read it. Who then told their friends to read it. And suddenly my book was getting reviewed all over the blogosphere and I was being invited to do giveaways and guest posts on sites with high visibility and traffic.

Many authors believe that blog exposure doesn't help sales, but I can see in the comment streams where reviews written and posted by people I don't know literally changed the minds of their blog followers who weren't going to read my book. That is HUGE. That is just, my heart like swells up and splits open thinking about it. You spent your time writing reviews and answering comments essentially telling people to read The Art of Lainey and now they are. And every read matters. I know one girl on twitter who got the ARC passed to her by a friend and she loved the book so much she sponsored her own giveaway. She's been telling everyone to read it. [ETA: Another giveaway has sprung up, sponsored by another kind reader!] You can't buy that kind of enthusiasm with marketing dollars. You guys--the blogosphere--you got the word out for me so that people who would love the book are managing to find it. Every read matters. Every review matters. Every sale matters. No matter how many books I sell, some of those sales will be because of you. Thank you for being so kind and generous.

"For your kindness I'm in debt to you

And I never could have come this far without you."

Got #gratitude? What are you feeling grateful for today?


**All videos were uploaded to youtube by the content rights holder and are embedded in this post without infringement.