#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.

The Mighty Mississippi Book Blast!

Guys, GUYS! I have spent the last few months organizing an awesome tour type of thing with fellow YA Valentine Philip Siegel. We wanted to do a week's worth of events. We wanted to gather as many awesome YA writer-friends as possible. Oh, and since I grew up in St. Louis and Philip currently lives in Chicago, we wanted to bring bookish awesomeness to the middle of the country.

Today, exactly two months from our first event date, Philip and I are proud to release all the information about the Mighty Mississippi Book Blast! Running from July 14th through July 20th, the #MMBB will be bringing YA authors from all over the U.S. to cities from Wayzata, Minnesota to Houston, Texas.

Check out all the details on the fantastic tumblr page made by Phil!

LAINEY RELEASE MAYHEM!!

Okay, if you know me at all then you know I've got all kinds of giveaways and fun stuff planned for The Art of Lainey's release! Be prepared for nonstop partying between now and May 20th!

Random scary cheese factory machine, because studies have shown blog posts with pictures get more attention. Also, I like cheese a lot.

Will there be blog tours? Two of them! Both chock-a-block with trivia, interviews, helpful advice from Lainey and Bee, Micah, and more Micah. What about chances to win the book? Absolutely! Will there be ways to get postcards signed by all the main characters? Yup (as Micah would say.) What about the novella, INFINITE REPEAT? Yeah, I'll be giving pre-orders of that away too in the next few weeks.

For all the info, check out this blog post over at Ensconced in Lit! I <3 you, Christina!

Kittehs!! In case you're feeling a little freaked out by that scary cheese factory machine. Look--Taz is sleeping with one eye open. He knows I'm up to no good.

WIN-WIN-WIN: Get Signed Books and Help an Indie Bookstore Help Kids

So my heart broke a little bit when I found out my beloved St. Louis indie, Left Bank Books was closing its downtown St. Louis store. Teen Specialist, Sarah, assured me this was a business decision involving an issue with the lease and that the company is still going strong. There are talks of expanding the flagship (45 years selling books!) Central West End store or possibly opening up a second location elsewhere in the city.

This is the Central West End store in my old neighborhood, still going strong!

The people from Left Banks Books have always been fantastic to me. They had me sign tons of stock, invited me to do events with them, ran a pre-order contest for my first book (writing as Fiona Paul), and got me on a panel at STL ComicCon, even though Venom is the least ComicCon-ish book ever. Did you know it was always my dream to go to a ComicCon? I'm happy my first CC experience was with Left Bank in St. Louis. It made me less nervous to know I was among friends. All of my events with LBB were more fun than scary, because I knew they had my back. No one there ever made me feel like I wasn't important because I wasn't a mega bestseller.

And they make their customers feel important too. I know this personally, but if you don't, you can see it reflected in their reviews on yelp, among other places.

I don't live in St. Louis anymore, but when I needed a location for a St. Louis event for the forthcoming Mighty Mississippi Book Blast tour that I set up with my friend Philip Siegel (more on that in May), Left Bank Books was only too happy to accommodate us.

And when I needed a store who was willing to offer signed, personalized copies of my books, once again Left Banks Books said they'd be happy to help me out.

So, as a way to pay back some of this kindness, I am going to donate a dollar (up to a max of $5000) to the Left Bank Books foundation for every signed copy of my books ordered before July 4th, 2014. The LBB foundation works to increase literacy in St. Louis. In their own words: The Foundation’s primary program is River City Readers, a project to bring books and authors to St. Louis Public School students. We intend to expand these efforts and expand the definition of literacy itself.

It'r true that ordering from Left Bank means paying an additional dollar for a paperback or a few dollars more for a hardcover compared to the cheapest internet deal. But you'll get a signed (and personalized, if you like!) copy of one of my books and a bookmark for The Art of Lainey, featuring the iconic St. Louis Arch. You'll also be supporting an indie bookstore, the lovely bookish people who work there, and the 2012 BEA Bookstore Cat of the Year.

Spike sez: Dear human. Support me, or else.

I have personally snuggled Spike (well, he's not much of a snuggler, but he put up with me stalking him and picking him up on repeated occasions) and can vouch for his awesomeness. He's so awesome he gets to do his own staff picks.

And since your purchase means a dollar toward the foundation, you can think of that "extra dollar" you're spending as also helping get books into the hands of kids who need them. That's what I call a WIN-WIN-WIN situation. Unfortunately, this incentive has to be limited to US buyers because international mailing would be prohibitively expensive and complicated for the store. But if you are an international reader and you donate any amount of money to the Left Bank Books Foundation via their website, I will send you a signed bookplate and bookmark.

The only catch: Because I don't live in St. Louis anymore, I won't be available to sign your books until early July when I return to visit my friends and fam. So, if you support Left Bank Books and literacy in St. Louis by buying from this link between now and July 4th, you will not receive your purchases until July. But hey, your TBR pile is probably huge. You don't mind waiting, if it's for a good cause, do you? :-) Be sure to note in the special instructions if you want your book personalized to you or someone else. They make great gifts *wink* :-D

Thank you for reading. Thank you for thinking about supporting indie bookstores, their staff, and their awesome bookstore cats.

The Fan Art of Lainey!!

A few weeks ago, I ran a contest with my awesome street team and challenged them to make some fan art. Here are the fun responses I got, along with a couple additional fan art moments thrown in from last year when the cover first released.

Inky from Book Haven Extraordinaire did her best cover pose. It's eerie how much she looks like the cover model!

Nikki  from Fiction Freak gave the cover a fun Halloween makeover!

Kayla from The Bibliophilic Nerds redoes the cover with her fave Pokemon!

Lorena from Brasilian Book Lover went with a Pokemon theme too!

Nikki from Fiction Freak redid the cover Nikki-style!

Kim from Divergent Gryffindor created a cool cover-themed outfit!

Sara from Forever 17 Books had her son draw this pic of the cover!

 

Eli and Frances turned Lainey into an anime girl!

Got fan art? Anyone, anywhere, who emails me some LAINEY-related art will automatically win an extended swag pack to include bookmarks, postcards, magnets, and buttons. I'm also going to put all of my fan art in my blog sidebar because I appreciate your efforts so much :) Happy reading and art-making!