A BIG SQUEEEEE, for Michelle McLean!!!

You have no idea how happy I am to announce my good friend Michelle McLean's book deal for her Historical Romance, TREASURED LIES in PM:

Here it is:

This makes me so happy and proud. Michelle and I know each other for quite a few years, supporting each other through the various ups and downs of our careers. In fact, Michelle, who has also has a nonfiction book Homework Helpers: Essays and Term Papers, from Career Press, even helped my daughter to a research paper!

Since last fall Michelle and I have been working closely on a picture book project (which for us seems to be harder than almost anything else we have ever done). In between, we had a little distraction—as in our novels sold WITHIN TWO WEEKS of each other. (we've known about this for awhile but had to keep it hush, hush.).

Now I am happy to shout about it! We both said that 2012 was going to be our year.

I guess, so far, it has!

Congrats to you my wonderful partner and pal! You rock!!! Here's to more sales this year (and getting that darned picture book done!)

And, in case you'd like to congratulate her on her website (recently dressed up for the big occasion by yours truly) here are the links:

Blog: http://michellemclean.blogspot.com/

Website: http://www.authormichellemclean.com/

So can I toot my own horn?

Here is something I am very proud of! The book cover I designed for Crescent Moon Press for author Berinn Rae for her forthcoming book, HELLBOUND. Good luck on your release, Berinn!

http://www.fictional-distraction.com/cover-reveal-hellbound-by-berinn-rae/#comment-9434


Here is the link to Crescent Moon Press:
http://crescentmoonpress.com/Authors/BRae.html

DRUMROLL, please!!!! WINNERS!!!!!

The grand prize winner of a total blog banner redesign along with some template tinkering and advice AND a partial read from Victoria Marini

goes to:

SANDI B. JONES. *take a bow, Ms. Jones*

You know what, Sandi, your entry and comment about the Care Bears really did crack me up, but that wasn't what finally won me over.  First, let me say, everyone made wonderfully persuasive pleadings. Everyone dutifully tweeted, followed, etc. Some even retweeted my every utterance, which did sway me somewhat. But then I looked at the blogs. I noted: activity, amount of followers, attempts to make blog pretty..and I decided that Sandi has been tireless in her efforts to make her blog wonderful..and it IS wonderful. And you know, I want my efforts to really make a difference. I firmly believe, that Sandi has knocked herself out with her blog--but she needs that extra something that makes it all work. She needs that redesign to take her to the next level. She's tried really hard. I want to give her the boost she has earned.

So congrats, Sandi! Your blog sold me and I can just picture how wonderful we are going to make it.


and for second prize:

Totally no less deserving and really, just as fabulous and interesting, Sarah, you are cool--and so deserving. So we can talk---but in the mean time, you get:

A copy of Meredith Zeitlin's new book and an signed book from Heidi Ayarbe along with some cool swag!

SARAH AHLERS accept your prize!!!

So, winners DM, email whatever. I need an address for the second prize winner and an email from the first prize winner.

I'll be forwarding your partial to Victoria and brainstorming ideas. When we are done--we are going to hoot holler and plan some kind of shebang, Sandi, okay?

WOOT!! and thanks everyone for all the tweets, hollers, pleadings. I feel privileged to have met all of you and hope we can all be in contact and support each other as writers!

I am actually almost ready to announce...

But you know--it was such a tough choice. I feel like I want to help all of you--soooo---I'm going to REALLY uber help the grand prize winner (like even advise on blog templates, etc) and for everyone else, if you agree to host a blog tour interview for both Heidi and me when we need it, I will redo your blog banner in return.

Does that sound fair? You are all wonderful and deserving. I just happened to have found ONE who I think for various reasons, as in blog activity, effort, amount of followers and general personal coolness that came across in the blog, should be the grand prize winner. The second prize winner, is equally as cool, but for whatever reason, the GRAND prize winner's blog just screamed--'please, PLEASE, help me--I need this so badly! I'm working my little tail off here!"

Do you know who you are? You're going to find out TODAY!!!! Woohoo!! And I can't wait to FIX YOU UP!!!

Contest is officially over. Winners to be announced at week's end!

Yep---there were a lot of great entries. So I'm going to read through them, check out blogs and decide. If the deciding gets to hard (which I think it might) I'm just going to throw the names into a hat!

Book Deal for Breaking Glass

I've had it all over on Twitter and Facebook, but I guess it's time I put the news on my blog.

My book, BREAKING GLASS, is due out in June 2013 from Spencer Hill Press. Thank you to my agent Victoria Marini for her support and unflagging belief in my writing.

Here is a snippet:

Now (November 17th)

Outside the dinner theater lobby, the glow of street lamps barely penetrates the thick mist that shrouds the parking lot. It’s the kind of night that Jack the Ripper might have prowled the cobblestoned streets of London searching for victims.

In the lobby, fresh from the standing ovation he’s received as Tony in our production of Westside Story, my best friend Ryan Morgan is surrounded by a crush of people. For two weeks running his performance has been drawing crowds from all over Westchester County, his surprising star turn unprecedented for a high school junior.

I glance around furtively, but no one notices the lighting guy. Truth is, my hearts not in theater. I’m only working weekends to pad my college applications and my wallet. So, I take a minute to study the latest text from Susannah Durban, Ryan’s girlfriend of three years. Heat creeps to my cheeks.

For the past year Susannah’s been inexplicably texting me with Youtube links to her haunting stop-action animations. I watch her half-clothed body drift across the screen draped with filmy gauze, her dark bronze hair and golden skin amid floating leaves, graveyards, ballet dancers, Indian goddesses and scattered words in Hebrew and English, most of which make no sense.

But other than telling me the link is private and to keep it our little secret, Susannah never mentions them when I see her. Neither do I.

Yet if I could dive into my iPhone and swim beside her, an exotic fish in her private world, I would do it and never look back.

And Ryan would kill me. Best friends don’t want to do their best friend’s girlfriend. I think that’s written somewhere.

I glance behind me. Ryan is intertwined with Claudia Herman, the community college girl who plays Maria. Claudia’s hot. And she’s slept with the whole track team. I think of Susannah, mercifully out of town on a college visit.

My phone vibrates. Susannah again. This time it’s an actual text.

I clench my jaw and look away from Ryan and his latest fling, sworn to silence by the Guy Code of Honor.

Jeremy! guess what. i’m here! got n earlier flight

I peer out into night then glance at Ryan again.

Shit.

Claudia has one toned leg coiled around Ryan’s tall frame like a boa constrictor. I fumble with my phone. Texting under pressure has never been my strong suit. 

And please enter my contest! (see below)

Amazing Blog Banner Redesign, Agent Critique and Signed Book Giveaway Contest

UPDATE: the five page crit offer has been upped to a PARTIAL READ from Ms. Marini!

Well, here it is the long awaited (yeah, right) contest wherein I spread some design goodness, agent awesomeness, critique-buddy genius and agent-buddy coolness.

I decided to do this because, ahem--I admit it--I am a design snob. Yes--there--I'm out with it. Not that I consider myself a design genius, but I do teach it and do it quite extesively--way longer than I have been writing. So, I felt it my duty to help authors, all of us whom are struggling to get ourselves heard and our books read, with a cool new blog look. I had done Heidi Ayarbe's a number of years ago and decided she't totally grown out of it. We both decided she needed a blog/website look that matched the beautiful style of her books. So we branded her with a website that feels like Heidi's writing.

I also thought my own blog needed an update and was in a bit of a pickle. Not only do I write spooky, dark YA, but I illustrate sweet light-hearted childrens' books. The whole dark spooky thing may match my writing, but it is not who I am. In fact, one of my students said I needed a banner that says it all about me. I STILL have to get on that website--but that will happen very soon.

So, in honor of the release of Heidi's new book, WANTED, coming this May, (and the arrival of something else into her life---but I'll let her tell you about that) she and I decided to run this dual contest.

You can enter either here, or on Heidi's blog:

http://heidiayarbe.blogspot.com

or right here.

What's really exciting is that my uber-wonderful agent, Victoria Marini, a PARTIAL READ to the prizes along with a signed arc of Meredith Zeitlin's forthcoming book, FRESHMAN YEAR AND OTHER UNNATURAL DISASTERS.

SO HERE ARE THE PRIZES:

First Prize: A custom designed blog banner by yours truly, personalized to best express "your brand". A critique of the first 5 pages of your manuscript by Victoria Marini.


Second Prize: A signed copy of COMPROMISED, by Heidi Ayarbe, including an array of swag, and a signed arc of FRESHMAN YEAR AND OTHER UNNATURAL DISASTERS, by the ridiculously multitalented Meredith Zeitlin.

If you really want a blog banner and don't win---we can talk.

Entry Eligibility:

This contest is for writers, readers and reviewers of young adult, middle grade and picture books. Picture book writers--I should warn you--we can't really offer you a critique if you win, so we'll have to come up with something else.

CONTEST RULES:

To be entered in this contest you need to do the following:

Follow both mine AND Heidi's blog, then tweet or facebook about it.
In the comments on either my blog or Heidi's, in a brief paragraph, tell us why you are so desperately in need of a new banner design. Include a link if you want to garner sympathy. We are not reviewing writing samples, so if your pitch for the banner impresses us, we figure your writing will, too!

DEADLINE:

The contest is open-ended. We'll probably close it at 50 entries or in two weeks, which ever comes sooner. Judging will be based on how cool we think you are and how uncool your website is in comparison! Or, if it just gets too tough to decide, I may have to pull comment numbers out of a hat.
Friends of mine--it would be better if you enter anonymously so I can't be accused of favoritism--but I guess you can't provide your link either.

Anyway--that's my contest! Hope you all enter---I want to fix every writers brand--one blog at a time!

to review other blog banners I've designed check this out:
http://lisa-amowitzya.blogspot.com/2012/02/blog-redesign.html

Stay tuned, because I am also branching out into cover design for Independently published authors.

Oh yeah--and I write books. My latest is called BREAKING GLASS, about a boy and his crush--who comes back from the grave to haunt him--and I will have some news on that very soon.