COME SEE ME: CROSSROADS REVIEW LIVE!

I'll be joining Jessica at Crossroad Reviews for a live chat about all things SPARK June 15th 2 PM EST!

I hope to see you there!





Links:
Google Event
YouTube


If you'd like to shoot me a question beforehand to be asked on air, feel free to drop it into the comments here or email them to: hollyschindlerbooks (at) gmail (dot) com.

CROSSROAD REVIEWS - #AUTHORCHAT + GIVEAWAY: FERAL AND PLAYING HURT

Another great show! I always love my visits with Jessica at Crossroad Reviews. I got some great questions from readers for the chat--about when PLAY IT AGAIN will release, whether there will ever be a sequel to FERAL, and what my writing process is like. I even got a chance to provide a bit of a preview about SPARK, my forthcoming YA!

Grab a cup of coffee, settle into your favorite chair, and join me as I talk about my work from my own office:


You can also enter to win a copy of FERAL or PLAYING HURT; the giveaway will run for the next two weeks. Enter to win here.

COME SEE ME: CROSSROAD REVIEWS #AUTHORCHAT

Come see me June 30, 3 pm EST via Google+ for an Author Chat with Crossroads Reviews. This will be my second appearance, and I can tell you from experience that Jessica's an incredible host. It's bound to be a fantastic talk, as we discuss all my work, including the indie release FIFTH AVENUE FIDOS and the forthcoming PLAY IT AGAIN, the sequel to my YA romance PLAYING HURT. You'll also have a chance to win a copy of FERAL (YA psychological thriller) and PLAYING HURT (to find out for yourself how Clint and Chelsea's love story began).

For more information on the show, visit Crossroad Reviews.

Can't be there but want to ask a question? Shoot me a question at hollyschindlerbooks (at) gmail (dot) com, and I'll be sure it gets on the air.

#READON CHAT + GIVEAWAY

The #ReadOn chat Saturday was a ton of fun, thanks to Jessica of Crossroad Reviews, as well as Laurie Boyle Crompton (who also blogs with me at YA Outside the Lines) and Mindy McGinnis.  You can view the full show here:

Also, be sure to get in on the giveaway of our books here.

HOLLYSCHINDLER.COM REDESIGN

After five years, it was seriously time for a website redesign.  The update went live this morning:

Check out the full site here.

ON TUMBLR!

I wasn’t really sure what to make of Tumblr, at first…But after starting my own blog on Tumblr last week, I’ve quickly become obsessed with the site.  While I still absolutely love getting a chance to share longer posts here at my author blog, there's just something so incredibly challenging about keeping it short and sweet on sites like Tumblr (cutting out all the fat can be a real struggle for anyone who's a novelist at heart)!  There’s also something fascinating about how such quick, blurb-like posts have a way (over time) of painting a picture of the blogger.  One of my favorite features of Tumblr, though, is the way Q & A with another blogger can become a post in and of itself (as opposed to being a stream of comments at the end of a post):

How about you?  What’s the best—most fun or most useful—social networking site you’ve taken part in lately?

FACEBOOK GIVEAWAY

In honor of reaching the 200-mark on my Facebook author page, I'm running a new giveaway! I'll be giving out one PLAYING HURT swag pack, featuring a PLAYING HURT button, signed bookmark, and signed bookplate (below):


I'll also be giving two signed shelf talkers. I originally distributed these to booksellers and librarians when PLAYING HURT released, and have only a small number left (they feature the same graphic that's been running at my author website):



I've never given any shelf talkers to readers or bloggers before, but they'd make a great addition to your own bookshelves!

To enter, head on over to my Facebook author page and become a fan. Write "enter" on my wall, and you're in the running. Giveaway runs through this Sunday, March 11.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY + INSPIRATION

My hometown of Springfield was recently named one of Amazon's most romantic cities! In honor of both this distinction and the upcoming holiday, a vlog post:



Instead of giving out chocolate hearts to my followers, I'm offering another treat: I'm rerunning a guest post, which recently appeared on Adventures in YA & Children's Publishing. The post, which details my long road to publication (and how, in the course of two hours in one day, I suddenly had both an agent and book deal), got quite a bit of attention online. I'm running it here in the hopes that it will continue to offer sweet bursts of inspiration, to those still chasing their first publication:


When I got my master’s in ’01, my mom invited me to stay home and devote full-time effort to getting a writing career off the ground (my lifelong dream). I figured it’d take a year or so to write a novel, then it’d sell (I was lucky enough to have placed poetry, short fiction, and literary critique in journals when I was in college, and was under the grand delusion that selling a manuscript would be a breeze for me), and in oh, two years or so, I’d have money in the bank, and I’d be off and running.

Okay, seriously. You can stop laughing now.

The truth is that I spent the next seven and a half years writing and submitting manuscript after manuscript…after manuscript. In that time, my friends from college finished up PhDs, started teaching, doing research, became professionals. I often felt like all I had was a deep gash in the drywall where I’d spent months upon months banging my head against it. And rejection slips. Hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of them—more than a thousand in all.

Enter the holiday season of ’08. That’s when my YA, A BLUE SO DARK, was under submission at Flux. I spoke to Brian (Farrey, acquisitions editor at Flux) for the first time just before Thanksgiving, and though I tried to play it cool, I spent Christmas on pins and needles, tied up in knots, hoping that finally the acceptance I’d been working toward for so long would appear.

Appear it did, just a few days after the new year. And literally two hours—I swear it’s true—two hours after I accepted the offer from Flux, the phone rang. On the other end of the line was an agent who was raving about a middle grade book I’d sent earlier that fall. With an offer of representation.

I accepted (Deborah Warren later sold my debut MG, THE JUNCTION OF SUNSHINE AND LUCKY, to Dial, and is still my agent). After that initial phone call, though, in the winter of ’09, I just stood in my kitchen, dazed, wondering how it could have happened. Seven and a half years I’d been seeking a book deal, seeking representation. And in the course of two hours in one day, I had both.

The thing is, though, I can’t attribute that incredible day to luck or holiday magic. That day is the result of hard work. Period. That day happened because I really did read every single one of those thousand-plus rejection letters (more than eighty of them were rejections for A BLUE SO DARK). Painful as it sometimes was, I didn’t just toss those rejections in the trash, insist I was right, and continue to submit the same book over and over. I digested the critique and I dove back in, revising before submitting again.

For the most part, though, I really think that’s what luck is really made of: the ability to recognize your own shortcomings, the willingness to listen to advice, and the sweat of some insanely hard work.

A HOLIDAY GIFT: A BLUE SO DARK FOR 99 CENTS!

I'm so excited about this: right now, for just .99, you can grab yourselves a Kindle copy of A BLUE SO DARK! And, to accompany this fantastic offer, I will sign your Kindle copy through Kindlegraph!

Spread the word, my lovely bloggers...

YOU CAN "LIKE" ME, REALLY "LIKE" ME

Yup, it's true...I just created my own "fan" page at Facebook!

Be sure to head on over to the page and give 'er the old thumbs up:

Holly Schindler on Facebook