THE LOST SAINT Paperback Cover

Hello Readers,

I need your help. The US paperback edition of THE LOST SAINT comes out on November 22nd and we are asking YOU to help us choose the cover. Over on the Facebook fan pages for THE DARK DIVINE and THE LOST SAINT we have posted the original cover that appeared on the hardcover edition, and the shiny new cover concept below.

(You can get a larger view of the covers by clicking on the pics posted on Facebook.)

Head on over to Facebook by clicking HERE or HERE and pick your favorite cover by liking the corresponding post.

As an added (and super special) bonus, the first 100 (and possibly more) people to cast their votes will be granted access to an exclusive read of THE SAVAGE GRACE's first chapter!*
Update: Now the first 200 voters will be granted access to the exclusive sneak peek.*

Voting ends September 9th.

Ready….
Set…

GO!

*Voters will be granted access to TSG's first chapter via Netgalley before the end of September 2011. (That's almost 2 months earlier than anyone else will get to see it!)

May the best cover win.

I'm Officially Official!!!

We interrupt our normal broadcast of The Dark Divine Play-list/Soundtrack to bring you a very special announcement . . .

Actually, before the announcement, I would like to direct your attention to the header of my blog. It used to say, "Yep, I'm an aspiring YA author (status pending)." But if you look at it closely, you will notice a couple of small changes that make a huge difference--as in, the "aspiring" part has been removed . . .and the status is no longer pending. Do you see it? Do you? Huh? Huh?

Okay, just in case I'm being too subtle for anyone out there, I'll just go ahead and say it:

I SOLD MY BOOK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'M A REAL AUTHOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A PUBLISHED AUTHOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Can you believe it?

I almost can. It's almost sunk in. I've almost convinced myself that I'm not asleep and having the most amazing dream ever.

And not only did they buy my book, they bought a second one from me. One I haven't even written yet! How freaking cool is that?

They like me! They really like me!!

Dude, all I can say is that Agent Ted seriously rocks the casbah! (Which is the term we use in our house for the highest form of praise.)

In fact, I think we should all have a moment of silence in honor of Agent Ted's awesomeness. Starting right now . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Okay, that's enough. We don't want Ted to get a big head.

So how did it all go down, you ask? Well I'll tell you.

1. I got an agent. (To read about how that went down, click here)

2. Agent Ted had me do revisions for about a month (for more on this, click here)

3. Agent Ted gave the manuscript the green light and sent it out on submissions. He also banned me from talking about the submissions process on my blog . . .so, sorry I haven't been a fount of juicy tidbits lately.

4. One month later, on December 18th (which has been an extremely important date in my life for the last 6 years, so the fact that this phone call came on this day is the absolute most perfect form of karma ever--and if you don't know the significance of this date to me, then click here) Ted called me out of the blue--and I didn't answer. Seriously, I thought he was a telemarketer so I let one of the most important calls of my life go to voicemail. To be fair, he was calling from a totally different phone number than usual (with a totally different area code). So anyway, when I listened to my voicemail a few minutes later and heard Ted's voice telling me to call him back right away . . .I completely freaked out and almost lost all ability to press the little digit buttons on my phone.

Ted answered but he was on the subway so it was kind of hard to hear him when he said in an oh so somber voice, "Oh, hey, so I called you because I have some really bad news."

Right then my stomach attempted to fold itself inside out. No joke. And I was like, "What?" And my mind was racing, trying to think of what could possibly be so bad that he would have to call me in person instead of email (our normal form of communication). Did he decide to drop me as his client because he realized that my manuscript was unsellable? Did someone accuse me of lifting ten whole pages from someone else 's novel and inserting them into mine? (Not that anyone would ever actually do that.) Did he decide that his true calling in life was to be a go-go dancer so he's dumping all of his clients and moving to Las Vegas?

So then Ted says, all serious, (did I ever mention that he's also an actor) "Are you ready for this? Because the reason I called is to tell you that I can no longer call you one of my. . ."

Me: Crap, crap, crap! He is dropping me as his client.

Ted: " . . .unpublished authors!"

Me: "You big dork!!"

Okay, so that's not what I actually said. I was more like, "Seriously?!"

And then Ted went on to tell me about this really awesome offer that we had just received from Regina Griffin from Egmont USA, while I tried really really hard to stay all calm and professional and not start screaming like a 13-year-old-Jonas-Brothers-fan.

5. (Yeah, cause remember this was a list way back up there) Ted told me that the offer was good, but that there was still more negotiating to do, so I'd have to sit tight over the holidays. (Because the entire publishing industry shuts down from the week before Christmas until after the new year.) Oh yeah, and he told me I wasn't allowed to tell anyone (other than close friends and family) and especially no blogging!

6. I tried to stay sane over the holidays. Tried not to blurt out the news to every friend I saw at every party. Tried not to check my email every 5 seconds just in case something new developed on Christmas Eve. Tried not to have nightmares that all of New York City had imploded over night, sucking Agent Ted and Egmont publishing into the center of the earth--therefore rendering the publishing offer null and void. And even tried out how it would sound to introduce myself as an author on a couple of random strangers.

7. Negotiations reconvened on Jan 5th--and Ted called me again on the 7th with an even better offer from Egmont. He told me to "sleep on it" and contact him in the morning.

8. Attempted to "sleep on it," but no actual sleeping happened.

9. Emailed Ted with my answer at 5:00am and went back to bed. (Actually slept for about two hours until I got up and started an all-day vigil in front of the computer, waiting for Ted's latest update.)

10. Realized my back was killing me, so I decided to pull myself away from the computer in order to go to my chiropractor appointment. Arrived home an hour and a half later and discovered that I had forgotten my phone--and had missed a call, and an email from Ted, saying I needed to call him back asap.

11. After a lengthy game of phone-tag, Ted and I touched bases at 7:00 pm New York time--when it was now too late to finalize things with Regina.

12. Had another sleepless night, and an all day computer vigil (even checked the news a couple of times to make sure NYC hadn't imploded) until I got the email from Ted saying that everything was official--and that I was finally allowed to tell the world.

13. I started calling, emailing, and blogging in order to let everyone I've ever met know that I am officially a published author!!!

So anyway, thanks for sticking with me through this LONG post. But you can't rush a girl who has been waiting 9 years to tell this kind of news. I am basking. I am glowing. I'm so happy, I just might puke. . . or that might be from the fact that I ate my weight in Massaman curry at our celebration dinner. Mmmm . . .

Anyway, here are the details I'm able to share at the moment:

I have a two book deal (the second book still to be determined--it might be a sequel) with Egmont-USA (who is the brand new US branch of the European powerhouse publisher Egmont-UK) and my editor is the amazing Regina Griffin (who has edited many YA greats including Walter Dean Myers and Cynthia Voigt). If you would like to learn more about Egmont-USA, their publisher, staff, and forthcoming books, click here.

More details to come (I promise). And for those of you who came here looking for a new song from the play-list, I'll double post songs tomorrow.

And THANK YOU to everyone who has helped me get to this wonderful day: Agent Ted, Editor Regina, my writer peeps, my parents, my siblings, my many teachers and mentors, my kids (for being patient--and yes, now we can go to Disneyland), and most especially my super freaking awesome husband (who puts up with all my neurosis, and is my #1 cheerleader).

I have a big announcement . . .and no, I'm NOT pregnant

I have an agent!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(I'd go on with the exclamation points, but I think you get the point.) I have accepted representation with the fabulous Ted Malawer of Firebrand Literary. I can finally say those four wonderful words I've been waiting to say for the last NINE years: I have an agent! I can also say things like those writers in movies who are terribly busy and successful--things like, "I don't know, let me check with my agent," or "My agent just called," or "Run that by my agent." I'm giddy just thinking about it.

So for my friends who don't know what an agent does (and can't figure out why I'm so excited), an agent is someone who sells your book for you, brokers your publishing contracts, manages your career, and tells you that you are wonderful and talented when your crippling self-doubt gets out of hand. Since 80% of publishing houses won't even look at your manuscripts if you don't have an agent (I totally made up that figure, but it's close, if not on the low side), getting an agent is like getting the "golden ticket" and then eventually moving on to the final 3 on American Idol. It's not a guarantee you'll get published, but it ups your odds by about 95% (yet another made up statistic, but it's close, I swear). The biggest conundrum in the publishing industry is that it is nearly impossible to get published without an agent, but almost more impossible to get an agent without being published. Seriously, why would anyone wonder why writers are so neurotic?

So you can see why little old me is so darn excited.

For anyone who is wondering, this is how the process went (Warning, this goes on for a bit):

1. Wrote a book.

2. Revised, revised, revised, and revised book some more.

3. Realized 1st book was just for practice and started a second book

4. Repeated step 2 (plus a little more)

5. Sent queries (1 page letter describing yourself and your book) for the 2nd book to about a dozen agents. Half flat out rejected it. Half asked to read the first few chapters of the book. One or two asked to read the whole thing. In the end, all rejected it with positive feedback and well-wishes . . .they "liked" it, but weren't "in love" with it.

6. Being several months pregnant and void of all brain-power, I decided to put the book away for awhile and let it percolate.

7. Started a 3rd book and after several months, ideas for the 2nd book started conflicting with the third.

8. Put the 3rd book in a drawer and picked up the 2nd book again (almost 1 year after I put it away) and set to work completely rewriting 75% of the novel and adding 101 pages of new content.

9. Had the first chapter critiqued by an editor at a conference who said she loved the story and wanted to see the rest of it as soon as it was finished (May 2008). Joy. Self doubt. Stress. Panic.

10. Sent MS off to the editor at the end of August 2008

11. Decided to look for an agent instead of twiddling my thumbs

12. Did research and narrowed my list to about 8 agents who I thought would be the best fit for my manuscript.

13. Wrote query, showed it to writers groups, revised, revised, and revised it some more

14. Sent very first query to the top agent on my list with the first 2 pages (What was I thinking?! Who queries their top choice first?)

15. Sent out second query with client referral and first 5 pages. Got immediate response asking to see the full!

16. A couple of days later, #1 agent responded asking for the full asap because he's leaving on a trip and wants to take my MS with him!!!

17. Sent MS right away. Obsessively checked email for a few days. Convinced self that both agents were probably never going to respond even though it had been less than a week. Sent out 3 more queries without any pages of my MS. Got almost immediate rejections on all 3. One rejection came in less than 2 minutes from when I sent the email query (Was that a world record?) Major self doubt ensued.

18. Wait, exactly one week after sending full to agent #1, got email saying that he's almost done reading the manuscript and he LOVES it. Wants to show it to the other agents in his office on the following Tuesday. Do I have a synopsis I can send him for the other agents to look at? Sure, I have a synopsis. It's over here somewhere . . .

19. Hurried and wrote a synopsis. (Actually, I had a synopsis but I hadn't revised it since I sent out the manuscript the first time over two years before--and it stank!)

20. Sent synopsis Monday morning. Got one of the best emails of my life from agent #1 outlining all of the things he loved about my book and promising to get back to me after his meeting on Tuesday.

21. Tuesday came and went and no matter how many times I refreshed my email--no email from agent #1 appeared. Major self-doubt ensued. . .convinced self that the other agents must have hated the manuscript and convinced #1 that he must be on drugs if he liked it. They're staging an intervention right now . . .

22. Wednesday afternoon: received email saying he got great feedback from other agents and wants to call me on Friday so we can chat. Later that afternoon, received email from agent #2 with a very complimentary rejection of the manuscript with an invitation to send other materials. Couldn't care less--still doing the happy dance about #1.

23. Thursday: another email asking if we can postpone chat until Saturday. (Somebody just shoot me now. I can't take the anticipation anymore!) Used the meantime to do more research on #1, talked to a couple of his clients. Convinced self that he must just be calling to give me some revision notes or something. Husband said, "Why would he call you on a SATURDAY for that?"

24. Paced anxiously around the house for the next 48 hours and practically jumped out of my skin when the phone rang and then sat down and gave the fakest-calm, "Hello . . .this is she. Hi, Ted . . ." you've ever heard. And to make this very, very long story short: He offered representation and I accepted. The happy dance has yet to stop at our house!

So that's the story in a very large nutshell. And since Ted is an awesome agent, I will hopefully have more announcements to come in the next few months. So stay tuned . . .

P.S. Thank you to all of my friends, family, and teachers who have supported me, and helped me revise over all these years. You know who you are. XOXOXOXOXOXO