Christina Farley and Gilded

Did you hear the great news?

Christina Farley has sold a book!

Her YA paranormal Gilded sold to Amazon Children's Publishing. Read more about it over on her blog and check out her generous giveaway to celebrate her big news! There's still time to enter.

Day 4: I'm Bored Celebration

I don't know about you, but I've always thought potatoes were kind of a boring vegetable. So how surprised was I when I went into my kitchen on the release day of I'M BORED, only to find....a potato celebration party!

I think seeing a fellow potato illustrated in a picture book went to their heads...or their hats, anyway.

These two had a lot to say:

So I was wrong. Potatoes are not boring. Still don't believe me? You'd better check out I'M BORED, and see for yourself.

Even better, you can win a copy of I'M BORED by commenting on this post. For even more chances to win, comment on all of our MiG Blog posts this week:

 Day 1: Happy Book Birthday to I’M BORED

Day 2: I’M BORED Celebration

Day 3: The Celebration Contest Continues (and is not boring)

Or tweet about our celebration and mention it in your comment.

 

 

 Our contest closes Sunday September 9 so make sure you get your entries in!

 

To find out more about I'M BORED and Debbie Ridpath Ohi's illustrations, visit her I'M BORED Scrapbook.

Winner and a great idea

Hi everyone,

I apologize for the delay in getting back but I’m happy to announce the winner of the Linda Joy Singleton “pay it forward” contest is

Laura Barnes! *clap clap clap*

Thank you very much, everyone, for commenting. (And to Linda Joy for stopping by!) Laura, I’ll be in touch shortly to get your address.

And now for the great idea from my daughter. Last night I was complaining because I was having one of those “My book sucks” days. She asked me if I’d seen that commercial where the dieting man hires the mean girls from his daughter’s junior high to follow him around and make comments when he eats something unhealthy. They say something like, “Dude. Eww. That is so gross.”

“Wouldn’t be cool if you could hire someone to follow you around and say nice things all the time, Mom?” my daughter asked.

She's right. Wouldn’t that be awesome?

My daughter and I decided the group should say, “Girl. OMG. That chapter is sooo good!”

Just think about how much more - and better - work we could get done if we had constant encouragement. Maybe next time I hear that “I suck” voice in my head, I’ll stop and do my best 14-year-old nice girl impression.

Who’s with me? :-)

Winner of 7 Wonders Book!

Today we are announcing the winner of the autographed  copy of Carmella Van Vleet's latest book,  Seven Wonders of the World: Discover Amazing Monuments to Civilization.

The winner is....

brookefav

You should be receiving an email from us soon. Please respond back with your mailing address so you can get your book.

The Winners!

It's now time to announce our winners of our "Congratulations Debbie Ohi Contest!"

The winner of CHICKEN, PIG, COW by Ruth Ohi is Tracy Mangold!

And the winner of THE GREAT GILLY HOPKINS by Katherine Patterson is Bish!

We will be contacting you shortly for your shipping addresses.

Thanks to everyone who came and partied with us. We sure had fun.

Announcing our first ever “ONE to WIN” contest!!!

We recently switched our blog to this great, new location. To celebrate our snazzy, revamped site, we are giving away a TEN page critique to one of our lucky and oh-so-talented readers. (Whooo-hoooo! Clap, clap, clap.)

For this contest, we are looking for your best one sentence summary of your book or WIP. We know, we know. How on Earth do you summarize pure genius? We could tell you, but why should we reinvent the wheel?

Here are a few links that do a much better job of explaining the how’s and why’s than we ever could. (This is especially true considering some of us are still groggy from staying up late watching 4th of July fireworks and eating barbeque and way too many s'mores.)

Nathan Branford’s awesome post on summarizing your work in one sentence or one or two paragraphs.

Rachelle Gardner’s amazing blog entry about the subject, complete with examples.

Casey McCormick offers some great examples. (If you have a moment, check out the rest of this terrific blog that focuses on finding an agent. A MiG favorite.)

Here are the CONTEST RULES:

Create a one sentence summary of your MIDDLE GRADE or YOUNG ADULT book. (We love you picture book writers, but we just aren’t comfortable critiquing this genre.)

Post your sentence under the comments of this entry ONLY. Any stray entries will be ignored. (We just can’t feed strays; they’ll never stop coming around. You know it's true.)

One entry per person please.

Contest deadline is Saturday, July 10th at 11:59 pm EST.

As a group, the MiGs will decide on ONE winner based on which book we’d most like to read. Rest assured: we are an eclectic group with a wide range of reading interest so no specific genre will have a better shot.

The winner will be announced on Monday, July 12th.

THE PRIZE:

A critique of the first TEN PAGES of your book!

(The fine print: The ten pages must be 12 point Times New Roman, double spaced. All members of the MiGs will read your ten pages and make comments. Because there are six of us with wildly different schedules we cannot promise a critique by a certain date; we will try our best to have it done by August 9th, though. And, oh, one more thing - you gotta promise not to cry or gnash your teeth or threaten to throw your computer in the nearest river. We are just six writers offering our opinions. We’ll be gentle but honest. If you haven’t developed an author’s thick skin, please reconsider entering.)