First, the Kindle Fire winner from the previous post.

Drumroll, please…

MANDY TROM!!!  Congrats!  Send me your address to colleenhoover@live.com

One just isn’t good enough, is it?  Okay, fine.  One more winner.  Samantha Donica Dean, you just won a kindle fire! 

Now for (more) good news.

If you haven’t noticed, which I’m sure you have…ATRIA BOOKS snatched up some pretty awesome authors recently, who also happen to be really great friends of mine.  Jamie McGuire and Tina Reber, I can’t even say how honored I am to be in the same league as you two. You think Atria Books has huge NYC Christmas Parties? (hint, hint.)

Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire and Love Unscripted by Tina Reber were both REALLY great reads.  And I know I have some BD and LU lovers out there, so these links are for the unreleased sequels to both books, coming out in 2013.  Lucky for us, we can pre-order our copies.    Pre-order WALKING DISASTER HERE on Amazon and HERE on Barnes and Noble.  And LOVE UNREHEARSED HERE for Barnes and Noble and HERE for Amazon.  Then you can go on facebook and brag about it like I did.

And just twenty more days until paperbacks are on bookshelves for the SLAMMED SERIES.  So excited!  If you want to save a trip to the store and have them delivered to your door on the day of their release, pre-order SLAMMED HERE and POINT OF RETREAT here.  

I’m leaving in 48 hours for the Georgia book festival in Decatur.  If you’re going, we’ll be in booth 211, right next to the food!   Talk about luck.

So did anyone have any horror stories from the first week of school?  The transition has been pretty good for my boys, other than trying to get out of homework.  Cale came home after the first day of school and my husband asked him to get out his spelling words.  He told him, “I already did them a few days ago.”

Ummm…considering it was the first day of school, I’d say that was a butterflying lie!

I don’t know about the rest of you mother’s, but tomorrow is a BIG DAY!  All of my boys go back to school and that means one thing and one thing only.

QUIET WRITING TIME!!!! Lots and lots of it.

There’s only one way to celebrate this great news, and that’s with an e-reader giveaway.  Are you in need of a Kindle Fire or a Nook Color?  Just comment here.  I’ll announce the winner(s) before I leave for Georgia this weekend.  You coming to Georgia?  Might want to bring an umbrella…

Okie dokie.  August 31st-September 2nd I’ll be at the Decatur book festival in Georgia with Nichole Chase, Liz Reinhardt, Abbi Glines, Rebecca Donovan and Sarah Ross.  We will be in booth #211.

Then comes Chicago, September 29th from 12-4 at The Palmer House Hotel.

I’ll be in New York City the first week of October and there’s a chance I’ll be doing a book signing one evening that week.  I’ll update more on that later.

As for future books, I’m working on Will’s Story and another standalone that isn’t part of the SLAMMED SERIES.  Just wanted to update everyone who is asking about release dates.  I had originally stated a Fall release for Will’s Story, but now that I’ve traditionally published the first two, things may change.  I won’t get new books out as soon as originally planned, so I appreciate everyone’s patience.  In the meantime, you can pre-order the new published paperbacks of SLAMMED and POINT OF RETREAT from Amazon and Barnes and Noble here.  They’ll be in stores September 18th.

That’s all.  Told you it would be boring.

Y’all did it!  Slammed made it back into the top 100 on B&N (albeit briefly) and is cutting it close on Amazon.  Also just found out it is #1 in Teens in the ibook store. So I guess I owe y’all a lil sumpin’ sumpin’.

If you won, send me your addy to  colleenhoover@live.com and make sure you say what you won. If you won a paperback, the newer editions won’t be out until September, so I’ll get them to you as soon as I get some.    If you won an ereader, just let me know which one you want in your email.

BOOK WINNERS: Doreen Chenevert, Tea Pleic, Sue Rowe, Deanna Owens Arrington, Maria Malaveci.

EREADER WINNERS: Sarah Moss and Stacey Carey! 

Congrats and thanks to everyone for entering and always coming back, despite the random nothingness that is this blog.

Speaking of random nothingness, I’ve got a busy few weeks ahead of me once the end of August hits. So from now until the end of August, I’m going to (attempt) to cut myself off from the outside world in order to write.  I want to get back to that “no shower, no eating, no sleeping, no tv, no parenting” phase of writing again.  I miss it.

In the meantime, if you want something hilariously funny, yet somehow sinfully sexy to read…check out Tara Sivec’s book.

Today is the big day! ATRIA BOOKS versions of SLAMMED and POINT OF RETREAT are now available as ebooks. Paperbacks will follow in September. Let me tell you, it’s been a crazy busy week for me, but I can’t imagine how crazy it’s been at the Simon & Schuster offices.  I’ve discovered the reason behind the New York saying, “The City that Never Sleeps.”

It’s because it’s true.  They never sleep!  They work, work, work all hours of the day and night, and I couldn’t be more grateful for the beautiful things they have done to my books in such a short amount of time.  Not only have they updated the covers to form a more cohesive look, but now I’m lucky enough to have quotes on the front from two of my favorite authors, Tammara Webber and Jamie McGuire!  OMG!  How butterflying cool is that?

AND the editing.  Wow!  Just…wow.  I think I expected an edited manuscript returned to me that pointed out my formatting and punctuation errors and that would be that.  But no.  They went above and beyond.  They pointed out things that I never even thought about.  Here’s a little “behind the scenes” example:

In the poem “The Lake” where Will says something about “In-N-Out” burgers, they pointed out that there aren’t any In-N-Out burgers in or around where Will lives, so would he really use that restaurant as a reference in the poem?  Of course, I couldn’t change it because for one, we have this performance by Marty Schoenleber where he recites the original, so I didn’t want to make it different.  And two, because In-N-Out burgers are just really, really good.

I’m getting off subject here.  My point is that it was obvious they really took their time (albeit, in a hurry) and I appreciate them for that.  A HUGE THANK YOU to Judith Curr and Johanna Castillo for making me feel so welcomed into the Simon & Schuster family.  And to my amazing agent, Jane Dystel, for her tireless dedication to not only me, but all the authors she represents.

It’s people like this that make me even more stoked that I made this decision.  ATRIA BOOKS has been an absolute thrill to work with. And the best part?  You know these giveaways I like to do?  Yeah, well…they’re gonna let me keep doing them.  And the bester best part (yes, I said bester) is that I’m doing one right now!  And the winners of THESE signed books get the beautifully edited and signed publisher’s editions!

When a publisher takes over a self-published book, a lot goes into the process of uploading the new books to their platforms.  The issue that arises is that there is no way to transfer the ranking from the self-published version to the published version, so the published version essentially has to start over.  This is where your chance to win comes in.  I’m going to post links here for the new versions on all platforms, so share them wherever you want.  Twitter, Facebook, on your blog.  Let me know where you shared in the comments and I’ll enter your name into the drawing.

I think another random kindle fire giveaway on top of the S&S versions of the books is the perfect way to celebrate! THIS GIVEAWAY ENDED 08/14

Wrapping up, if you want to be entered into the giveaway for the official published editions of SLAMMED and POR, or you want a chance for a kindle fire, then repost this new link and come back and comment that you did so.  If you are a blogger and have the old link, simply replace your link on your review with one of these, then come back and let me know in the comments.

I just (gulp) unpublished the self-pubbed versions of these books and they soon will no longer be active.  Once again, thank you all so stinkin’ much for everything.  From the amazing reviews to the word-of-mouth.  I will never, ever forget the readers that are the driving force behind the success of these books.  As always, y’all butterflying rock!

Here are the links to all platforms: http://colleenhoover.com/ebooks/

I’m pretty sure I already need another vacation!  Sorry I’m a few days late getting these winners posted.  It’s been crazy busy here, but in the best ways.  Tomorrow,  the Simon & Schuster ebook versions will go live on all platforms.  I’m really, really excited and will post more on that later.  But check out the updated covers!

I love, love, love all the book recommendations on this blog post.  Of course, I haven’t gotten around to any yet.  I was lucky enough to have a couple of ARC’s that kept me pretty busy.  Now for the winners of signed books.  (These will be the original versions, not the covers you see above.)  BUT!  If you are a winner, not only do you get SLAMMED, but I’m also throwing in POINT OF RETREAT!  Double the fun! (Or heartache, whichever way you look at it.)  :)

If you see your name below, email me your address at colleenhoover@live.com

Wendy Wilken

Terry Dabbs

Danielle Grater

Hayden Engstrom

Mika Adams (And your husband.)  ;)

Brianna Wormley

Sara Maddalena

Siiri

Yaremis

KellieKell

Congrats!  Come back tomorrow for an even BETTER giveaway!!!  <3

My blog is being transferred to another host tonight. Hope all goes well, but if it doesn’t we will just blame my cousin Amy. She doesn’t have anything to do with my blog, but it’s really fun blaming her for everything. Try it.

I’m still on our long drive home from vacation and I love my kids. I love them. I keep having to remind myself of this with every passing minute.

Things are progressing rather quickly with the Atria versions of Slammed and Point of Retreat. That means I’ve got a heck of a lot of self-pubbed versions of the books to give away. I’ll post winners from the latest giveaway once my blog has successfully switched.

I love my kids, I love my kids, I love my kids. Deep breaths.

I don’t take a whole lot of things too seriously, but when a couple of readers asked me if I would come to Chicago and do a signing, I took it a tad bit too seriously.    I don’t know if they thought I would actually agree, much less invite pretty much everyone I know along with me.  So, if you’re going to be in Chicago and you’ve ever read any of these fab authors and would like to meet them, get a book signed, drink some punch, or get some swag then come on down to the TFEiC event.  We’ll be at The Palmer House in Chicago on Saturday, September 29th from 12-4pm.

1. S.C. Stephens
2. Tarryn Fisher
3. Tracey Garvis-Graves
4. Abbi Glines
5. Stephanie Campbell
6. Rebecca Donovan
7. CJ Roberts
8. Jillian Dodd
9. J. Sterling
10. Michelle Mankin
11. Elizabeth Hunter
12. Nicole Williams 
13. Liz Reinhardt
14. Colleen Hoover