Coming Soon

Well, coming tomorrow to be exact — the YA Scavenger Hunt will kick off, with all the participating authors' posts up no later than noon PST Aug. 1 and the competition running through noon PST Aug. 5. There are 54 participating authors, divided into two teams. People who want to play hop through the blogs on one or both teams, and gather some very easy-to-find info in order to enter for the grand prize of a signed book from each participating author on that team. Which is a pretty sweet prize package, not to mention a great way to find out about a whole bunch of new books and authors. If you're interested in playing, there's more info here on how to do that and the prizes. (Also, hats off to Colleen Houck and Beth Revis, awesome authors and awesome organizers of this whole thing.)

Lots of people also run bonus competitions, and I'll be running one here that involves completing a simple task and leaving a comment for a signed copy of Blackwood and a piece of special swag to be determined (but good, promise!).

Nattering part of this post…

I think one of the funnest things about this blog-stravaganza is that every author provides exclusive material for readers that is hosted by another author and ONLY live while the contest is on. For my exclusive material, I'm going to announce the title of my next book, turned in yesterday (squeak!), and will be giving a sneak peek at a couple of pieces of front matter that will let you get a sense of the world. I'm nervous/excited/eek about it. I'll add a link to that post at the bottom of this one when it goes up, for those of you who might be interested but aren't doing the whole hunt.

Funny story: The title I was going to be revealing a week ago for this book and the title that I'll be revealing tomorrow are…not the same. Titles are HARD, and it's best if everyone closely involved–editor, agent, sales team, other important types at the publisher, etcetera–likes the one that gets chosen. Some of us liked the first title, but it was not unanimous (spoiler alert: someone hated it and I don't think any of us really loved it). In a panic, I sent my list of every title I'd ever brainstormed or used for this book (including my "I don't have a title yet" standby–The Man on Lincoln's Nose, which, trivia alert, was the working title for North by Northwest) and lo! everyone ended up really liking one on my discard list much better than what we'd almost settled on. Including me, but I needed their confirmation. I do not trust my own judgment where title fu is concerned.

Anyway, I hope y'all like it too. (Squeak dieux!)

Title Reveal and Exclusive Sneak Peek Post: Here you go — title and two bits of front matter-ness (read: we don't have flap copy yet!).

Updated to add: Special content is all down now. BUT… the book is a near future urban fantasy set in Washington, D.C., about a 17-year-old girl who must find a mysterious missing relic and navigate intrigue involving dangerous gods to save her father, and will be out sometime during the second half of 2013 from Strange Chemistry. And it's going to be called…

::drumroll::

THE WOKEN GODS.

So there you go!