It’s Thursday! You know what that means… Bookanista time!

And today, I’m falling in love.

I’m falling in love with the awesomeness of this book cover:

How freakin’ cute is that? It’s like their hands are maybe going to brush against each other, and then there will be insta-love. Then there’s the pink! I love that it’s not all super pink or anything… just a little hint.

I don’t know about you, but I am dying to read this book. If I saw it on the shelves, I think I would skip whatever plans I had for the rest of the day and devour Anna and the French Kiss!

Plus, the author, Stephanie Perkins, has really cool hair:

If you want to visit the other bookanistas today, here’s the rundown:

• Myra McEntire – SHADOW HILLS
• Jamie Harrington – ANNA AND THE FRENCH KISS (cover love)
• Elana Johnson – YOU
• Christine Fonseca – LINGER
• Shannon Messenger – ANNA AND THE FRENCH KISS
• Shelli Johannes-Wells – RADIANCE
• Beth Revis – PARANORMALCY
• Carolina Valdez Miller – PARANORMALCY
• Bethany Wiggins and Suzette Saxton – MONSTER HIGH
• Lisa and Laura Roecker – YOU

Okay, for starters–it’s my fabulous agent of amazing, Mary Kole’s birthday. So I teamed up* with a couple of her other clients, Jenny Martin and Karsten Knight, and we made this little video for her.

Happy Birthday MK!

Today is also Barry Lyga Rocks day, and he does- indeed -rock. But, I have a big post already planned for Thursday telling you just how much he rocks. So, for today, I will just leave you with that little teaser, eh?

*Okay, by teamed up–I really mean that Jenny did all the work and I just mailed her 30 seconds of footage. Sowhat?!

Tomorrow is registration for WriteOnCon, so what better way to get all geared up than a video??

Also, I just realized that I never picked a winner from my Josh Berk Book Contest!

And so….  I random.org’d it and came up with comment #29!

It’s Writing Leigh! Congratulations!!

So, I’ve been thinking a lot about Ebooks.

Let me just say for the record that I LOVE Ebooks. I think they will play a huge part in the future of publishing, and I am very happy about that.

I downloaded one of my favorite author’s latest, and I immediately started reading. I couldn’t get enough of it, and that’s a good thing. People always say to read a book over watching television or playing a video game… it’s like a thing.

So, then why was I getting wonky looks when I was reading a real life actual novel?

Because it was on my phone. It looks like I am obsessively texting, emailing, and playing iphone games–pretty much the exact opposite of reading a book.

When I taught school, we had a set time each day where everyone (not just the students, but the teachers and administrators, too) had to stop whatever it was they were doing and read. One of the big reasons for that was so kids could see the grown ups reading as a model, and then follow suit and pick up a book for themselves.

But, is it sending the same message if I’m doing it on a cell phone?

I would think a Kindle would convey that I was reading something of substance, but what about an iPad? I could just as easily be tweeting or playing Diner Dash, right?

Am I being silly by worrying what kind of message I’m sending to my kid by reading on  a cell phone?

Is just telling her I am reading a full length novel enough for her to get it, or should I skip out on the cell phone and pick up a real ereader? Heck is that even enough–should I only read old school traditional books in front of her?

What’s the right thing to do here?

My friend Heather teaches us how to use the Sone Touch eReader for AWESOME editing.

I love seeing people using technology like this!  I am such a geek.

Revisions with the Sony Touch from Claena on Vimeo.

A fabulous friend of mine, Leigh sent me her take on the storysaurus.

And, I love him so much I had to share him!

Adorable, right?

Have a Nice Day and Watch out for the Big Yellow Chicken.

I consider myself a pretty social person. That is to say, I’m not awkward in a group setting, and most of the time, I’m downright fun.

Until I get around big time authors.

Then I’m something of an idiot. The first time I met my now-good-friend Rosemary Clement-Moore I was such a moron. I didn’t know what to say, and I was worried I’d scared her off forever with my fangirlness. Fortunately, it turns out she’s just a big of a dork as me.

This weekend I went to a book signing for Holly Black and Sarah Rees Brennan. I haven’t read their books, but have heard good things. Since I wasn’t a crazy-freak fan or anything I was fairly sure I could talk to them without sounding like a complete moron. So that was a total win. I’d get to meet successful authors with super talent, but I didn’t actually know it yet.

Then I arrived at the bookstore….

Yeah, internet, you read that right. Ally Carter was standing at the table signing books. I knew she was in town, but specifically missed her signing because I knew I’d make a damn fool out of myself. This was huge Huge HUGE for me. She’s everything I want to be as a writer, and I was standing close enough to touch her! (I didn’t though–that would have been so awkward.)

So what did I do? I told her she was my literary hero. Like she wore a cape and fought crime at night or something. (Only instead of the Lasso of Truth she had a Bookmark.)

Sigh.

When I first started on my little publication journey, I was totally lost. Then I met Elana Johnson. I was a little intimidated by her, she was like the super-hot-indie-rocker-lead-singer-girl to my pimple-faced-screaming-in-the-crowd-band-groupie. She didn’t have to spend time chatting with me or teaching me how to write a query, but she did–because she’s a pay-it-forward kind of gal, and because she’s a good person.

And now, I get to congratulate her. I get to SQUEE for her, and I get to tell everyone I know that SHE’S GOING TO BE PUBLISHED!

Here are the details from Publisher’s Marketplace:

Elana Johnson’s CONTROL ISSUES, set in a brainwashed society where those gifted with mind control best join the powers that be, but one rebel girl tries to beat them at their own game, to Anica Rissi at Simon Pulse, by Michelle Andelman at Lynn Franklin Associates (NA).

You should check out her story here here.

CONGRATULATIONS ELANA! You earned it, girl!

That’s right, I just used a twitter hashtag in the title of my post. Let’s just move past that, shall we?

I am going to spend the rest of the week getting my book into shape so I can send it off to beta readers.

But, I need two things from you… (What, you thought I was just going to let you off the hook? PSHAW.)

• Words of Encouragement- Seriously, don’t you just do things better when you have a cheering section?

• Volunteers to beta read. I would like to get a couple of fresh opinions on this book, so if you’re interested either email me jamie@totallythebomb.com or leave me a note in the comments below.

Now, here’s the thing… I probably won’t be able to return the favor. I *might* have time, but I can’t guarantee reading reciprocity. So, if you want to read and give me your feed back–all while getting nothing in return–then this is for you!

I’m sort of pre-occupied with editing right now, so amazingly inspiring blog posts of awesome aren’t really coming to me this week. But, here are a few things I’ve been up to:

• Storysaurus was hard at work this weekend for Cheryl’s manuscript. I’m not going to lie though… I’m a little scared that her storysaurus is going to eat my storysaurus:

I’d love to see what you’ve done with him. Send pics or scans of you wearing the storysaurus shirt or using storysaurus to plot your novel to jamie@totallythebomb.com.

• I recently took some life lemons and made amazing lemonade. Only problem is I can’t share the refreshing goodness with you yet. It’s one of those things where, because I can’t talk about it–it’s the only thing on the planet I want to talk about. (No, I haven’t sold my book yet– When I do, I won’t be able to contain myself, I’m sure of it.)

• Sometimes I read a lot, and sometimes I write a lot. It just depends on where I am in my books. I am really impressed with people who force themselves to write for a specific amount of time each day and then stick with it. Some day I hope to be like that–but I doubt that day will ever come.

• Chevrolet invited me to the races at Texas Motor Speedway this weekend (super cool racing post coming at you soon), and I ran into a guy from high school who had a raging crush on me (Seriously, that’s what his note said that he passed me while I was working my job as a checker at the grocery store). I was totally freaked out, because he looked exactly the same, and I’m fairly sure I’ve aged in a most ungraceful way. I’m a little worried that he’s going to tell everyone back home about how I look like a frumpy ‘ol grandma or something. I don’t even think he lives ‘back home’ or anything, but in my mind he’s all over facebook right now making fun of me even though he was perfectly nice this weekend.

• My favorite local coffee shop started closing at 11 instead of midnight. I need to somehow launch a movement to get them more business. Any ideas?

Well, that’s all for this murky, yechy, rainy Monday.

What have you guys been up to?