DEFY Fan Art Contest Winners!

It's 3 WEEKS until IGNITE comes out!!! WHAT THE?!?! I can't believe it's almost here! And guess what showed up today??

My finished hardcover!!! OH. MY. GOSH. It is GORGEOUS. Even more gorgeous than I anticipated. It's seriously just stunning. I'm not even kidding. Wait until you see it in person. Pictures can't do it justice. And the inside flap! And the bow and arrow on the actual hardcover! So many details I just adore! Scholastic has truly outdone themselves. If you don't believe me, read what David Levithan wrote about it on my Facebook post:

David Levithan As someone who has his own copy, I can independently confirm IT LOOKS ABSOLUTELY SPECTACULAR. Congrats!!!

DAVID LEVITHAN people!

*ahem*

What was I saying? Oh yeah! If you have pre-ordered (or decide to before Dec. 30th), make sure and enter the pre-order contest for your chance to win a DEFY dagger necklace just like mine! CLICK HERE for details or to enter!!


But, enough of that! Let's get on with announcing the winners!


You guys are so amazingly talented, you made this so hard on me! I loved all of the entries so much I couldn't decide on my own. So I assembled a panel of judges including other authors, my family members, and some friends who are avid readers to decide on a winner. And then THEY had a hard time, too!

So, I've decided to do something extra special. My judges were split on who they felt should win, so I'm going to call it a tie and give away TWO signed ARCs of IGNITE! PLUS I'm going to award signed swag to 2 runners-up who had amazing entries that also got a lot of votes!

That makes FOUR winners! WOOHOO!!!

So without further suspense, here are your winners:

Runner - Up #1  --- Signed Swag pack

Kathy and her DEFY Mood Board! I can't post a pic of it here, but here's a link to the blog post she did with the very cool mood board! I love the pictures and colors she chose!  http://mynookbooksnmore.com/2014/11/bookish-mood-board-defy.html

Runner - Up #2 -- Signed Swag Pack

Mandy_T for her construction paper dagger:

 How cool is that?? And I just love the quote she picked. A truly fabulous entry!

Enjoy your swag packs and thank you for your entries!! I hope you both enjoy IGNITE when it comes out!


And now, on to the winners!


WINNER #1:

 Amber with her DEFY cake! She made a DEFY dagger out of fondant! How awesome is that? (Plus how yummy! Wish I could have tasted it!) Congrats Amber!!

And WINNER #2:

MontanaSky with her stunning drawing of Alexa when she startles the Macaws! Such beautiful detail and stunning color! So, so amazing. Congrats to you as well!

SEE HOW HARD THIS WAS?! Everyone is so talented, thank you ALL for entering and congrats to the winners!

All four winners, please email or message me your mailing address and I will send out your prizes as soon as possible!!


3 WEEKS YOU GUYS. AAAGGGHHH!!!!

WINNER! + News!

Thank you all for entering the IGNITE ARC giveaway! There were so many of you - I'm blown away! I can't tell you how much your excitement and enthusiasm for this book means to me. Before I announce the winner, I want to remind you that there is still the Fan Art Contest (which ends Dec. 6th - so make sure and start getting me those entries!), and the pre-order contest where you could win this gorgeous DEFY Dagger necklace and lots of signed goodies! (details in my previous posts)

And never fear...there will be more IGNITE ARC giveaways coming up soon! So stay tuned!

But for now there can be only one winner. And the lucky entrant is....






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****CONGRATS  REGAN D. ****!!! 

I hope you enjoy IGNITE!!! 


And now, a little bit of exciting news for you all, that will change up the pre-order contest just a tad:

IGNITE is now officially releasing on DECEMBER 30th!!! That's right, you can get it a whole week earlier than you thought! WOOHOO!!! Of course, that means the pre-order contest will end a week earlier, too, so don't procrastinate entering!


(FOR MY LOCAL FANS: Because the holidays are so insane, my launch party at The King's English will stay on Tuesday Jan. 6th at 7pm and my Provo Library Signing will still be on Thursday January 8th at 7pm as well. I hope to see you at one of those events in the new year!)

YASH recap + winner!

WOW--what a fun weekend full of amazing people who love books! It was a blast to take part in the YA Scavenger Hunt! I hope you all won something somewhere...and at the very least it sounds like a lot of you found out about new books that you are excited to read, and that's always a win, right?

(And thank you to everyone who let me know how much you love DEFY in the comments--it truly means SO much to me!! Remember to stay tuned here for announcements about the title, synopsis, and cover reveal for the sequel in the next couple of months! I can't wait to share them with all of you!!)


But there can only be one winner of my personal contest for a signed copy of DEFY + swag pack!!

Rafflecopter has spoken and the lucky winner is....


Kathy Lotti!!!


Yay! Congrats Kathy!!! I hope that you enjoy DEFY!

Until next time.... Happy Reading!!

And the winner is....

It was a very tight race! (Which was expected because all the covers were just WOW. So amazing!)

But there can only be one winner...


And the mock cover you all chose was....


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Cover #1 by Heather Senter!!!

Congratulations Heather!!! And thank you for creating such a gorgeous mock-cover for DEFY! I hope you enjoy the book!! Make sure to email me your address and I'll get it out to you as soon as possible.

Thanks again everyone for participating! And don't forget, if you didn't win, there is a goodreads giveaway being hosted by This Is Teen that runs until Nov. 1! CLICK HERE

And I will be hosting another giveaway next month as well, so watch for that! (And this one will be much easier to to do, for us non-artistic types.)

Happy Friday and happy reading!

Winner!

Thank you all for your kind comments, feedback on my blog, and for entering the giveaway.

The random number generator has spoken, and the lucky winner (of a prize of their choosing) is...

RUTH!

Yay! *tosses confetti*

She asked for a critique, so Ruth please email me at sarablarson21 (at) gmail (dot) com, so we can figure out the details. Congrats again!

Happy Monday everyone. How was your weekend?

And the Winners are...

Drumroll please...


The random number generator has spoken and the TWO winners who will get their queries critiqued are:


PENSEES!

and

DANYELLE!


Woohoo!! *tosses confetti* Congratulations to you both. Please email me your queries at sarablarson21 (at) gmail (dot) com and I will get that done for you.

You guys had some really great questions, so I will be taking a few at a time in the next couple of posts to answer them. Thanks again for entering everyone!

D.L. Hammons asked: Here's my question. How much do you go into possible revisions the agent my want before signing on the dotted line? What if they don't want to go into detail? I hope I'm reading this question right, but it sounds like you're asking how much should you do for an agent if they want revisions before signing you, right? Since I'm not sure, I will try to answer it both ways. First, if an agent asks for a revision before signing you (which I had happen and did--even though it didn't work out, my manuscript was much stronger for it), I think 9.7/10 times you do it. That is a huge opportunity, and at the very least you can try what they suggest and see what you think. They know what they're doing, and often end up being right when they ask for changes. Not 100% of the time, but close. ;) If you are on a phone call with an offering agent, and they won't go into detail about what revisions they want (which I doubt would happen, but it's possible!), I'd ask them detailed questions to try and get an answer. I wouldn't want to sign with an agent who isn't up front about their feelings and thoughts on my book. If they are vague in answering, saying something like "We can discuss that more later," I would respond with, "Can you give me some specific examples now of what you want changed?" I doubt any agent would dodge the question again.

Pensees asked: Should you mention that you sent a query a year (or more ago) when re-querying after making substantial edits? Or just forget about ever querying that project to that agent again? Hmm, this is tricky ground for sure. Technically, you aren't supposed to requery the same project again to the same agent. If you have a new project, I'd go with that and keep the other project for after you sign with an agent. However, I have had people tell me different answers to this. I'm pretty sure I remember some authors admitting to changing the titles and requerying projects on their blogs. If the project is substantially changed (including the title), and the agent gave you a form rejection I've had a few people say that is probably okay to requery, and not worry about mentioning the past. However, if the agent had requested a partial or full that is another story. Again, if you have a different project ready to query, go with the new project. It's probably better anyway, honestly. That's just how it goes, we tend to get better with practice. However, if the revised mss is your only shot, you could try querying those agents again and let them know you had the opportunity to have "so and so" (hopefully someone reputable in the industry) give you feedback and you did a complete revision or rewrite based on their critique and wonder if the agent would be interested in seeing your revised manuscript. (And of course you would do that in a way that is eloquent and not a run-on sentence.) The worst that can happen is they say no or don't respond. Just be very careful and wise in making a decision like that. Research the agent, see what other people's experiences have been. I know it's been done on occassion, and even more rarely has been successful, but yeah, not very often.

Wow, I'm really nervous to answer some of these questions! I hope this is helpful, but I would definitely recommend researching these things out for yourself, too. Don't take my opinions as the end all--I have a lot of experience with querying, but yours will be different and unique. Ultimately, you need to research the agents you are querying in multiple ways--on their agency blogs/websites, on forums like AbsoluteWrite, etc. and find out what their personal likes/dislikes and policies. Good luck and more to come next week!

And the winner is...

First, I have to say how interesting it was to do the contest the way I did. I used four different readers to judge and rate the pitches, and then combined the scores to decide an overall winner. I found it fascinating to see how differently each judge rated the various entries. However, only one person could win, and the one that got the highest overall score when combining all four judges scores was:



JAMIE!! Here's his pitch: Waking up in a coffin hungry for blood is only the beginning for sixteen-year-old Everly Blue. Things are about to get a lot worse.

So, obviously vampires are far from "over" - at least, according to my four readers! (Who varied in age by almost thirty years by the way.) Jamie please email me your query at sarablarson21 (at) gmail (dot) com and I will get working on your critique. Congratulations!

What did I learn from this? That different readers have different tastes, opinions, and reactions to the exact same pitch (or query, or book, or anything!) and that you need to write what you love, do it well, and find the person who loves it as well. Because someone will.

Coming up on Wednesday is my recap of the awesome Writing for Charity evening extravaganza I went to over the weekend, which included Shannon Hale (who is pregnant with twins, in case you didn't know, and on bedrest) nearly getting dumped off the stage (from her wheelchair) by James Dashner, Brandon Mull joining with his old comedy troupe to do some skits that included enacting a Jack and Jill death scene in Edgar Allan Poe style, and even more. You don't want to miss it. Until then, Happy Monday!