The Internet is a great place–my favorite place, actually–but I still need you to help me spread the good news that Awkward is currently discounted to $2.99 and that Invisible will be released in under a week! Need a fun way to broach the subject? I created 6 Decent-ish Reasons to Buy Awkward for that very reason!
This might be the hardest part of my job! So help an author out? Tell your friends that they should read Awkward (available on Amazon for a limited time at the low price of $2.99) and preorder Invisible!
That’s not a joke or an exaggeration. It stuns me nearly every single day that I get to live out my wildest fantasy–one I was too afraid to even name for most of high school. And every day brings something ridiculously wonderful into my life. A message on my Facebook author page from someone who enjoyed reading Awkward and can’t wait to buy Invisible. A tweet from an author whose work I admire. An email from my fantastic Hungarian publisher. Maybe it will be as simple as reading a line in my new work in progress which cracks me up.
I still find myself trying to understand how I could have gotten here.
My older brother recently reminded me that when I was in elementary school he predicted that I’d be a trash collector. He told me that waste disposal was the logical occupation for someone with dog-poop brown eyes and a lack of common sense. “Hey someone has to do it,” he reasoned. “And that someone is definitely going to be you.”
I remember being terrified that he’d be right.
And now here I am proudly holding this!
My Hungarian publisher renamed Awkward: Help, I’ve become a YouTube Star!
I love it so much!
My best imitation of the Mackenzie yell.
Signed and everything! It doesn’t get any more official!
If you’re curious about my experience with my Hungarian publisher, you should definitely check out the video I made about it!
It doesn’t feel real to me.
My third novel (Invisible) will be released in just under two weeks.
There aren’t enough exclamation points in the world to capture how I feel about that.
And I know that there is someone very important I need to thank for all of this: you!
Yep.
You.
You are the reason I’m not hauling trash off to landfills right now. You are the reason I will be leading a panel at the Romance Writers of America conference in Atlanta. You are the reason I will be celebrating my 24th birthday in Las Vegas with a whole bunch of sensational YA authors!
Maybe that’s the hardest part for me to believe. Somehow I found a group of people–intelligent, passionate, unashamedly geeky people–who have supported me throughout this process. Who believe in me even when I don’t.
Remember that scene in The Sound of Music where Maria turns to Captain von Trapp and sings, “For here you are, standing there, loving me–whether or not you should. So somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good”?
You guys make me feel like Julie Freaking Andrews.
I think vlog Marni might say it best, so I’ll let her take it from here!
Marni Bates 