Daisy Whitney's Blog, page 24

The Great Chocolate Giveaway! (The winner is…)

Thank you to everyone who entered the chocolate giveaway! The winner is Perry Holzknecht! Here is Perry's entry.

Haiku:

My sweet dark passion

Come to me, dusky and lush

Longingly we kiss



Limerick:

There once was a treat made of chocolate

Who tried way too hard to be in my gut

It whispered to me, promising that

It would not make my belly fat

And when eaten, it went right to my butt.

Both entries are great so the chocolate is yours!!

The Great Chocolate Giveaway!

It begins today! First of all — a big thank you to New Media Minute viewers, blog readers, This Week in Media listeners, fans and friends! I'm giving away a box of chocolate from Bittersweet Cafe to whoever writes the best ode to chocolate in the comments below. It can be a line, a poem, a haiku. Details in the video!

A book is like a song…

Has a book ever reminded you of a song?

It happened to me the other night at a Books Inc. event in San Francisco. I was completely enrapt in the captivating reading that young adult author David Levithan did from his recent novel "Love is the Higher Law." It's the story of three teenagers coming together and coming apart in the aftermath of 9/11 in New York City. The chapters David read spoke of tentativeness, emptiness, and hushed feelings not yet known. The characters all craved something s...

How many people does it take to make a book?

>I just turned in the acknowledgments to my editor for "The Mockingbirds." Want to guess how many people I thanked in them?Forty-eight people. I thanked forty-eight people BY NAME.Wow. I am either excessive or I enjoy an embarassment of riches in friends, family and professionals who made my dream a reality. I like to think it's the latter.Because while writing is a solitary task, conducted alone at a computer, these acknowledgments are a reminder that none of that alone-time-with-a-computer ...

Blogging is like taking a shower…

Blogging every day is like taking a shower. It's the cost of entry, says Gary Vaynerchuk, who is the messiah of new media. Gary Vaynerchuk is owner of Wine Library, Host of Wine Library TV and the author of the bible on personal branding with passion "Crush It." (Incidentally, everyone should read this book!)

Gary was a guest on my podcast "This Week in Media" earlier this week and in sharing best practices, he delivered the great "daily blogging is like showering" quote. It's the first step i...

And the winner of "Exclusively Chloe" is…

This was hard! There were so many good entries in the "Exclusively Chloe" contest. I loved "Lena's "making the world fit you" entry, Lori's "Normal is overrated like popularity" one, Kashif Pasta's "Wind on the playground swings," and all the others. But I'm going to have to go with RK Charron's "Imagination Powerlessness Wonder Fun Friends" because I love the juxtaposition of "imagination" and "powerlessness" and I think that sums up how it feels to be a kid. Thanks to all for entering!

Win a Signed Copy of J.A. Yang's "Exclusive Chloe"

I'm giving away another signed book! And this time it's J.A. Yang's delicious story "Exclusively Chloe" about an adopted kid of celebrities who just wants to be normal. To win this book, share FIVE words — no more, no less — in the comments below on what it means to be a normal kid. I'll choose a winner by December 16!

Blogging a Novel

The author Fiona Robyn is going to blog her next novel Thaw starting on March 1, 2010. The novel follows 32-year-old Ruth's diary over three months as she decides whether or not to carry on living. To help spread the word about the novel, Fiona is organising a Blogsplash, where blogs will publish the first page of Ruth's diary simultaneously.

Because I believe thoroughly in testing and trialling new ways of promotion and marketing for books, I'll be participating in her Blogsplash. She's...

Ten Reasons Why My Agent is Made of Awesome

1. She sold my
2. She sold it to an amazing editor who is 100 percent behind the
3. She wrote to me in ALL CAPS the day she offered to represent
4. She is the very definition of strategic. Seriously, look the word up in the dictionary and you will see Andy McNicol's
5. She manages my career. She has a plan. A gameplan. A big gameplan. I LOVE
6. She totally knows the book market, book trends, and what's
7. She has bestselling books on the bookshelves in her...

TMI Winners!

Because I like to practice caprice in my contests, I've decided to pick three winners of the TMI contest. Does that mean I will be slicing in thirds the lovely signed copy of YA author Sarah Quigley's novel "TMI?"

Of course not!

Instead, I will be awarding a signed copy of the novel to Rick Griffin for his entry "Once asked for a plunger." Really, in a contest for the best 5-word entry on your own TMI, it's hard to top that! Rick, step right up and email me to get your signed copy!

One of the t...