Amy Plum's Blog, page 33

Contest Monday: Vote for UNTIL I DIE's playlist (UPDATED WITH ALL SONGS)

Last Monday you all gave me suggestions for songs to go on the UNTIL I DIE playlist. And today I'm giving you the opportunity to vote on which songs should be on the final list.

In the comments below, give me your TOP TWO favorite songs off of the following playlist. (I say 2 because I know you're going to vote for your own suggestion first!   )

Your choices will make up 10 of the final playlist. My assistant, Kayla, gets her top pick automatically on the final list. And I will choose 4 or 5 myself (either off of your list or out of thin air!).

There are two ways for you to access the songs. Depending on where you live, you can access them as one of Kate Mercier's Spotify playlists here: Kate's playlists. The only suggestion that isn't on there (because Kayla uploaded it for me from the States, and there's some weird disconnect between what the States can see and what Europe can) is "Ghost of Love" by The Rasmus.

Otherwise, the complete list is below! Choose your TOP 2 and tell me in the comments below.

I'm leaving this contest open until Friday, 10am Paris time, since I know it will take you a while to listen to the songs. It is international, as usual, and the prize is 3 personalized and signed bookplates (one for each of the DIE FOR ME trilogy books), as well as a signed DIE FOR ME and UNTIL I DIE bookmark. I will choose randomly between comments to pick the winner!

Happy listening!

Born To Die – Lana Del Rey

You Had Me At Hello – A Day To Remember

Give Me Love – Ed Sheeran

Your Guardian Angel – The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus

The Only Exception – Paramore

Dreamland – Emilie Simon

Everything to Me – Lips

Secrets – One Republic

Light Surrounding You – Evermore

Little Bird – Ed Sheeran

Closer to me – Bellurisa

La vie en rose – Louis Armstrong

Forget Me Not – Lucie Silvas

Your Skin My Skin – Empyr

This = Love – The Scripts

The Ghost Of You – My Chemical Romance

Liebesleid (Love Song) – Pavel Eret, Daniel Weisner

It's Only Life – Kate Voegele

A Drop In the Ocean – Ron Pope & The District

Enchanted – Taylor Swift

I Will Follow You into the Dark – Death Cab for Cutie

Skinny Love – Birdy

Never Tear Us Apart – INXS

Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You) – Kelly Clarkson

Just a Kiss – Lady Antebellum

Not Over You – Gavin DeGraw

Heaven Is A Place On Earth – Belinda Carlisle

Falling In Love At A Coffee Shop – Landon Pigg

Never Say Never – Justin Bieber

Our Kind Of Love – Lady Antebellum

Heartbeats – Jose Gonzalez

(Don't Fear) The Reaper – Blue Oyster Cult

Is This Real – Lisa Hall

Your Guardian Angel – The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus

This Love – The Veronicas

All Your Life – The Band Perry

Parachute – Ingrid Michaelson

Walking on Air – Kerli Koiv

Falling Even More in Love With You – Lifehouse

My Immortal – Evanescence

Lover, You Should've Come Over – Jeff Buckley

Ramalama Bang Bang – Roisin Murphy

Everything About You – One Direction

I'm A Pirate, You're A Princess – PlayRadioPlay!

If I Die Young – The Band Perry

Awake and Alive – Skillet

Letters From The Sky – Civil Twilight

A Thousand Years – Christina Perri

Look At Me – Carrie Underwood

Two Is Better Than One – Boys Like Girls

Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) – Nancy Sinatra

All I Need – Within Temptation

Thing For You – Hinder

Supermassive Black Hole – Muse

Heart Vacancy – The Wanted

I Won't Give Up – Jason Mraz

Your Star – Evanescence

Love Story – Taylor Swift

Book of Love – Dar Williams

In The End – Snow Patrol

Do You Realize?? – The Flaming Lips

A Message – Coldplay

Anywhere But Here – SafetySuit

Seven Devils – Florence + The Machine

Diamond Eyes – Shinedown

Every Time We Touch – Cascada

You Found Me – The Fray

Angel Of Mine – Amanda Somerville

Mine To Love – Dave Barnes

It Will Rain – Bruno Mars

When It's Time – Green Day

Wanted – Hunter Hayes

Lara Fabian – Je t'aime

Premier Baiser – Dorothy

Ghost of Love – The Rasmus

Contest Monday: Vote for UNTIL I DIE's playlist

Last Monday you all gave me suggestions for songs to go on the UNTIL I DIE playlist. And today I'm giving you the opportunity to vote on which songs should be on the final list.

In the comments below, give me your TOP TWO favorite songs off of the following playlist. (I say 2 because I know you're going to vote for your own suggestion first!   )

Your choices will make up 10 of the final playlist. My assistant, Kayla, gets her top pick automatically on the final list. And I will choose 4 or 5 myself (either off of your list or out of thin air!).

There are two ways for you to access the songs. Depending on where you live, you can access them as one of Kate Mercier's Spotify playlists here: Kate's playlists. The only suggestion that isn't on there (because Kayla uploaded it for me from the States, and there's some weird disconnect between what the States can see and what Europe can) is "Ghost of Love" by The Rasmus.

Otherwise, the complete list is below! Choose your TOP 2 and tell me in the comments below.

I'm leaving this contest open until Friday, 10am Paris time, since I know it will take you a while to listen to the songs. It is international, as usual, and the prize is 3 personalized and signed bookplates (one for each of the DIE FOR ME trilogy books), as well as a signed DIE FOR ME and UNTIL I DIE bookmark. I will choose randomly between comments to pick the winner!

Happy listening!

Born To Die – Lana Del Rey

You Had Me At Hello – A Day To Remember

Give Me Love – Ed Sheeran

Your Guardian Angel – The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus

The Only Exception – Paramore

Dreamland – Emilie Simon

"Everything to Me" – Lips

La vie en rose – Louis Armstrong

Forget Me Not – Lucie Silvas

Your Skin My Skin – Empyr

This = Love – The Scripts

The Ghost Of You – My Chemical Romance

Liebesleid (Love Song) – Pavel Eret, Daniel Weisner

It's Only Life – Kate Voegele

A Drop In the Ocean – Ron Pope & The District

Enchanted – Taylor Swift

I Will Follow You into the Dark – Death Cab for Cutie

Skinny Love – Birdy

Never Tear Us Apart – INXS

Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You) – Kelly Clarkson

Just a Kiss – Lady Antebellum

Not Over You – Gavin DeGraw

Heaven Is A Place On Earth – Belinda Carlisle

Falling In Love At A Coffee Shop – Landon Pigg

Never Say Never – Justin Bieber

Our Kind Of Love – Lady Antebellum

Heartbeats – Jose Gonzalez

(Don't Fear) The Reaper – Blue Oyster Cult

This Love – The Veronicas

All Your Life – The Band Perry

Parachute – Ingrid Michaelson

My Immortal – Evanescence

Lover, You Should've Come Over – Jeff Buckley

Everything About You – One Direction

I'm A Pirate, You're A Princess – PlayRadioPlay!

If I Die Young – The Band Perry

Awake and Alive – Skillet

Letters From The Sky – Civil Twilight

A Thousand Years – Christina Perri

Look At Me – Carrie Underwood

Two Is Better Than One – Boys Like Girls

Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) – Nancy Sinatra

All I Need – Within Temptation

Thing For You – Hinder

Supermassive Black Hole – Muse

I Won't Give Up – Jason Mraz

Your Star – Evanescence

Love Story – Taylor Swift

Book of Love – Dar Williams

Do You Realize?? – The Flaming Lips

A Message – Coldplay

Anywhere But Here – SafetySuit

Seven Devils – Florence + The Machine

Diamond Eyes – Shinedown

Every Time We Touch – Cascada

You Found Me – The Fray

Angel Of Mine – Amanda Somerville

Mine To Love – Dave Barnes

It Will Rain – Bruno Mars

When It's Time – Green Day

Wanted – Hunter Hayes

Ghost of Love – The Rasmus

YA Scavenger Hunt – UNTIL I DIE winner, Leanne Yang!

HELLO AND WELCOME TO THE YA SCAVENGER HUNT!
March 29-April 1, 2012!

This tri-annual event was first organized by author Colleen Houck as a way to give readers a chance to gain access to exclusive bonus material from their favorite authors…and a chance to win some awesome prizes! At this hunt, you not only get access to exclusive content from each author, you also get a clue for the hunt. Add up the clues, and you can enter for our prize–one lucky winner will receive TWENTY signed books, one book from each author on the hunt in my team! But play fast: this contest (and all the exclusive bonus material) will only be online for 72 hours!

Go to the YA Scavenger Hunt page to find out all about the hunt. There are THREE contests going on simultaneously! I am a part of the YELLOW TEAM–but there is also a red team and a blue team. You can enter all three contests–which has a total prize bucket of SIXTY signed books!

(If you get stuck as you are moving through the hunt, click through to this page.)

SCAVENGER HUNT PUZZLE



Directions: Hidden within my post is a single letter that is yellow. Make a note of that letter! It's a part of a scrambled phrase. Once you've visited all the author sites of the yellow team, you'll have all the letters you need to enter the contest.

Entry Form: Once you piece together all the clues to the hunt, make sure you fill out the form here to officially qualify for the grand prize. Only entries that have the completed phrase will qualify.
Rules: Open internationally, anyone below the age of 18 should have a parent or guardian's permission to enter. To be eligible for the grand prize, you must submit the completed entry form by noon, Pacific Time, on April 1. Entries sent without the correct puzzle code or without contact information will not be considered.


BONJOUR!

I'm Amy Plum, author of the DIE FOR ME trilogy, a paranormal romance set in Paris featuring supernatural beings of my very own making called "revenants."  I'm your hostess at this TEAM YELLOW stop.

I'm excited to  introduce the author I'm hosting today:

NANCY HOLDER

Nancy's Bio: Nancy is the multiple-award winning, New York Times bestselling author of the young adult dark fantasy series WICKED, CRUSADE, and WOLF SPRINGS CHRONICLES.  She has also written novels and episode guides for "universes" such as TEEN WOLF, SMALLVILLE, BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, HELLBOY, and others.  New short fiction will appear in TWO AND TWENTY DARK TELLS: DARK RETELLINGS OF MOTHER GOOSE RHYMES and SHARDS AND ASHES.

For this hunt, Nancy is featuring her book UNLEASHED.

Katelyn McBride's life changed in an instant when her mother died. Uprooted from her California home, Katelyn was shipped to the middle of nowhere, Arkansas, to her only living relative, her grandfather. And now she has to start over in Wolf Springs, a tiny village in the Ozark Mountains. Like any small town, Wolf Springs has secrets. But the secrets hidden here are more sinister than Katelyn could ever imagine. It's a town with a history that reaches back centuries, spans continents, and conceals terrifying truths. And Katelyn McBride is about to change everything.

Broken families, ageless grudges, forced alliances, and love that blooms in the darkest night – welcome to Wolf Springs.

Find out more information by checking out Nancy's website at nancyholder.com

or you can buy UNLEASHED here!

And without further ado, here is Nancy's bonus material!

*****

I am howling with joy to be on the hunt again! Here are two haiku written by one of the werewolves in the Wolf Springs Chronicles.

SONGS OF THE WEREWOLF

Werewolf's deep hunger

running, howling, not for prey

but for love's conquest

Sharp wolf moon snowflakes

even humans seem to want

thick pelts of warm fur

#

*****

SO…You've found out about the Scavenger Hunt contest. You've seen Nancy's exclusive content.


Now's the part where I get to tell you about my very own:

UNTIL I DIE Contest!

Enter up to 6 times to win a fabulous prize pack including a Paris keychain, signed bookmark and bookplate, a signed copy of DIE FOR ME and an ARC of UNTIL I DIE! (I know…huge prize pack!!!) (International.)

How to get your points:

follow me on Twitter at @iHeartRevenants
get a friend to follow me on Twitter
like me on Facebook
get a friend to follow me on Facebook
join my mailing list (on the right hand side of this blog page)
Leave me a comment here under this blog post telling me how many points to give you. Just leaving a comment counts 1 point. (And if you have done 1-4, give me your user names and your friends' user names so I can credit your points.)

Note: to be eligible to win you also need to submit a valid entry for the YA Scavenger Hunt grand prize.

Ready to go to the next website on the Scavenger Hunt? Let's go visit MYRA MCENTIRE!!

YA Scavenger Hunt

HELLO AND WELCOME TO THE YA SCAVENGER HUNT!
March 29-April 1, 2012!

This tri-annual event was first organized by author Colleen Houck as a way to give readers a chance to gain access to exclusive bonus material from their favorite authors…and a chance to win some awesome prizes! At this hunt, you not only get access to exclusive content from each author, you also get a clue for the hunt. Add up the clues, and you can enter for our prize–one lucky winner will receive TWENTY signed books, one book from each author on the hunt in my team! But play fast: this contest (and all the exclusive bonus material) will only be online for 72 hours!

Go to the YA Scavenger Hunt page to find out all about the hunt. There are THREE contests going on simultaneously! I am a part of the YELLOW TEAM–but there is also a red team and a blue team. You can enter all three contests–which has a total prize bucket of SIXTY signed books!

(If you get stuck as you are moving through the hunt, click through to this page.)

SCAVENGER HUNT PUZZLE



Directions: Hidden within my post is a single letter that is yellow. Make a note of that letter! It's a part of a scrambled phrase. Once you've visited all the author sites of the yellow team, you'll have all the letters you need to enter the contest.

Entry Form: Once you piece together all the clues to the hunt, make sure you fill out the form here to officially qualify for the grand prize. Only entries that have the completed phrase will qualify.
Rules: Open internationally, anyone below the age of 18 should have a parent or guardian's permission to enter. To be eligible for the grand prize, you must submit the completed entry form by noon, Pacific Time, on April 1. Entries sent without the correct puzzle code or without contact information will not be considered.


BONJOUR!

I'm Amy Plum, author of the DIE FOR ME trilogy, a paranormal romance set in Paris featuring supernatural beings of my very own making called "revenants."  I'm your hostess at this TEAM YELLOW stop.

I'm excited to  introduce the author I'm hosting today:

NANCY HOLDER

Nancy's Bio: Nancy is the multiple-award winning, New York Times bestselling author of the young adult dark fantasy series WICKED, CRUSADE, and WOLF SPRINGS CHRONICLES.  She has also written novels and episode guides for "universes" such as TEEN WOLF, SMALLVILLE, BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, HELLBOY, and others.  New short fiction will appear in TWO AND TWENTY DARK TELLS: DARK RETELLINGS OF MOTHER GOOSE RHYMES and SHARDS AND ASHES.

For this hunt, Nancy is featuring her book UNLEASHED.

Katelyn McBride's life changed in an instant when her mother died. Uprooted from her California home, Katelyn was shipped to the middle of nowhere, Arkansas, to her only living relative, her grandfather. And now she has to start over in Wolf Springs, a tiny village in the Ozark Mountains. Like any small town, Wolf Springs has secrets. But the secrets hidden here are more sinister than Katelyn could ever imagine. It's a town with a history that reaches back centuries, spans continents, and conceals terrifying truths. And Katelyn McBride is about to change everything.

Broken families, ageless grudges, forced alliances, and love that blooms in the darkest night – welcome to Wolf Springs.

Find out more information by checking out Nancy's website at nancyholder.com

or you can buy UNLEASHED here!

And without further ado, here is Nancy's bonus material!

*****

I am howling with joy to be on the hunt again! Here are two haiku written by one of the werewolves in the Wolf Springs Chronicles.

SONGS OF THE WEREWOLF

Werewolf's deep hunger

running, howling, not for prey

but for love's conquest

Sharp wolf moon snowflakes

even humans seem to want

thick pelts of warm fur

#

*****

SO…You've found out about the Scavenger Hunt contest. You've seen Nancy's exclusive content.


Now's the part where I get to tell you about my very own:

UNTIL I DIE Contest!

Enter up to 6 times to win a fabulous prize pack including a Paris keychain, signed bookmark and bookplate, a signed copy of DIE FOR ME and an ARC of UNTIL I DIE! (I know…huge prize pack!!!) (International.)

How to get your points:

follow me on Twitter at @iHeartRevenants
get a friend to follow me on Twitter
like me on Facebook
get a friend to follow me on Facebook
join my mailing list (on the right hand side of this blog page)
Leave me a comment here under this blog post telling me how many points to give you. Just leaving a comment counts 1 point. (And if you have done 1-4, give me your user names and your friends' user names so I can credit your points.)

Note: to be eligible to win you also need to submit a valid entry for the YA Scavenger Hunt grand prize.

Ready to go to the next website on the Scavenger Hunt? Let's go visit MYRA MCENTIRE!!

Your chance to be in UNTIL I DIE's video trailer!

On Wednesday, March 28, Hype Vandals will be shooting UNTIL I DIE's video trailer in central Paris, mainly around the Ile St. Louis / river area. And if you are in Paris that day, I want YOU to be in it!

Don't worry – you don't need to act or even say anything. You just have to stand there and be pretty. (And hold something, but I'm not going to give video spoilers here!)

So if you want to participate, leave a comment with around what time of the day you could be available, and I will add you to the list for that "tranche", and then let you know where to go at what time. I will also give updates on FB and Twitter, so keep an eye on those.

I hope to meet you next Wednesday!

Revenants Week

It's March 18. Which is a very special day. One you probably haven't marked in your calendar.

Today is the first day of Revenants Week, which is an event that was organized by the lovely people behind the DIE FOR ME fansite: Revenants Central (Yes, I mean you, Dea and JayJay!)

Every day this week a different blogger working in conjunction with Revenants Central will give you a different character profile, which I supplied them with. Which means some exclusive material. Oh, and contests. And lots of other exciting features appearing every day this week.

Revenants Week starts with one of my favorite characters, Ambrose. Would you like to see the photo of Ambrose that I had pinned to my corkboard while I worked on D4M? Here he is:

Pretty cute, huh? You can see why Charlotte moons over him. To know more about Ambrose, go to this day's stop on Revenants Week: Moirae (the fates) Book Reviews for his vital statistics and more.

Be sure to leave a comment if you're Team Ambrose!

Contest Monday: guess the quote (contest over!)

UPDATE: and the winner is Alyssa Sooklal! Who, like EVERYONE ELSE guessed Georgia. (And yes, as a few of you guessed, she's talking about Ambrose.)

So congratulations, Alyssa. Write me on amy at amyplumbooks dot com with your mailing address. Thanks, everyone, for participating!

*****

Since I had to miss last week's CONTEST MONDAY, due to technical problems (e.g. NO ELECTRICITY and NO INTERNET in my new apartment), I'm making up for it by making this week's contest a good one!

Because not only am I giving away a signed hardback of DIE FOR ME…

but I'm giving you an UNTIL I DIE teaser at the same time! All you have to do to enter is tell me which character's quote this is. (Don't worry – it's one of the characters from Book 1, not a newbie.)

IF you are one of the lucky few who received an ARC of UNTIL I DIE, you can't enter because that would TOTALLY BE CHEATING! Otherwise, leave me a comment below telling me who spoke the following words:

"My lunch date bailed, but fortunately I ran into this hunk o' burnin' love, and he has gallantly offered to escort me around town today. I hadn't planned on doing anything really, but I figure it would be a waste not to show him off."

International. 24 hours. And…go!

Contest Monday: guess the quote

Since I had to miss last week's CONTEST MONDAY, due to technical problems (e.g. NO ELECTRICITY and NO INTERNET in my new apartment), I'm making up for it by making this week's contest a good one!

Because not only am I giving away a signed hardback of DIE FOR ME…

but I'm giving you an UNTIL I DIE teaser at the same time! All you have to do to enter is tell me which character's quote this is. (Don't worry – it's one of the characters from Book 1, not a newbie.)

IF you are one of the lucky few who received an ARC of UNTIL I DIE, you can't enter because that would TOTALLY BE CHEATING! Otherwise, leave me a comment below telling me who spoke the following words:

"My lunch date bailed, but fortunately I ran into this hunk o' burnin' love, and he has gallantly offered to escort me around town today. I hadn't planned on doing anything really, but I figure it would be a waste not to show him off."

International. 24 hours. And…go!

UNTIL I DIE Countdown Widget

Anyone want a bit of YA eye-candy? How about YA eye-candy that you can:

1. consume

With your eyes only…please don't lick your screen. It's not dignified, and actually doesn't have much of a taste…not that I tried or anything. *cough*

2. share

If you're consuming massive quantities of sugary, caloric eye-candy, don't you want to be sure that all of your friends and/or blog readers are too? Just think about the repercussions: it will be like a trans-global UNTIL I DIE sugar rush.

Everyone who sees your widget will be hopping around, energized by the image of Kate staring down an eerie-looking Parisian alleyway, the numbers beneath her clicking away until on May 8 she:

picks up a sword and goes charging down the street towards a menacing group of numa;
sees Vincent appear at the other end and runs as well as she can in high heels to fling herself upon him;
notices a café tucked away halfway down the street and decides to read A Moveable Feast while wearing a blue evening gown and sipping a grande-crème; or
none of the above…these are merely the product of the author's wired imagination while experiencing a major eye-candy sugar rush.

3. pet

Um, yeah. That one's just for me. *Amy lovingly pets countdown widget on her screen, hoping her webcam isn't accidentally turned on.*

4. WIN!

Of course there will be a contest. This is me we're talking about, and when have I been able to resist sending some little treasure to you at one of the four corners of the globe? I just have to figure out the rules, and will announce them on Contest Monday. In the meantime, your widget pimpage will not go unobserved. Have fun sharing Kate and Paris with the internet! And a big MERCI from MOI. ♥

Here it is in all its blue and purply gorgeousness. (Just click "get widget" at the bottom to share!)

*Much thanks to my lovely publisher, HarperTeen, for creating such a gorgeous widget for UNTIL I DIE!

Do you want to buy UNTIL I DIE 3 weeks BEFORE its release?

Really? Good!

Because I will be attending the RT Booklovers Convention in Chicago in April. They're holding a GIANT BOOK FAIR on Saturday, April 14 that is open to the general public. That means you can pay $5 at the door and walk right in to the Hyatt Recency O'Hare Hotel and meet Beth Revis, Stephanie Perkins, Aprilynne Pike, Josephine Angelini, Veronica Roth and the like…AND ME! All of whom would be happy to sell you a book and sign it or anything else you shove under their Sharpie.

Since the Giant Book Fair is just 3 weeks before UNTIL I DIE's May 8 release date, I asked my editor at HarperCollins if, pretty please, they couldn't just give me a big stack of fresh-off-the-press Kate and Vincent. And guess what she said.

Yes, you can buy a copy of UNTIL I DIE – 3 WEEKS BEFORE ANYONE ELSE (!!!!!) by coming here on APRIL 14:

The Hyatt Regency O'Hare Hotel

9300 Bryn Mawr Avenue

Rosemont, Illinois, 60018

(847) 696-1234



Here's the information and the full list of authors signing that day. And here are the authors signing alongside me on YA Alley.

I hope to see you. And so do Kate, Vincent, Jules, Ambrose and the rest, all wrapped up in a blue and purple shiny swirly UNTIL I DIE cover.