Alicia K. Leppert's Blog: http://www.aliciakleppert.com/, page 3

Emerald City Blog Tour

 

My blog tour schedule is nearly full! A big thank you to all the bloggers who have signed up to participate! I am so excited for this tour, I can hardly tell you. I think I might finally know how they work and how it's gonna go, but I won't really know until it's actually happening, which makes it just that much more exciting! For the entire month of March (yes, we've extended it past the 23rd), me and my book will be featured on at least one blog, sometimes more. There will be lots and lots of giveaways, lots of reviews, guest posts, interviews, and character interviews, which sound totally cool. There are still spots left, so if you have a book blog, or even a regular blog with a pretty big following, I'd LOVE to add you to the schedule, or you can sign up yourself here. (Feel free to add my banner to your blog if you're a participant.) Only a week and a half left! Yikes!

The Happiest Mail. Ever.

So here's a funny story. A week and a half ago I was Googling my book (you know, to check for new reviews and stuff) and I came across a listing for an ARC copy on ebay. Wait…what? Let me get this straight. Someone, who receives Advance Reader Editions of books for review, FOR FREE, read my book then put it up on ebay. To make a profit. Off of my book. That they got for free. I was appalled for all of about 5.3 seconds until I realized that a copy of my book was available on ebay. Finally, a chance to own my own book, even if it is just the unedited advance copy! There was no "buy it now" so I had to wait 4 long, excruciating days to bid on my book and hope that I won it. Well, 4 days finally passed and I sat down to bid on my book. I tried to wait until about 5 minutes left in the auction to bid but at about 7 minutes left I panicked that I was going to miss out on it and bid the asking price of $2 something. I was told I was immediately outbid. So I went up 2 dollars. Same thing. I went up two more. Finally the bid was mine! Now all I had to do was sit back and watch the clock tick down. But at about 4 minutes left I started to see the amount jump higher. Then higher. Then higher. It jumped past my bid but still said I had the winning bid! I was completely mystified until I got a text from my husband who was at a friend of a friend's house watching the Super Bowl. It said: Are you bidding on your book?! Well of course I am!! I wrote back: Yes. Are you?! Sure enough, he was, and we had been out-bidding each other for the last three minutes. Come to find out he'd gone up to $30 just to be safe, which I thought was just about the sweetest thing I'd ever heard. Luckily, once we realized our comedy of errors, we didn't have to pay $30 dollars for a book I wrote. Just over $12, which was fine with me. The story that came with that $12 dollars (and the item I won with it) was absolutely priceless.

I've since found out that selling ARC's on ebay isn't technically illegal, just unethical and really, really lame. I'm not sure if the seller put together that he/she'd just sold the author her own book, but since my last name is in my username and on my husband's Paypal account that I used to pay for it, I'm hoping he/she suspects. Either way, getting my mail today was just about the most exciting thing that's happened to me in a long time. I grabbed it on the way to my mom's house and opened it in front of my sister, who snapped away with her iTouch camera. The picture is grainy and I'm looking less than stellar in my 20 year old sweatshirt and second-day hair, but I love this picture because that ear to ear grin on my face is not posed. This is me, looking at and holding my book for the very first time (not the giant book in my lap, that's my laptop case):

On a side note, the reviews from these ARC copies are flooding in (I don't know, can you call 7 a flood? It feels like it) on Goodreads and I am absolutely thrilled at the reviews I've been getting. If you don't care about spoilers, check them out here. (Most of them you have to scroll down for, under community reviews.) With only one exception, they. are. awesome!!

Whatcha Readin?

I saw something done the other day on a book blog that I thought was pretty cool. Whatever book you're reading, you go to the page you're on and pick a sentence or paragraph to share with me (us), something that doesn't "spoil" the book. So here's mine:

Location 4918 of 6100 (gotta love Kindle page numbers) of Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson:

"He did not see the four fast-moving Vs on the surface of the silver water, heading straight for the longboat."

Ooooh. Ominous. I'm reading this for my book club tomorrow night. What are you reading? Play along, won't you?

We Have A Winner!

So my husband didn't want to stay up till 1:30 in the morning helping me figure out the winner of my giveaway. He said something about "sleep." Weird. So, since I had no witnesses, I documented me drawing out the name. Here is the winner, in picture form:

Congratulations Kim!!!

You won an advance copy of my book, to be sent to you asap. Email me your address and I'll forward it on to my publicist.

Thank you so much to everyone who entered and especially to those who helped spread the word. You guys are awesome!

GIVEAWAY!!!

There's no better way to kick off a new website than a giveaway, right? I mean, who doesn't love the chance to get free stuff? Well….how would you like the chance to read my book before everyone else? That's right–I'm giving away an advance copy of my book! Woo hoo! However, it wouldn't be a giveaway if you didn't have to jump through some hoops, right? I know, I know, everyone hates those kinds of giveaways. Well here's the thing. There's a reason people do them–publicity. We're not just trying to be mean. And, if you're one of the ones who really hates those kinds of giveaways, you can still enter, rest assured. Just leave a comment below, and voila! You're entered. But…if you really, really want to win, and you're willing to do a few things to get your name in the hat as many times as possible, here's what else you can do:

Leave a comment below. Easy peasy.
Follow me on RSS. (You can do this and the next two things with the handy little buttons up in the right hand corner.)
Like my Emerald City page on Facebook. (If you already have, let me know. It will count.)
Follow me on Twitter. (Same thing here. If you already do, let me know.)
Share the news. Blog or Facebook about my giveaway.

Yes, many ways to enter, few will win. Well, only one will, actually. The giveaway starts now and will go till Thursday at midnight. Aaaaaaaaand……..GO!

 

Blog Tour

Do you know what a blog tour is? If not, don't feel bad. I just learned about them a week ago and I'm still figuring out exactly how they work. Apparently it's like me going on tour for my book, but I don't have to go anywhere, which is my kind of tour. My book is featured on a different blog (or two, or three) a day, with giveaways, interviews, and/or guest posts. So you can follow me around the blogosphere as I promote my book, March 1-23. I'll post the schedule as soon as it's complete so you can follow me on tour. You know, like be my groupie. My schedule is filling up fast! If you have a book blog with 200-400 or more followers and would be interested in being a stop on my tour, go here to sign up. It's all very exciting!

Wow. Things are starting to get exciting. Every day I'm g...

Wow. Things are starting to get exciting. Every day I'm getting little pieces of exciting news from my publicist and my Good News Giver Extraordinaire, otherwise known as Jen.

So there's this website called NetGalley that makes soon-to-be published books available to "serious" readers (ie, reviewers, book bloggers, librarians, etc.). Emerald City hit NetGalley not too long ago (I'm not sure of the exact date) but from what I'm told, it sort of exploded. It's in high demand, purely based on the picture of my cover and the little blurb attached, which I can only take 50% credit for (the blurb). The cover I had almost nothing to do with and have to give props to the amazingly talented designer at Cedar Fort who came up with it. I'm not kidding when I say he pulled the image straight out of my head. And just like we all thought, it is drawing attention. So, several of the book bloggers who requested a copy have already posted about my book on their blogs, which is very exciting, but even more exciting is that a few people have already finished reading it and written reviews on Goodreads. One in particular pretty much made my year. If only all reviews could be like hers. Here are some excerpts from her review. (I'd link to the whole thing but it gives away quite a bit, and you know how hard I've tried to keep this hush hush!)

I went into this book not really knowing what it was about. Obviously (see my Wizard of Oz moment from above) but I came out absolutely LOVING this book. Mrs. Leppert is right when she says that this mysterious rescuer turns Olivia's world upside down. Oh and the twist on the romance? Yeah, wouldn't have expected what it was from the tiny summary above…Thank you NetGalley and Cedar Fort Publishers for allowing me to read this gem before it's released. I feel honored and humbled at the opportunity. And if you can get your hands on this April 10th, I suggest you do. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Thank you Holly! You are who I wrote this book for!

 

 

Welcome To My Site!

I can't believe it, but it's finally finished! My book website is officially up and running and fabulous, thanks to the amazing talents of my dear friend, Shayla. Look around, explore, say "hi." Let me know what you think! I will be blogging here regularly and keeping you all updated on this crazy journey called "getting my book published." Thanks for stopping by, and come back soon!