Happy Valentine's Day!

Don't Facebook and Fly

A Dutch Airline will soon be offering passengers a chance to pick who they want to sit by based on their facebook profiles. Uh huh. I don't think I like this. For one, if I'm on a flight I just want to get somewhere. I don't want someone to target me and sit by me for nine hours on our way to Paris (I'm dreaming big) because we both found the chubby cat sitting on the glass table funny. And I imagine there are countless directors, producers, and tv network heads who don't want hopeful actors and future reality stars stalking them and pestering them throughout their flight for tips or hookups. And what about the hot girls? The poor poor hot girls who will be surrounded by creepy men hitting on them throughout the duration of the flight. The only benefit I can see coming from this whole facebooking and flying thing is if you post that you had a huge bowl of chili the night before and I know NOT to sit by you for the long flight.

What do you all think? Would you want to facebook and choose your seat companions or have them choose you? Or would you rather take your chances with the big sweaty guy and the screaming kids?

Valentine's Day Event Tonight!

Celebrate Valentine’s Day (and the Anti-Valentine’s Day) with Me Tonight!

From Fountaindale Library:

"On February 2, from 6:30-8:00pm, we will be having our “He Loves Me…He Loves Me Not” Party in The Vortex! Valentine’s Day will go head-to-head with Anti-Valentine’s Day as we have activities both celebrating and protesting this LOVE-able and HATE-able holiday! The party’s for 6-12 graders and we ask that you please register! Teen author Kristina Springer will join us and sign books that she’ll have available for purchase! A great chance to have some fun and meet a published teen author! Hope to see you there! – Carly T."


For more info, click here.

Ryan Gosling Loves Fake Boyfriend?

This is too funny.

My Fake Boyfriend is Better Than Yours - Quick Pick!

Whoo hoo! MY FAKE BOYFRIEND IS BETTER THAN YOURS is a 2012 YALSA Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers!

Girlfriends' Cyber Circuit Starring: LUCIENNE DIVER

About Fangtastic:

What do you wear to face down a cadre of killer kids? 

Gina Covello would rather be working on her manicure than missions for the Feds’ paranormal unit to which she’s been recruited.  That changes when a group of killer kids takes out a family in the sunshine state and disappearances begin to plague the lifestylers who only play at the kind of existence our fanged fashionista leads.  She and her crew are sent undercover into the vampire clubs…which turn out to be run by real vampires.  While Gina’s BFF Marcy hangs with the steampunk-styled Burgess Brigade that spawned the killer kids, Gina herself is supposed to get in good with the fanged fiends behind the scenes, even to the point of playing double-agent, offering to hand over her powerful boyfriend Bobby.  Her playacting threatens to become a bit too real when she discovers things about her spy handlers that make her wonder whether she’s truly on the right side of the battle between Feds and fangs.

Our Interview:

1)      How much time do you spend on marketing your book? Is there one specific type of marketing that you find works best for you?

I’m lucky I eek out time to write.  So this year I delegated a bit…in as much as I hired More Than Publicity to do a music video for the Vamped series and an original song, which fans can download for free from my website.  I blog, tweet, Facebook, and run contests, like the one I’m doing now with a Kindle giveaway, but I’m really not certain what time of marketing is most effective.  The biggest seller of books is word of mouth, and that’s all up to the fans!

 2)      How do you come up with the names of your characters?

Some introduce themselves . It was that way with my heroine, Gina.  She was just…who she was.  I couldn’t imagine her being anyone else.  Other names I have to think about.  They really have to feel right for the characters.  I have to think about what each name suggests to me and is likely to suggest to the reader.

3)      Have you ever based one of your characters on someone you know? If so, did that person find out? How did they react?

Usually my characters are a hodgepodge of people I’ve known.  Every once in awhile, a person gets a more direct cameo, though usually they know about it, like my friend the gothic magician who appears as…a gothic magician in the fourth book, Fangtabulous (forthcoming January 2013).  I’m always asked if I’ve ever put myself in a book, and I have in a way.  Much like Alfred Hitchcock does in his movies (not that I’m in any way comparing myself with one of my idols), I have a walk on in Vamped. 

4)      Would you ever try writing in another genre?

I’ve already begun the Latter-Day Olympians urban fantasy series, which is geared more for adults than teens.  Bad Blood is the first book (already in digital, print May 1^st); I’m at work now on the sequel, Crazy in the Blood.

5)   Who is (or who are) the Young Adult author that turns you into a fangirl?

I’d be a blithering idiot over Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games) and Rick Riordan (the Percy Jackson series).

6)  Do you prefer reading on an ereader or book in hand?

I have a first generation Kindle.  I think I owned it for an entire year before I ever turned it on.  I love physical books.  LOVE them.  The feel, the smell, the covers, the collectability.  However, we’ve long since run out of room for them.  I still buy hardcopies of my favorites (and for my son), but I have to admit that it’s far easier to store e-books and they don’t collect the dust.

About the Author:

Lucienne Diver is the author of the popular Vamped series of young adult novels (think Clueless meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer).  School Library Journal calls the first book, “a lighthearted, action-packed, vampire romance story following in the vein of Julie Kenner’s “Good Ghouls” (Berkley), Marlene Perez’s “Dead” (Harcourt), and Rachel Caine’s “The Morganville Vampires” (Signet) series.” VOYA has suggested that the books “will attract even reluctant readers.”

Her short stories have been included in the Strip-Mauled and Fangs for the Mammaries anthologies edited by Esther Friesner (Baen Books), and one of her essays appears in the anthology Dear Bully: 70 Authors Tell Their Stories (HarperTeen). 

Hunger Games, I'm Addicted to Thee!

I know, I know, I'm the last person on earth to pick up The Hunger Games. And WOW, it's so awesome!! I'm listening to it on audiobook right now and I'm so hooked. I've gone outside to shovel three times today just to keep listening to the story. And ok, to pull the car out too. And look at this great video below, it's the new Taylor Swift song, Safe and Sound, from the movie. Can't wait to see it! 

Are you a Hunger Games fan?