The Countdown to Ballads begins!

Today marks exactly three months until Ballads of Suburbia is released... *pauses to panic* 

Deep breath. 

Okay. 

That means it's time to start spreading the word about it. Fortunately I have an amazing friend, Jenny Hassler, who is a complete genius when it comes to website stuff. She revamped my site, gave it a total Ballads of Suburbia makeover, including using photos from the real setting of my book. I think it's pretty cool, so please check it out! Be sure to go through the Ballads section to learn all you can about the book :)

Last week, I asked my blog readers to create cool banners and widgets for Ballads because I'm just not good at that sort of stuff. I did it as a contest. Those whose designs were chosen win ARCs of Ballads. I wish I could have chosen everyone who entered. I really do, but since I don't have an unlimited number of ARCs unfortunately I couldn't. I chose two people in the banner category and two in the widget category. I wanted to announce the winners here, so without further adieu....

Widget winners are:

Lucile, who created these two widgets:

And Devyn who created this one:



My Banner winners are Lisa who created these two banners:




And Renee, who created this one:


Now, that I have banners and widgets in all shapes and sizes, which you can grab code for in this section of my website, I can start a new contest: The Web Plastering Contest! All the info about it can be found here. The deadline is May 21 and three lucky winners will walk away with ARCs of Ballads and some other great prizes! So I hope you'll enter and help me spread the word about Ballads because I've gotta say.... I'm almost more excited about it than my first book!

Though I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone got it's moment in the sun on Friday when it became a finalist in OK-RWA's National Readers' Choice Awards in both the YA and First Book categories! Thanks readers!