Holiday Blogging: Day Two

 

God this is so hard!!! I don't know if I've really read any holiday theme scenes. 

Since Parajunkee mention about Harry Potter winter wonderland that I'm going to go with that since I'm horrible at trying to think of scenes from other books that I read. 

 

This was always my favorite from the first movie, seeing the great halls fill with Christmas decorations and that free falling snow without actually getting snow??? I LOVE. 

 

The ball that Goblet of Fire had and it was all crystals! 

UtopYA Con: The Awards

This was my first year attending UtopYA but I was rather curious about the Awards, it's like a mini MTV Awards that you see on TV but a lot smaller and more focused on books, the authors, the editors, photographers, categories/genre of the books, and the cover models!

Inside the Awards

The Models & Katie Cook

Yes there were some dancing involve but I do not dance

Recap on UtopYA Awards Winners!

Best Dystopian Book of the Year ~  
Red Hill by Jamie McGuire

 

Best Sci-Fi Book of the Year ~  
Under Different Stars by Amy A. Bartol

Best Fantasy Book of the Year ~ 
Rapture by Quinn Loftis

 

Best Paranormal Book of the Year ~ 
White Hot Kiss by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Best Contemporary Book of the Year ~  
Crash Into You by Katie McGarry 

Best Contemporary Book Cover ~  
Into the Deep by Samantha Young

 

Best Supernatural Book Cover ~  
Under Different Stars by Amy A. Bartol

Book Cover Model of the Year ~  
Jesse Daniels

Best Book Trailer ~  
Few Are Angels by Inger Iverson (produced by Timid Monster)

Best Edited Book of the Year ~ 
Under Different Stars by Amy A. Bartol (edited by Gloria Lutz)

Most Innovative Marketing ~   
Maybe Someday by Colleen Hoover

Best Contemporary Lead ~  
Cameron Hamilton – Trust in Me by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Best Supernatural Hero/Shero ~  
Tristan Knight – Soul Savers series by Kristie Cook

Best Supernatural Villain ~  
Cameron – Cinder by Jessica Sorensen

 

Best Couple ~ 
Daemon & Kat – Lux series by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Best Kiss ~ 
Skyla & Gage – Celestra Forever by Addison Moore

Best Bestie/Buddy ~   
Elora – Rapture by Quinn Loftis

Best Book Hangover ~ 
Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare

 

Best Debut Novel ~   
Lucky Number Four by Amanda Jason

 

Best Book to Screen ~    
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

 

Best Blog of the Year ~   
My Book Addiction

Blogger of the Year ~ 
Toni Lesatz – My Book Addiction

Best Companion Novella ~  
Consequence (A Significance Novella) by Shelly Crane

Best Serial Series ~ 
 
Starwalkers by Julia Crane & Lizzy Ford

Best Contemporary Series ~ 
Sea Breeze by Abbi Glines

 

Book of the Year ~ 
Under Different Stars by Amy A. Bartol

Fan of the Year ~  
Tammie Ross Zimmerman

Utopian of the year ~   
Raine Thomas

Raine Thomas and Me

Author of the Year ~  Jennifer L. Armentrout

Adam Kunz was kind enough to accept the awards for Jennifer L Armentrout's behalf since she wasn't able to be there herself. He rocked the stage with multiple awards acceptance and wore the Owl hat.

This was copied off JLA's FB page, I do not own this picture

UtopYA Con: Day two

We got more panels today and tonight is the UtopYA Awards! I slept in a little just because I didn't need to get up early to buy books.

Since the two keynotes speakers switch places, Friday was Syliva Day and today was Gennifer Albin. It always nice when authors share their struggles, their ups and downs. Gennifer probably shared one of her hardest moment in life for her and her husband.

Gennifer and I

After that I went to check out more of the exhibitors, since some were still setting up when I walked around yesterday but I was early as well but with how the panels started I didn't have much time to linger around.

The Blog Your Face off was interesting, Toni of My Book Addiction was one of the speakers and I found that it was really important that bloggers are able to pass on advices to other bloggers.

The Stellar Swag that had Carol Kunz, Heather Hildenbrand, Amy Miles, and Sarah M Ross. They shared about their thoughts and their honest on creating swags. While some had someone else do the design and swag works even Heather spent hours writing on rocks for swags and people seems to love them even though she thought that would never draw interest.

If I had to create swags, I love bookplates, bookmarks, some other sizes of books swags. I've collected many of those things so I know what I like and don't particularity care for. There are great sites to make your own swags as for me with my business cards I did that all on my own.

The best panel I like the most was the Future of YA & NA Trends, this is where I got to meet Kelly of Ink Slinger PR. I think a lot of new authors/writers worry about trends, you know vampires and werewolves were a thing and they still are but not in that big attention like Twilight was.

Kelly and I

I've told myself even when I had doubts, don't worry about trends you will drive yourself out of your mind. My characters are what they are and who they are even if something is consider DEAD. As long you love what your writing it doesn't matter, you have to have the passion to push yourself.

Well Check back for the UtopYA Awards because that needs a post all on its own,

Armchair BEA: Author Interaction

I interact with authors all the time, whether its on Twitter or Facebook, but Rachel Vincent is usually found on Twitter more than Facebook. If you don't know her here's a little info about Rachel herself,

Rachel Vincent is the author of the Shifters series and the Unbound series, from Mira Books, as well as the young adult Soul Screamers series from Harlequin Teen. Upcoming projects include Menagerie, the first in a new series for adults (Mira Books, Sept 30, 2014) and a brand new young adult series coming from Delacorte Press (Random House) in the spring of 2015.
In addition to being a writer and a reader, Rachel is a wife, mother, sister, daughter, cousin, cat lover, horror fan, former high school English teacher, former band nerd, amateur baker, and current lover of all things The Walking Dead (comics, TV show, action figures, and video games). She wears jeans, drinks flavored coffee, and would be completely nocturnal, if her kids didn’t have to get to school in the morning.
Questions for Rachel? You can leave a comment in her blog, or ask her something on Formspring.

Shifters Series[UF/Adult] (6), Unbound Trilogy{UF/Adult] (3) & Soul Screamers [YA] (7)

 

Rachel Vincent twitter interactions

Rachel is such an awesome author! She constantly tease us with the tiniest snippet of her books, she's the one author that I so want to meet at some point but I love interacting with her on Twitter. Here's a conversation that I had with her in and got her wheels turning.

Here's the headline of our conversation . . . an YA Shifter book. Imagine Faythe Sanders at 16 years old . . .

So yep that was the conversation we had and it was a fun and interactive conversation, even a few other readers jump in as well. I know Rachel is busy working on her new books/series but you never know, she just might surprise us with writing an YA Shifter book.