Undersea Spoils (31): Birthday, #YeahYA, Giveaway!

Posted by Jessi (Geo) on July 21, 2013 | 56 Comments


USS
This is my replacement for IMM.
 
As the post title suggests, Friday was my birthday! I’m now 25, or a quarter of a century, as so many keep reminding me. Thanks for making me feel old, guys! I had to work all day on Friday, but it was still an AMAZING birthday! The week was totally fabulous and I got lots of awesome goodies! Thank you EVERYONE for all the birthday wishes and a special thank you to Inky for my epic hijack post and the kick-ass video she made me! I seriously love you guys!!!
 

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Bought:
Pacific Rim: The official movie novelization

For signing – all copies signed by Julie Kagawa!
The Iron King
The Iron Daughter
The Iron Queen
The Iron Knight
The Iron Legends
The Lost Prince
The Immortal Rules
The Eternity Cure

With my $50 B&N gift card from my wonderful boyfriend
Thank you darling! I love you!!!
Til the World Ends anthology – I’m KICKING myself for not getting this signed.
City of a Thousand Dolls by Miriam Forster – Loved it!
Proxy by Alex London – Been really wanting to read it

With my $15 Amazon gift card from the lovely Reanna 
I went on a bit of a novella spree haha. Thank you Reanna!!! <33
Isolation by Dan Wells
Neverfall by Brodi Ashton
Roar and Liv by Veronica Rossi
Valkyrie Symptoms by Ingrid Paulson
Undone by Elizabeth Norris
Shift by Kathy Reichs

Won:
The Iron Traitor ARC – WOOP!
Sturdy Harlequin tote bag with swag: Ink and Indelible bookmarks, Indelible tattoo & sticker, #YeahYA chapstick and t-shirt, cute cupcake notepad
$25 gift card to YoLo frozen yogurt
$25 gift card to Dinstuhl’s fine candy shop 

Gifted:
Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson – can’t wait to read it!
ADORABLE ‘decatf’ vs. ‘catffeinated’ mug!
Big thanks to my epic Nator Twin for these! I LOVE YOU INKINATOR!!! 

DVDs from my boyfriend!
Once Upon a Time (first season)
The Host
Oz the Great and Powerful
And an adorable Helly Kitty TY baby!

For review:
Panic by Lauren Oliver (Edelweiss)
Perfect Lies by Kiersten White (Edelweiss)
Deception by C.J. Redwine
3:59 by Gretchen McNeil
Confessions of a So-Called Middle Child by Maria T. Lennon
THANK YOU HARPER!! I’ve been DYING for Deception and 3:59 was a lovely surprise, too! 

 

HARL-YeahYA-Logo11

 

As some of you may know, I went to Tennessee Tuesday for the #YeahYA event, held at The Booksellers at Laurelwood. I was already seriously thinking about going so I could meet Julie Kagawa – who is my favorite YA author – then I found out Shannon from Twilight Sleep was going to be there too, and I was sold! I am SO grateful to have a flexible job that can allow me to change shifts on such late notice. I drove the 8 hours to Memphis with my boyfriend Ken and we stayed in a hotel overnight.

We had a bit of a problem finding a darn hotel; we drove around for about a half hour looking for something cheap before finally finding one that didn’t cost too much away from downtown Memphis (I hate cities!). And the one we picked ended up being a shithole basically…it was really rundown and kind of gross inside, but it was a place to sleep. Lesson learned: in the future, book in advance!

Also, I got ALL the way down there and realized when I pulled into the bookstore that I forgot ALL of my Julie Kagawa books at home. There were 6 of them! So I had to buy them all over again. Upsetting to say the least – I spent $116 just on books for the signing! I was sooo angry with myself. Again, live and learn. But on the bright side, I now have brand new books that all match and look pretty!

The signing was AWESOME though! It was a very small crowd, and we scored the front row so I was sitting right in front of Julie! I took plenty of pictures and videos of the panel with nothing to obstruct my view woot! I had heard from several other bloggers that they were giving away swag bags with Iron Traitor ARCs in them to people who asked questions, so I was ready with my question the moment they turned it to the audience. I was all excited, but sadly the lady just handed me a gift card…no book! I was very disappointed, but was thinking of another question to ask to hopefully get another chance….when my wonderful boyfriend jumped in and asked a question, scoring the goodie bag for me. I love you boyfriend!! His question was geared toward his interest: film directing! He asked if they would feel comfortable letting the film writers take the reins the movie if their book ever got optioned, or if they would want a part in it. Julie actually has a book optioned – a book that’s not even out yet! It’s super sekrit apparently, so she didn’t give anything away about what the book is or when. But I’m still stoked! She said that she’s met with head of Universal to talk about it, it was very cool!!

The best part of the night was getting to meet Julie! I had 10 books for her to sign, so I waited for everyone else and went last in line. When I got up there I told Julie that she was one of my favorite authors, and my favorite YA author. Then I mentioned that Eileen had just gone to the #YeahYA tour, and we were members of the Merp Squad together…and we started a blog tour site so if she had any upcoming books to pimp, hit us up! That was when she asked what my blog was, and when I said “Auntie Spinelli Reads,” she pointed excitedly at me and said “Ohhh I know you!!!” which resulted in a lot of squeeing and happy dancing!! GUYS, JULIE KAGAWA KNOWS ME. SHE KNOWS WHO I AM!!! EEP!!! I was ecstatic!! Not only that, she knew I was the little bird with the kitty on our tour page! That was by far the highlight of my night. I told her I was from Dayton, Ohio, and drove 8 hours just to see her (and Shannon!) and she said she’d let me know if she ever came to Ohio! She thanked me for driving such a long way, and before I left she came over and gave me a big hug! It was so freaking awesome!!! I was grinning like an idiot all night! It’s things like that that really make book blogging worthwhile, and reminds me why I do what I do. I love you Julie! <3333

Julie Kagawa & I! Shannon, Julie, myselfKaren Ann Hopkins, Aimee Carter, Shannon, Julie, myself Julie signing my massive pile of books!

I also met Justin from Justin’s Book Blog. It was very cool to be able to finally meet bloggers in real life! After the signing, Shannon, Ken, and I went to Beale Street…it was a very cool place! There were lots of cute little shops, live music, and a few bars. We ate dinner at BB King’s and it was delicious! We got to listen to a great band play while we ate, too. I had fried catfish…and liked it! I usually hate fish, but I was surprised by how good it was. And the mac & cheese I ordered was seriously the best that I’ve ever had. Yummy food!

The next morning Ken and I went to Dinstuhl’s and YoLo to spend our gift cards. We had frozen yogurt and gelato for breakfast…not the best breakfast, but it was tasty! Dinstuhl’s was a very fancy place, and their chocolate is delish! Thanks Harlequin and Justine Magazine for all the free food! 

It was a FABULOUS trip!

And now, what you’ve all been waiting for…the giveaway!

Giveaway

Giveaway #1: A SIGNED copy of The Goddess Test by Aimee Carter and a SIGNED copy of The Iron King by Julie Kagawa from the #YeahYA event!
(One winner – US only. As this is out of my own pocket, you must be a follower to enter.)


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Giveaway #2: The entire Iron Fey series: Iron King, Iron Daughter, Iron Queen, Iron Knight, Iron Legends. These are NOT signed. Since I have the whole set that I accidentally left at home laying around, I figured I could let one of you guys have them :)
(One winner – US only. As this is out of my own pocket, you must be a follower to enter.)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Giveaway #3: The book of your choice, up to $15 from The Book Depository. This is for my international followers only, since I can’t afford shipping for the signed copies! As this is out of my own pocket, you must be a follower to enter.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

What’s in your mailbox, loverlies? Link me up!

Jessi (Geo)

Posted in: Features, Giveaways | Tags: , ,

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56 responses to “Undersea Spoils (31): Birthday, #YeahYA, Giveaway!

  1. Firstly, happy birthday!!! I hope you had a fabulous day.

    I’ve never actually been to any author events (living in Europe makes it pretty difficult), but I’m so jealous you got to meet Julie Kagawa! She would definitely be on my list of authors to meet. And so awesome that she knew you – I can’t even imagine how exciting that would be :-D

  2. In my country we don’t have such event or very rarely but i was lucky to meet Patricia Briggs ( who i really love!!!) when she came 2 years ago ( but they are difference for example we never have swag, no contest or prize if we answer qestion or ask some, and it’s forbidden to take your books you must buy them and it’s always only one book per person so i couldn’t get all my series signed like you did ç_ç)

    thank you so much for sharing the experience with us and for including a giveaway for international too really thank you

  3. Happy belated birthday, Jessi! And OMG I’m so jealous of all your Julie Kagawa signed books! I’d freak out so bad if I got to meet her. And I’m really looking forward to 3:59 and Deception. Can’t wait to hear what you think of those :)

    My IMM

  4. The Hello Kitty in the picture was nice to see. You got some wonderful gifts. That was an awesome boyfriend to give you that giftcard. I hope you love all your books. I see some things that I want. The Yeah YA event looks awesome. Come visit me as well at the above address.

    Grace
    Books of Love

  5. Oh, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LOVELY GIRL!!!! I can’t believe you met Julie Kagawa! That is so awesome! I lubs her so much! Ackk! And you may have the best boyfriend ever. :) I hope you enjoy all your new pretties! They look gorgeous (especially when some of them are signed by JK).
    Cheers!

    Millie Dixon

  6. Tammy

    I’ve only been to one author’s signing at the local library awhile ago but my city is doing their own Comic Con this September so I’ve by tickets because I’m curious and I might never get to San Diego’s.

  7. Happy belated birthday!!! Sounds like you had fun at the YeahYA tour!! I got to meet Julie when she stopped in Houston! she’s so funny!! And that’s an awesome haul of books! So jealous!!

  8. I love LOVE love that coffee mug. Love! It sounds like you had a great birthday, which is always a good thing :)

    Thanks for the awesome recap on your trip to Tennessee. I’ve been looking forward to that since you left.

    And you are so very welcome, Jessi. I’m glad you grabbed some things you’ve been wanting! All in all, it looks like you received quite the birthday haul!

  9. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! WE LOVE YOU!!! So much awesomeness is in this post. All those books. O_O And the trip/signing looks like it was AWESOME!

  10. Because I am from Romania, it’s hard for me to participate to bookish events or meet authors. Even our local ones only organise events in the big cities… not close to where I live. But in autumn I’m going to college and will surely participate in the local bookish events there. :D

  11. First of all, your A7X shirt = love.

    Second of all, I am extremely jealous that you met Julie! She came to Dallas about a week and a half ago, but I wasn’t able to go, which bummed me out. I actually haven’t been to any events, or met any authors. How sad is that? Fortunately, I’ll be going to a YA book festival in September, so that should solve that problem. :P

  12. erinf1

    the only author event I’ve ever been to was a signing at my local B&N w/ Chloe Neill and Rachel Caine a few years ago. It was awesome :) Thanks for the fun post and giveaway!

  13. Erika

    What a wonderful gift! Great books! Love signed books! I haven’t been to an author event or met a famous author yet but hope to in the near future. Thanks!

  14. Hannah Taylor

    DUDE. That is freaking awesome. I’m so happy for you! ALL THE BIRTHDAY LOVE! I’m glad I didn’t get you Till the World Ends, haha! I almost did. :D and Proxy! I almost got you that too! LOL. Enjoy them BOTH! LOVE MISTBORN. It’s *almost* as awesome as you. But not quite. :D DECEPTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OH MY GOSH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DECEPTION!!!! READ IT NOW! SPAM ME WITH YOUR LOVE! I think Eileen pre-ordered if for me but OH MY GOSH I want that baby. I hope you love it!!! And awesomesauce movies! I’m planning to watch the Host soon! I know you loved it so I can’t wait! I’m so glad you got to meet Julie! That’s like me meet Tolkien, which will never happen. HAh. That’s seriously awesome! I love that you promoted Merp Tours. AND SHE KNEW YOU! HOLLLLAAA FOR THE JESSINATOR!!! That’s the coolest thing EVER. :D

    Point is, you rock! I’m so glad it was an awesome birthday!
    <333333 INKY

  15. Nice birthday swag!

    Wow, Julie sounds so awesome! I’m still excited from when I met Beth Revis and she said she liked my shirt last fall!

  16. Happy birthday!! Yay for wonderful presents, and, though it totally sucks to have spent so much on getting signed copies, at least you had an awesome time!

    (I’m 25, too, and I STILL get upset about it. Sometimes I pretend I’m 24. :P)

  17. Duks

    Hi! Well first of all Happy Birthday!! Hope you had fun and enjoyed your day. Yes, this year I’ve been to some book events. Met Cassandra Clare twice, finally met Richelle Mead (got so nervous ended up smiling the whole time I was face-to-face with her.) Went to Leigh Bardugo’s “Siege and Storm” launch party, and after 5 missed events met Marie Lu. The one event I’m still pissed I missed is Rainbow Rowell’s signing, don’t know why I decided to go to the beach instead. Well hopefully I get to go to more book events!

    Happy Birthday again!

  18. I have only ever gone to two book events. One was the Fierce Reads tour with Leigh Bardugo, Emmy Laybourne, Gennifer Albin, Jessica Brody, and Anna Banks and the other was a book signing for Rick Yancey’s 5th wave. When I meet authors I tend to get a little starstruck and don’t know what to say. It’s a bit embarrassing.

    • So jealous you got to meet Rick Yancey!! I wanted to go sooo bad, but Florida is just too far away =/
      I know what you mean, I always embarrass myself in front of the authors too!

  19. Pam

    I haven’t had the opportunity as of yet to go to any book events, and I’ve not met any authors either. Hopefully in the future I can remedy that. :)

  20. Ashfa Anwer

    I’ve never met an author or been to any book event :( lucky you and thanks for the INT giveaway! :)

  21. Considering that I live in Bosnia no I haven’t. We don’t have such a big events here. We only have book fair but rarely any author comes. But I like seeing your pictures and that all seems great :)

  22. WAH, what an awesome post! I really need to work on finishing mine (I haven’t put up the rest of the interview because I haven’t had time to listen to it!)…gonna work on that today/tomorrow. I LOVE your idea of doing a giveaway just for your international followers – I’ve been thinking about a way to include them in my giveaways since shipping costs are so high, I don’t know why I didn’t think of the gift card idea! Hope you don’t mind me stealing it because that’s exactly what I’m going to do. :P

    I had such a great time hanging out with you and getting to meet Julie, Karen, and Aimee! I can’t wait until we can meet up again – which will hopefully be in August! *rubs hands together*

    So glad you had such a wonderful birthday. Tell Ken I said hi! <3

    • Can’t wait to see the rest of the interview! I always feel bad when I do giveaways for hard copies, because the INT peeps can never participate. I’m too cheap to spend that much on shipping! I figured going with TBD was the best option ;)

      Me too! I found out that Redwine and Carson are going to be in Columbus (an hour from me) 2 days after the Nashville one…but I’m still going to try to go to Nashville because you’ll be there! Maybe I’ll go to both, baha!

      Thank you, will do!

      • Actually I don’t know if I’ll be there or not…money may be an issue. I will try to let you know ASAP. :(

        And yes, I’m too cheap for international as well. I did it once – shipped a book to Canada – and the shipping cost more than the book did. I was like, nope…sorry. Can’t do this.

        P.S. – I’m SO glad I can actually comment on your posts now! Hoorah!

        • Aw, that’s okay! With that one coming so close to me anyway, maybe we can just pick something else that’s coming to Nashville :)

          Me too! Disqus looked nicer, but this one is easier for non-Disqus users, and now I have a plugin to email my commenters when I reply to their comments!

  23. Wow!Lucky!

    I haven’t met any author yet.I’m from the Philippines by the way,so just a couple of international authors were able to visit. But hopefully I can meet my favorite authors before I even die.

    Oh, Happy Belated Birthday! :))

  24. Jolene A

    I have not been to any book events though that is something that is at the top of stuff I want to do. I have met Marissa Meyer and I can’t wait to someday meet more of my fav. authors

  25. Stephanie H.

    Happy Birthday Jessi!

    Don’t feel old, we just celebrated my husbands 30th birthday yesterday!! I had never been to a book signing/author meet and greet until recently, although my mom had given me signed books as gifts. She even found a series based on a school psychologist (what I do in real life!) who solves murders in a small town and had the author sign them. My husband and I recently moved for his job and we have an awesome book store nearby that gets authors in all the time! I met Richelle Mead a couple months ago and JLA more recently!!!! I had to miss A.G. Howard and Veronica Roth is coming for the Allegiant tour. I was hoping Julie Kagawa would be coming for the YeahYA tour, but no such luck. :(

    • Thank you!

      Ohh that’s very cool! I wish we had a bookstore like that nearby, but Ohio is lame and there’s hardly ever anything exciting around here. Hence why I keep ending up in Tennessee haha! I wouldn’t mind meeting JLA and I’d loooove to meet A.G. Howard! I love her!! Hopefully you’ll get to meet Julie someday too, she was amazing :)

      P.S. Haven’t heard from you in forever, good to see you back! :)

      • Stephanie H.

        Ooh, I just remembered one other author meet I’ve had from grad school, well before we moved to the Chicago burbs! My husband and I went to a Oklahoma author event at OSU-Tulsa. He had to go because of a class (English degree). We both went because P.C. and Kristen Cast were going to be there and we love the HON series! Not only did we meet them and get all of our books (at that time) signed, but P.C.’s dad was there (he helps with research) and in the program there was a little blurb about everyone and it mentioned he was one of the winningest football coaches in the state of Illinois. As an IL native, I was curious and asked about it. Turned out P.C. went to high school with my dad and her dad coached two of my uncles in football (got to love small towns!). Thanks to my dad and aunt, I know what P.C. stands for ;)

        Thanks! It’s been a crazy couple of months!

  26. Christine

    I haven’t been to any book events, so I haven’t met any authors. I would probably be freaking out during the signing though. I’m definitely of jealous of you. (:

  27. I live in the middle of Nowhere (Kansas) and sadly, not many authors or book events happen in KS. So no, I’ve never been. But I’d jump at the chance to meet Kim Harrison, Anne Rice, or Stephen King. Thanks for this great giveaway!

  28. Dovile

    Unfortunately, I live in Europe and my favorite authors dodn’t really come here. I’d love to have some of my books signed though!

  29. Rebecca Hipworth

    You’re so, so lucky. I have never met an author. There aren’t many signings happening in the UK. I have to get my books shipped over from the US. :(

  30. genevieve

    I met Cornelia Funke and Shannon hale at a boo event. Meeting Cornelia was so cool !!!! she came out in a old gown and read to us from reckless. one of my fav times !!!

  31. No, I’ve never been to an author event. I have met a very obscure self-published author (D. Newton) through a NaNoWriMo Workshop at my local library, though. I had read her book months before without knowing she was a local author so talking to her about it was pretty exciting. :)

  32. I’ve actually only met one author, and that was Jodi Picoult. It was a really great experience though and I’d love to meet more authors in the future. It’s really cool that you got to meet Julie Kagawa! :)

  33. I live right across the river from NYC, but I’ve only ever met one author-Kiera Cass! She’s written 3 books, The Selection, The Prince and The Elite. She signed my copy of The Selection and bought me cookies! she was really sweet and we even took a video for her tour video! Since then I’ve been looking out for any author stops in NYC, but so far I’m out of luck. That’s strange, right? Shouldn’t NYC be a hub for writer’s?

  34. Kassidy Price

    I live in Louisville, Kentucky and I have met Julie Kagawa one time at a Barnes and Noble signing. It was actually a complete accident as I was going to the signing to meet Kelly Creagh, the author of Nevermore. But while I was talking to Kelly, I looked at the table next to her and saw The Iron King sitting there. I saw Julie, and I asked her, “excuse me, are you the author of The Iron King?” She told me, yes, she was. And I told her, “this is the funniest thing because I just bought The Iron King at Half Price Books a couple of days ago and I’m reading it right now! It is so good I could barely put it down to come to this signing!” So course I had to have Julie sign my Nook case, as I didn’t have The Iron King with me. It was a pretty awesome day, meeting two great authors!

  35. Lynn K.

    Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to meet an author or attend any bookish event. The closest I’ve “physical contact” I’ve got to an author was by winning some signed books…because at some point they actually held that book. >.>

  36. Ileana A.

    Since I’m intl I haven’t had the chance to meet an author T____T
    But I would love to! Someday maybe :D

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