Author: Tiffany

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New Uses for Glowsticks — Lessons from Hurricane Sandy

So, the YAmazing Race ended on Monday, but my power decided to shut itself off before I could choose a winner.

Let me tell you, a few days without electricity and I’ve got a new appreciation for Tesla and Edison. Also, I’m apparently an Old Dog because I could NOT break myself of the habit of flipping on light switches– despite the fact that my other hand held a flashlight.

Though I may not be able to learn new tricks, I do give myself mad points for repurposing the glow sticks we’d bought for Halloween.

My top 3 uses for glowsticks:

 

1) Locating door handles.

2) Booklight

3) Schmidtlet tracking devices.

 

Anyway, now that you’ve admired my genius idea and my offspring, let me give you what you’re really here for: The Winner!!

A great big round of applause for…

*insert mental drumroll*

a Rafflecopter giveaway

  Congratulations, Tammy! Not a bad choice of candy, either!

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YAmazing Race – No Sneakers Required

Thanks for racing, but this YAmazing race has ended…

Hello! Thanks for making it to the Send Me a Sign pit-stop on the YAmazing Race with MGnificent prizes! Since I’m not the first stop on team Toilet Papering The Yard, you probably know the drill by now — This is a blog hop featuring a zillionty debut authors. We’re giving away prize packs stuffed with books, gift certificates, and all sorts of swag.

If you’ve stumbled on this post and are feeling a little lost — skedaddle over to the Apocalypsie Website where you’ll find some helpful directions and links to the beginning.

Send Me a Sign by Tiffany Schmidt 

Mia Moore has spent her entire life looking for signs. A sign that she should get serious with her soccer-captain boyfriend. A sign that she’ll get the grades to make it into an Ivy-league school. A sign that the summer before senior year will be the best one ever.

But when Mia is diagnosed with an aggressive form of leukemia, the only sign she wants to see is that she will survive cancer. That she will get through a summer of intensive chemo and be able to go back to being the girl she’s always been—top student, part of the A-list crowd, and dating Ryan, the hottest guy at school.

And until she’s better—meaning no throwing up, no hospital stays, and definitely no wig—Mia doesn’t want anyone to know she has cancer. She doesn’t want her friends’ pity. And she certainly doesn’t want to start feeling something more than friendship for the one person who does know what she’s going through, her best friend Gyver. But the sicker Mia gets, the more she realizes that not even the clearest signs offer perfect answers, and in order to find out what happens in her life, she will have to find the courage to live it.

Want a copy of your very own? (The correct answer is YES!)

Send Me a Sign is available NOW at: IndieBound * Doylestown Bookshop (signed copies!) * Amazon * Barnes & Noble * Chapters/ !ndigo * Book Depository

Done? 
I know your brain is packed full from all the YAmazing/MGnificent Toilet Papering bookstops you visited before mine — but I hope you paid attention to the summary above, because you’ll need to know something about Send Me a Sign to answer the quiz and enter to win the prize packs. *hint*ItRhymesWithChia*hint*

Wait! 
Want more chances to win stuff? Since you’re here and everything, I might as well offer you an incentive to stay… or at least come back and visit.

Complete the Rafflecopter form below to enter to win the Ultimate Send Me A Sign Swag Pack: Magic 8 Ball, iTunes giftcard, custom bracelet, and other fun surprises.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Sayonara

As much as I hate for you to leave *sniffle* there’s more YAmazingness in store for you. Click HERE to go visit Susanne Winnacker on the next stop on the Toilet Papering the Yard tour.

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In The Wild – Send Me a Sign’s Release Party

I’ve seen Send Me a Sign in book stores. I’ve seen texts and tweets and Facebook photos of other people’s copies. I’ve even seen a picture of my book in front of the Eiffel Tower (Thanks, Amy!)

It’s still hard to believe that this is real.

Perhaps most surreal of all was last Friday’s release party at Doylestown Bookshop. I’ve had a whole week to process it and beam at the photos, but I’m still in pinch-me mode. I’m still in teary-eyed gratitude mode.

Thank you to everyone who came to support me and Send Me a Sign. You are ALL part of my dream-come-true  ♥

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Release Day! Hip Hip Hooray! (warning: more rhyming ahead)

Last night when I couldn’t sleep, I tried counting sheep, St.Matt’s snores, and the minutes until the local bookstores opened and I could go see Send Me a Sign in the wild.

When all that failed, I got up and wrote you a little poem:

 It’s the eve of release day, I pace at the sink.
This author’s not sleeping, not even a wink.

The Schmidtlets are dreaming, all snug in their cribs.
And St.Matt is snoring, despite my pokes to his ribs.

I could be sleeping, or blogging, or cleaning, or writing,
Instead, I am pacing, fretting, lip-biting

I’m full of impatience, excitment, panic, and glee
Tomorrow readers meet Gyver, Hil, Ryan, and Mi.

My book! In stores! It’s a dream that’s come true,
Look for the cover with dandelions. It’s pretty! It’s blue!

In swirly-whirly letters it says: SEND ME A SIGN.
And the pages, the story, I wrote them, they’re mine.

Tomorrow I share them, and they become yours,
Which is why I’m up pacing, wearing grooves in my floors.

Fine, I’ll go get in bed, it’s near the end of the night,
Not to sleep, but to read — I love my book light!

… Is it obvious yet that I was never a poet?

I could not be more excited to be sharing SEND ME A SIGN with readers today.

xoxo,

Tiffany
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Here, there, everywhere…

It’s been a busy week.

Actually, it’s been a *full* week — there’s a difference.

This week saw the sharing/revealing/posting of:

 

I felt like *I* couldn’t keep up with it all — so I certainly wouldn’t blame you if you missed some of this.

So, I conveniently linked everything above 🙂

Have a fabulous weekend!

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Something to Celebrate!

It’s my birthday– Hooray!

Here! Have some cake!

But, really… I have one of these every year.

 

Want to know what’s MUCH bigger news?

 

After all, I’ve had 32 birthdays, but this is my first book trailer.

Click above to head over to MundieMoms.blogspot.com and watch the trailer — don’t forget to come back and tell me what you think…

…or else I’ll make you wear The Schmidtlets’ birthday crowns.


Now that you’ve seen the trailer, you’re practically salivating to read the book, right?

Well, have you heard how YOUR pre-order means I’LL donate $2 to cancer charities?

Simply:

1) Pre-order SEND ME A SIGN from the bookselling venue of your choice
2) Email proof of your pre-order to SendMeASignBook@gmail.com
3) Do a happy dance & get yourself some cake.

Handy-Dandy Pre-Order Links

IndieBound * Doylestown Bookshop * Amazon * Barnes & Noble

Pre-orders through Doylestown Bookshop will be signed and include bookmarks/surprise swag.
If pre-ordering through Doylestown Bookshop, please indicate whether you would like your book shipped or will be attending the release party on October 5th .

If you have any questions, please email me at SendMeASignBook@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Pre-Orders For Morgan

Below is a blog post I’d written last August while working on edits on Send Me A Sign and dreaming of a time fourteen months from then when my book would be in bookstores.

It’s something I believed in strongly then—and that was before cancer went and made it personal, stealing someone very special from me this year. One of my former students, Morgan, passed away from cancer in January.

Morgan was a fighter. I’d like to follow her example and fight back too—and you can help. Read the details below or by clicking HERE.

As many of you know, my debut novel, SEND ME A SIGN, comes out in a month.

I’d like to make it obsolete – and you can help.

Now, before the publicity and sales departments at Walker-Bloomsbury have a collective heart attack, let me explain: Send Me A Sign is about a teenager with leukemia. It’s about a lot of other things, too: love, luck, music, friends, alliteration… but leukemia plays a large role. And did you know that leukemia is the most common form of cancer for young people?

If this were to change, if we could find a cure to this awful disease, then my this part of my book would be… obsolete.

Imagine if in five, ten, fifteen years, everyone who picks up the novel could say, “Wow, cancer. Remember that? I’m so glad we cured it.”

And here’s how you can help.

You were planning on buying my book anyway, right? Well, for every person who pre-orders my book between now and its release date, October 2nd, I will donate two dollars in Morgan’s memory to be split between two cancer charities: The Dear Jack Foundation and Sunshine Kids.

Here’s what you need to do:
1) Pre-order my book (links below)
2) Send me proof (photo of receipt, forward email confirmation of order, etc) to SendMeASignBook@gmail.com
3) Pat yourself on the back

Thank you for helping make my book obsolete. Thank you for helping me honor Morgan’s memory.

And thanks for reading it, too!

Handy-dandy pre-order links:

IndieBound * Doylestown Bookshop * Amazon * Barnes & Noble

Pre-orders through Doylestown Bookshop will be signed and include bookmarks/surprise swag.
If pre-ordering through Doylestown Bookshop, please indicate whether you would like your book shipped or will be attending the release party on October 5th .

If you have any questions, please email me at SendMeASignBook@gmail.com

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ARC giveaway winners

Thank you to everyone who entered my ARC giveaway!

The two winners (picked by Random.org) are:

 

 Maria C. and Meagan R.  

 

Congrats, chickadees! I’ll get those books in the mail right away!

For the rest of you — you’ve still got until 9/1 to enter the giveaway that Walker-Bloomsbury is hosting on GoodReads — and they have FIVE copies. Go enter and GOOD LUCK!

Also –make sure to stop by again SOON! There are some BIG things planned in the upcoming weeks (um, starting TOMORROW!)

 

 

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Contest, Author Copies, AND a New Website

So… that happened yesterday. That’s pretty much my real-time reaction to getting my author copies. (After I danced around the box and put The Schmidtlets down for an impromptu nap). In case you were wondering, YES, I DID give myself a papercut on the chin while snuggling the book.

And then I quickly put the book back in the box. Where it still sits, along with all my other untouched author copies, in the front hall of my house. It didn’t even occur to me to OPEN the book until St.Matt was paging through one when he got home from work.

Guys… they’re so pretty! I LOVE them! And I can’t wait until you can see them too.

It’s only FIVE WEEKS AND FIVE DAYS until SEND ME A SIGN hits bookstore shelves… and since FIVE is my main character, Mia’s, favorite number, that means it’s time for a giveaway.

I’m giving away TWO Send Me A Sign ARCS. (Yes, I DO know it’s odd to give away ARCS when I just got my author copies, but I had this giveaway planned out and the author copies were a Very Awesome Surprise).

To enter — just fill out the form below. I’ll pick winners on August 31st.

ALSO — did you notice anything NEW around here? *gestures excitedly*  Hello, new website! (This was how I’d planned to open this blog post before the Very Awesome Surprise). Go! Click around! Explore! This post will still be waiting when you come back. MANY, many hours of stress, tears, and tweaking went into this redesign. I hope you like it! I owe a HUGE hug-accompanying THANK YOU to Courtney Summers who talked me down from my My-Brain-Can’t-Handle-WordPress ledge many, many times. (Including a particularly tearful e-mail “I just don’t know WHY it’s not working! I’ve spent the past 90 minutes trying EVERYTHING” — her response, “Tiffany, clear your cache – it’s working fine.” I dutifully Googled “cache” and she was right.)

So, really, this whole post can be summed up as:

Welcome to the new site! I’m so glad you’re here!  Let me offer you prizes & please admire my pretty author copies!

 

(The form has been removed because the contest is close — thanks for entering!)

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YA Fest – Winners!

Since Friday the 13ths are UNlucky, can we establish a new rule that Monday the 13ths are EXTRAlucky?

At least they are for Sarah & Maddie! Congrats to you two — beaucoup de books coming your way.

Didn’t win? I’m so sorry — maybe you’ll have better luck over at GoodReads— Walker-Bloomsbury is giving away a handful of copies of SEND ME A SIGN.

And if you’re local(ish) — come see me at PAYA in West Chester, PA on August 25th. I’ll have chapter samplers, swag, smiles & hugs!

 a Rafflecopter giveaway