Last Chance to Win. . .

A signed copy of The September Sisters (by me!) and A Taste of Magic (by Tracy Madison) over at The Novel Girls. It's easy to enter -- all you have to do is leave a comment on tomorrow's post or any other post from last week. Each comment gets you one entry into the contest.

So stop by the blog and join in the fun. The Novel Girls did some really great interviews with me and Tracy last week -- we even did a fantasy movie casting on Friday!

The September Sisters Book Trailer!!!

Check out this book trailer for The September Sisters, made by the fabulously talented Compulsive Reader! She was so nice to make this for me, and I think she did an awesome job with it, too!



And yesterday, I was featured over at The Story Siren in her Author Tales. She's running a contest with it, too. So check it out!

It's Here! It's Here!

The September Sisters release day, that is! I'm so excited that the book is finally out!!

So far to celebrate, I took the kids to the bakery to get cookies, and then we sat outside (it's 80 degrees here today) and ate them, having what my son dubbed "a cookie book party!"

On the web, I'm blogging over at the Harperteen MySpace page today about how the book was "born." Click here to check it out! And it's Maureen Lipinski's turn to interview me and Tracy Madison over at The Novel Girls! Remember, if you leave a comment on any post all week, you're entered to win a signed copy of The September Sisters or A Taste of Magic.

Hope of Hope's Bookshelf put up a great review of The September Sisters yesterday, and Kelsey over at Reading Keeps You Sane put up another great review today! Hope posted an interview and contest today as well!

And don't forget my contest, which I've linked on the sidebar! I'm eager to hear where you see the book, especially because I have yet to see it in a bookstore myself!

Win a Signed Copy of The September Sisters!

Here's my official contest to celebrate my release day, which is now less than three hours away!! The contest begins now and ends March 15th.

To enter, e-mail me at jill@jilliancantor.com if you see The September Sisters in a bookstore. Let me know which bookstore and in what city you saw it.

If you want two entries into the contest, e-mail me with the above info. plus an actual picture of the book in the store!

I'll pick one winner at random from all the entries to win a signed copy of The September Sisters and some awesome matching bookmarks for you and your friends.

More Ways to Win!

All week The Novel Girls are celebrating both my release of The September Sisters and the release of Tracy Madison's A Taste of Magic. We're also giving away signed copies of both books. All you need to do to enter is comment on a post this week, so stop on over and visit us. The Novel Girls are interviewing both me and Tracy all week, and they've come up with some pretty interesting questions so I think it's going to be a great release week over there!

I've also posted some new contest links on my sidebar - Lauren's Crammed Bookshelf and Book Chic are both giving away signed copies of The September Sisters! I'll have more info. about more contests at more blogs, later in the week, including my very own contest that I'll be hosting right here.

First Contest

The awesome YA Book Realm put up the first official contest to win a hardcover copy of The September Sisters!! Visit her blog http://www.yabookrealm.blogspot.com/ to find out how to enter or click here for the post about the contest.

More contests coming later in the week and next week!

And check out the awesome "Browse Inside" widget I took from the HarperCollins site -- it's over on the left sidebar!!

One Week!!!!!!!

I am officially one week away from The September Sisters release. ONE WEEK!!! And all of a sudden I'm feeling very busy -- you can find me lots of places in the blogosphere this week.

The Story Siren posted a great review of The September Sisters yesterday, and Lauren from Lauren's Crammed Bookshelf posted an awesome review today.

Book Chic posted a Vlog of himself reading an excerpt from The September Sisters today -- he does a great job reading it! I'm also one of Book Chic's Fresh New Voice of YA authors for the month of February (along with Saundra Mitchell author of Shadowed Summer), so tomorrow he'll be posting a guest blog from me, Thursday an interview, and Friday a review of the book.

YA Book Realm posted a guest blog I wrote about my sister (and check out my sister's comment at the end -- she's so cute!). Friday I'll be taking part in Inspired Fridays over at Lauren's Crammed Bookshelf.

Oh, and the best part -- the contests will be starting soon!! I'll post up the details when I have them, and if you missed anything, I've also linked all my guest blogs/interviews/reviews on my sidebar.

A Great Review!

I wanted to share this really great review of The September Sisters posted by BookKids. They called The September Sisters a "MUST pick up" book, and said the book is, ". . . a touching, beautiful story about one girl’s struggle to find love in the rubble left by a whirlwind of unimaginable events. The September Sisters is both tragic and sweet, captured perfectly with Cantor’s striking voice." You can click here to read the whole review.

I poked around their site, and found out that BookKids is the children's section of the largest independent book store in Texas, BookPeople. It looks and sounds so awesome --I'm totally wishing I lived close enough to Austin to go hang out there!

And. . . have you noticed the countdown widget? That's right. Single digits!!! In 9 short days The September Sisters will be released! It recently occurred to me that I should do something on my release day. Any suggestions?

Why I heart my copy-edits

Today I got the first round of copy edits for my second book, which is going to be out next winter (2010) from HarperCollins. I promised awhile back, I'd give more details about this book, but lately I've been thinking/talking/writing so much about The September Sisters, that in a strange way I'd almost forgotten about this second book.

Then today, I started looking through it again as I looked at the copy-edits, and I felt this overwhelming rush of emotion. I LOVE this book, and suddenly, I was so excited about it that I couldn't believe I'm going to have to wait a whole other year to see it in print!!

So here's what I can tell you about it now (and more to come in the next few months, I promise.) It's called The Life of Glass, and it follows a 14-year-old girl through her freshman year of high school as she comes to terms with life, love, loss, and what it really means to be beautiful. My editor has written the amazing jacket copy (and as soon as I get the go ahead I'll share it here).

I also realized that although going through copy-edits can sometimes be a little tedious, I am so, so glad for the distraction. The closer it gets to The September Sisters release, the more I alternate between being so excited that I want to scream and so terrified that I'm about to have a panic attack.

Which leads me to the best pre-book release moment of the week, hands down: when I saw the UPS man walking up my front walk carrying a huge box adorned with the HarperCollins logo and packing tape that read "New Release." I think I frightened the poor guy when I started shouting "My books are here! My books are here!" as he handed over the box.

In other book release news, I also have a bunch of cool interviews and guest blogs lined up for the next week when you'll find me at YA Book Realm, Book Chic, 52 Books and 52 Weeks, and Lauren's Crammed Bookshelf. (I'll link the posts on the sidebar when they're up.) And, oh yeah, did I mention, there's gonna be some giveaways involved?! Stay Tuned!

Actual Copies of The Book!!!!

When I opened up my mailbox this afternoon, I had the most amazing surprise -- two early copies of The September Sisters, that my lovely editor was nice enough to send in advance of my author copies, direct from the printer. They are GORGEOUS!! And I spent most of the afternoon staring at them, gushing about how gorgeous they are to anyone who would listen, taking pictures, posting said pictures on Facebook, and then gushing over them again on Facebook. So yeah, not a real productive afternoon. But -- who cares!! I've got real (did I mention gorgeous?) books sitting in front of me. Here I am holding one!



And here I posed them and took some shots of them alone!

What do you think? I think that HarperCollins rocks and did an awesome job with them! I can't wait to see them on an actual shelf in a actual bookstore in a few weeks!

Updates

I put all the blog tour info. up on the left sidebar, so you can see where I'm headed and where I've been. After each post is up, I'm linking directly to the post, so if you want to read my guest blog or interview, just click. Also, if you've e-mailed me and you're not up there, it's just because we haven't confirmed a date yet, so I'll get your link up after we do. I'm having so much fun with the interviews and the guest blogging, so I hope people are enjoying reading them!

In other news, I now have an official Facebook fan page! If you want to join, click here (and it should take you to the site -- I think you have to sign in to join, though.)

I'm also trying to figure out how to use Goodreads, and wondering if I'm the only one that finds it confusing? For some reason it takes me forever to figure out how to do something on there, and I have a hard time finding the people I want to friend. It could be cuz I always seem to be on there late at night when I'm tired! But, hey, if you're on Goodreads, and you've got it figured out, send me a friend request. I love seeing what other people are reading!!