It's Release Day!

I can't believe it's actually here. Release Day. It feels like it took forever to arrive, and at the same time was here before I knew it. I am completely over the moon excited and have already had a few people tell me that they bought a copy, which is both extremely thrilling and terrifying at the same time. Being that I live in Canada, it'll still be a little while before I can hold my books in my hands, but it's one more thing to look forward to. There has been so many great things that have happened to me this week, I feel like I should be buying up lottery tickets. 


List of great things:

1. My book came out and I became a real, honest to god, published author (duh). 

This has been a life-highlight. I will remember this forever. The epicness of this is unbelievable. I am running out of descriptive terms.

I sat on the Dreamspinner Press website refreshing the page over and over until it moved from the "Coming Soon" page to the "New Releases" page, and then I saw this on the side and nearly lost it completely with excitement. (And yes, I did screencap that to commemorate the event. What?) And then when it actually released I may have screamed just a little bit and my mom called to congratulate me. Then my  husband called and we had this conversation:
Me: Hey, do you remember when I first got my contract and I wouldn't shut up about it for weeks and it was really annoying?
Him: Yup.
Me: This is going to be sooooo much worse than that.   

2. This amazing review on Mrs. Condit: http://mrsconditreadsbooks.com/index.php/?p=11064  that I was absolutely thrilled to read. Lucky gave it 4 1/2 sweetpeas and I couldn't be happier. (and P.S. there is a giveaway on there too, so many sure you stop by!)

3.  I am attending GRL as a supporting author: http://www.gayromlit.com/author/cate-ashwood
I am really really looking forward to going and have already been incessantly planning in my head. Those six months are going to crawl by, I just know it.

4. For a long time, Will Parkinson was the only person to review Sweets on Goodreads, (and it is a really great review) so for a while I was able to say I had a five-star rating on Goodreads.
You can read it here: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/535838147

5. Monique from Monique's Musings posted this on facebook:

See that in the upper right corner? That is my book. The corner of my book is touching the corner of J.R. Ward's book. Not to mention being in the company of some other very well-know, very talented authors. The caption, which is far too small to read, states that these are some of the books she is excited to read in March.

She is excited to read my book!




6. The week leading up to release day was a stressful one for me. I have gone back to school and March 9th and 10th were final exam days for me. All I wanted to do was spend endless hours on the internet, but instead I was memorizing and studying and generally being a complete basketcase about the whole thing. I was super nervous for them, as I am used to giving the final exams, not taking them, but you know what? I frickin' aced them. Both.

7. My blog tour stars tomorrow (and I am giving away two copies of the e-book)! Here are the stops and topics:

March 12th: All about Sweets @ Kim Fielding
March 14th: Setting the Scene @ J.R. Loveless
March 16th: My Coming Out Story @ Charlie Cochet
March 18th: An Interview @ Chris. T. Kat
March 21st: Breaking the Romance Rules @ Andrew Q. Gordon
March 23rd: An Interview @ Skylar M. Cates
March 26th: What I've Learned This Year @ Jana Denardo
April 1st: It's About the Sex @ Anne Barwell
April 3rd: An Interview @ L.J. LaBarthe


8. I have even more to look forward to, because my birthday is at the end of the month and my family is coming out to celebrate with me. It's going to be the best month ever.


To top it all off, this is the graphic Google used today:

DON'T PANIC. Fitting, doncha think?



And here, in case you wanted to read it, are some of the links for buying Keeping Sweets.

Dreamspinner Press:
E-Book: http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=3620
Paperback: http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=3621

Amazon:
Ebook: Coming soon
Paperback: http://www.amazon.com/Keeping-Sweets-Cate-Ashwood/dp/162380406X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1363034368&sr=1-1&keywords=cate+ashwood

Barnes and Noble:
Ebook: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/keeping-sweets-cate-ashwood/1046224271?ean=2940016268088
Paperback: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/keeping-sweets-cate-ashwood/1114813099?ean=9781623804060

Red Letter Day

Yesterday was a really amazing day. After incessant refreshing of the Dreamspinner Coming Soon page, my book finally showed up. There it was, right at the bottom of the page, the gorgeous cover Brooke and Paul did for me, and there was my name right next to it. And the icing on the cake is that it snuck on there just in time for people to take advantage of the Mardi Gras sale!

Here it is:
Ebook: http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=3620
Paperback: http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=3621


I wrote a book. I did. A real book. That is now for sale. I am no longer just a writer. I am an author. A real one.

I didn't know how happy seeing my book on the website would make me. I've been envisioning it for months and when it finally happened, I was home alone. I didn't have enough phones to call everyone I wanted to tell all at once.

So that was exciting news chunk number one. In fact, here is a section of a screenshot to commemorate the event.


Number two came at the same time in the form of my ad pack. I have been drooling all over my cover since I got the final draft, and now I have a whack of stuff to go with it. I am beyond happy. In fact, that banner you see at the top right there? That's one of the files. Awesome, is it not?

Number three came a few minutes later when I realized that the Dreamspinner website was not the only place where my book could be found. That's right. It's on Goodreads. Despite the nightmare that I had last night it was exciting to see (not a single person read my book, DSP cancelled my contract and banned me from submitting ever again, and somehow, even though no one had read the book, it had a rating of negative six on Goodreads... and I was a tango teacher on a cruise boat).
Seeing it on Goodreads made it seem more real, somehow. So that was number three. I also got to apply to link the author profile with my personal profile, so I am now officially an author on Goodreads.

The final bit of super awesome exciting news is that my unconscious prophecy has already been avoided. Someone ordered my book. Henrietta Clarke tweeted about it, and here it is so I can remember forever. SO EFFING EXCITING!

So that was my day, and it was one of the best days I've had in a long time.

Any ideas on how I should celebrate?