Category: YA

Happy Thanksgiving, Ninjas!

It’s Thanksgiving week, you guys!

And to show my thanks, I’m doing a sale :).

All this week you can get NINJA GIRL for just $0.99 on Amazon and Amazon UK!!! Hooray, woohoo and hi-yah!

I just wanted to say thank you because my readers really are the best—and that means YOU!!! <3

If you or any of your bookish peeps might like NINJA GIRL, please take advantage of the deal! I love finding new readers and book deals, and I really wanted to get into the Thanksgiving spirit.

To me, the holiday means giving thanks, showing gratitude and reminding ourselves of everything we’re grateful for—and if you’re like me, sometimes, you need that reminder.

I’m grateful for so many things: my family and friends (of which I may not have many, but it’s about quality, not quantity, and mine are awesome), my health and that of my loved ones, green bean casserole (of course), kind people who do kind things, bookish people who read and recommend great books, and dogs.

Because dogs make life better.

The holidays can be a gloomy time. But I hope with good friends, good times and good books, we’ll all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Again, I’m so thankful for all of you, and I wish you all the best!

Happy reading,

Cookie O’Gorman

P.S. I can’t believe the Entangled print edition of ADORKABLE comes out exactly one week from today!!!! Ahhhh! <333

5 Things: I Learned @ the Writers Conference

Hi everyone!

First, I want to announce the winners of The Good Girl’s Guide to Being Bad Audiobook Giveaway!!! Thank you to everyone who entered and helped spread the word about Sadie & Colton’s story! <3 You rock!

Without further ado, the winners are:

Alyssa C., Michelle H., Cassandra D. and Grace B.!

Congrats, you guys!!! I’ll be sending your prizes ASAP, and I hope you love The Good Girl’s Guide to Being Bad!

Second, since it’s Friday, I wanted to do a fun post about the 5 Things: I Learned @ the M & M Writers Conference :). (Sidenote: I learned more, but I like lists of five ha ;))

Plus, since it’s NaNoWriMo, I thought it might give some of my writerly peeps some inspiration!

Here are my 5 Things:

  1. Someone out there needs your book. Every day started with a motivational talk from one of the big authors attending. The first was Alyssa Day, and though I’ve not read her books, what she said resonated with me. Her favorite thing was hearing from readers, and if you’ve followed me on my publishing journey, you’ll know that hearing from my readers is my most favorite thing as well! She read us 10 messages she’d received, some funny, others saying her books had helped them in some vital way. It reaffirmed my belief that writing is important, and books can change the world.
  2. Market vs. Heart. I’ve heard this before, but in one class, they posed a question all writers have to ask themselves. Am I going to write to market or what’s in my heart? My answer: Both. I always write what’s in my heart, and my books just happen to be commercial. So, I don’t think you have to make a choice here. I think you can do both, write from the heart and still be successful. In fact, I don’t know how you can do it any other way.
  3. Ads, Ads, Ads! Most of the classes I attended mentioned ads; most authors were doing them (some with greater success than others), and everyone kept saying how you have to run ads now to be visible. In other words, there are so many books out there that running ads is imperative if an author doesn’t want their books to fade into oblivion or wants to build their author brand. I will tell you: I’ve only run 2 Amazon ads. Ever. For two different books. They ran for a month and were at least semi-successful…I guess. I didn’t lose or gain a lot of money. It always seems to me like a crapshoot. The problem is I don’t understand ads (there are so many factors!) or the whole putting-money-in-to-get-twice/triple/more-on-the-return etc. Also, how do you know if your book’s success is due to the ad, something else or just people organically finding the book? Anyway, I hope to learn more, maybe run ads, but for now, my books have done pretty well.
  4. Author Swag. One of the coolest things was the goodie room :). Maybe it’s because this was only my second conference, but I thought it was awesome seeing all of the author swag! Pens, chapsticks, bookmarks, magnets, all the book stuff! I’ll be having my first book signing next month for the Entangled print edition of ADORKABLE coming on Dec. 3, 2019 (YAYYY!!!), and I bought some swag for anyone who comes out! Hopefully, I’ll get to give some of it away lol!
  5. Books save lives. Again, my favorite part of the conference (besides getting to hang with my awesome family) was the motivational speeches. One of them was from Jennifer L. Armentrout!!!!!! 😀 If you just squee’d that was me when I found out she was going to be there LOL! Anyway, her speech was wonderful. She told us so much about her journey as a writer, her amazing success, as well as her eye condition that she was recently diagnosed with that will eventually end up taking her sight. I nearly cried four times while she was speaking. She told us not to listen when people say mean things about writing romance. Told us romance and books save lives. She also told us to stop denying our hard work, to stop telling people our success was just “luck” because we tend to give everyone else the credit and never give ourselves any. We diminish ourselves, all the work we put in, our achievements by doing this. Again, I nearly cried four times (“nearly” because I was in a banquet room full of people), but everything she said was so motivational, so right on. I loved hearing her and hope she writes for a very long time to come!

So, those are my 5 Things! If you’re doing NaNoWriMo, I wish you so much good luck and fantastic writing days! Hope you are all well!

Happy reading,

Cookie O’Gorman

The Good Girl’s Guide to Being Bad Audiobook Giveaway!

Hi everyone!

I’m holding a giveaway for 4 copies of The Good Girl’s Guide to Being Bad audiobook!!! Hooray! Since it’s almost Halloween, just consider this my treat to you ;).

If you’d like to enter, please use the rafflecopter below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I love how the narrator Madeleine was able to capture Sadie’s voice and the feel of the book! Hoping to perhaps get over my fear, and do a video so you can hear a bit of the audio as well–and see my dorky reactions lol. But if not, you can check out TGGGTBB audiobook and give it a listen yourself! It’s so good, you guys!

Good luck, everyone, and I hope you’re reading (and listening) to wonderful books!

Happy reading,

Cookie O’Gorman

P.S. I wrote 2,000+ words today, woop!

ADORKABLE Book Mail!!!

Hi bookish peeps!

I have an amazing/awesome surprise to share with all of you :-D. It came in a box on Tuesday, totally unexpected, and I was going to try to do a video, but I chickened out lol.

So you get pictures instead, ha!

Entangled sent me copies of the new print version of ADORKABLE, and they are SO gorgeous!!!!! *_*

Take a look!

Inside the box…

Outside the box…

The beautiful spine…

More ADORKABLE spines….

…and me & Sally swooning over Becks! <333

Full disclosure: Way too many pics were taken, but I regret nothing LOL!

Thank you so much to the awesome people at Entangled for sending these! It was such a wonderful surprise! And thank you to all of my awesome readers for your support of Sally & Becks’s story!

I hope you’ll check out ADORKABLE in print this December—less than 2 months away, ahhh! Hope you’re all doing well!

Happy reading,

Cookie O’Gorman

The Good Girl’s Guide to Being Bad Audiobook!

Today is very special!

The Good Girl’s Guide to Being Bad audiobook releases today, yay!!! And my best friend/favorite person of all time was born on this day years ago!

When I found out TGGGTBB audiobook would release on September 30th, I was so excited. I didn’t actually get to pick the date; Tantor Media did, and I’m so glad they chose such a great one :).

Here’s the beautiful cover <3.

I love everything about it, of course! <333

And the narration of the audiobook! Wow! Madeleine Dauer, the narrator, was absolutely perfect for Sadie!!! When I first heard her voice, I knew she’d be wonderful, but then I listened to the sample of the audiobook. Oh my gosh, you guys! Her inflection, the emotion she managed to convey with her voice, the timing, it was so right on! I laughed out loud and smiled several times. Just brilliantly done!

If you love audiobooks and YA romance, you should definitely give The Good Girl’s Guide to Being Bad a listen!

Happy audiobook release day to TGGGTBB!!!

And to my best friend who I miss dearly every day: Happy birthday, Aunt Pat! I love you so much and wish you were here. It’s hard even on the good days being without you. You made every moment brighter and better, and I just miss you. I hope there are books, birthday cake, and all the best things up in Heaven. I love you always. Say hi to Mema & Papa, and kiss the babies for us. Love, Your Cookie.

Happy reading (and listening),

Cookie O’Gorman

Cover Reveal: ADORKABLE (print edition)!

Hi everyone!

Today I have a very ADORKABLE cover to reveal! Woohoo!!! I apologize in advance if you get this twice. I also posted in my newsletter bc it’s just so exciting! The print edition from Entangled will be released on December 3rd and will have exclusive bonus content :D.

Ready to see the awesome cover?

Possibly for the second time today ;)?

Here is the cover of the upcoming print edition of ADORKABLE!

Ah, I love it and can’t wait for the release!

Again, there’s a giveaway on Instagram to celebrate the cover reveal hosted by MTMC Tours, and oh my gosh, you guys! If I can figure out how to insert Instagram posts into my blog posts (I’ve done it before, but I don’t remember how lol!), I will have to share them with you because wow! So many beautiful pics <3.

Here are the awesome tour hosts in case you’d like to go check them out and enter the giveaway:

@paperfury
@thereaderandthechef
@tata.lifepages
@my_heart_is_booked
@beauty_in_books17

@l.m.durand  
@ya.its.lit
@nerdy_little_julith
@the.word.traveler
@mixed_matched_socks

Hope you are well, bookworms, and having a very happy Friday!

Happy reading,

Cookie O’Gorman

Bookstagram

Hi everyone!

Something really exciting is happening this Friday! There will be a cover reveal for the print version of ADORKABLE, yay!!! And if that wasn’t cool enough, the reveal is being hosted by MTMC Tours and will be on Instagram :D.

This is the awesome banner I found on the MTMC Tours site, and what’s even cooler? (I know so much cool in this post ha!)

Well, Melissa from The Reader and The Chef, who is one of the lovely ladies who runs MTMC Tours, was one of the bloggers in my initial blog tour when ADORKABLE came out in 2016!

Isn’t that crazy?!?

I remember her because she wrote such a nice review of the book and really seemed to love Becks <3.

So, this is my first Instagram tour, and I’m very excited! There are so many nice bookish accounts on there and so many beautiful book pics taken by bookstagrammers. It’s a real thing, you guys. People have accounts just for books, books, books! *__*

I hope some people sign up and that they love the ADORKABLE cover and that more readers discover Sally & Becks. There’s exclusive bonus content that will only be in the print edition, and I can’t wait for everyone to read it (especially the people who love Becks *sigh* :)).

There will also be a giveaway involved, woohoo! Again, so excited about this reveal! Friday can’t come soon enough lol ;).

I hope you’re all having a great week so far!

Happy reading,

Cookie O’Gorman

Thank you and Instagram!

Warning: Very thankful author post ahead <3.

I cannot believe how many awesome readers responded to the Hungary, I Love You Giveaway!!! It was so wonderful reading all of the great comments!

*sigh*

Seriously, it touched my heart to read the responses about which characters people liked and why. And can I just say: I LOVED how much love my guys and girls received!

My book boyfriends get a lot of love here in the States–which I totally get and am thankful for! I’m secretly in love with Becks and Ash and want to marry them as well LOL! 🙂 But it was awesome to see so many readers who loved Sally & Snow as well! Yay, girl power!

I just want to say THANK YOU so much again to everyone who entered! Your enthusiasm and awesomeness made my day, and I’m so grateful that you like my books! The winners below were randomly selected.

Without further ado, the winners of the Hungary, I Love You Giveaway and signed copies of Nindzsalány and Kamuzások, ​kavarások are:

Fruzsina Kucsera

Tóth Teodóra

Jocka

Yay!!! Congratulations, and thank you so much for entering! Please send your address to cookieogorman[at]gmail[dot]com or message me on Facebook, so I can send you your books!

Also, as I mentioned, I had 12 extra bookplates in case more people entered…but I was so moved by the responses that…

I’m giving a bookplate to everyone who answered the question (Who is your favorite character from my books?) & entered the giveaway!!! 😀

Congrats, Irma, Szilvia, Tarcsai, Evá, Lilla, Királyné, Szandra, Hanna S., Adrienn, Jocó, Sandor, Stephanie, Timea, Anna, Ramóna, BVarga, Boglárka, Dóri, Hanna B., Tamás, Georgina, Titanilla, Réka, Andrea, Tamara, Melinda, Krisztina S., Nikolett, Judit, Eszter, Niki, Kiara, Krisztina P., Zsanett, Vivien F., Zsuzsanna, Körizs, Boglárka, Nóra, Renáta, Nikola, Klára, Dóri, Timi, Kulcsár, Vivien B., and Kira!

If you’ll send me your address, I will make sure you get your bookplate!

Thanks again, you guys! It may take a minute for the bookplates and books to arrive overseas, but I will be sending ASAP.

Next week, there will be an Instagram giveaway to celebrate the cover reveal for the print version of ADORKABLE coming out in December, yay! I love it and can’t wait to see what you amazing readers think!

Oh, and I finally got an Instagram!

I’m pretty nervous. Social media isn’t really my thing (translation: I kinda suck at it lol! :/). But I’ve already found some fantastic book peeps (and there are a lot of beautiful book pics *__*).

You can follow me there if you’d like! I’ll try not to be too awkward ha!

Hope you all have an awesome day with awesome books!

Happy reading,

Cookie O’Gorman

Hungary, I Love You Giveaway!

It’s giveaway time, bookworms!

And today, you can win signed copies of the Hungarian translations of NINJA GIRL and ADORKABLE! Yay!!!

A while ago, I received copies of both books from LOL…

…and they are gorgeous *___*.

I can’t explain why I forgot to post these pics, but part of it was probably that I don’t love pictures of me etc.

But the books just are so darn pretty lol! 🙂

If you’re one of my awesome/fantastic/lovely Hungarian readers (or if you enjoy reading Hungarian), this is a giveaway just for you! I’m giving away 3 signed copies of Nindzsalány and 3 signed copies of Kamuzások, ​kavarások. Three winners will receive copies of both!

You can enter by commenting on either this post or on the Facebook post for this giveaway. All I want to know is: Who is your favorite character from my books? 🙂

I’ll randomly select the winners, and I also have 12 extra bookplates if I need them, hooray! The giveaway will end next Sunday, September 15, 2019.

Good luck, I hope some of you lovely readers enter lol, and if not…I guess I’ll just be keeping these beautiful books on my shelves :-).

Hungary, I really do love you, and I’m thankful every day to know my book was translated by the wonderful people at LOL <3.

I’ll have more posts coming up (and another giveaway, yay), so be on the lookout! I hope you are all well, bookworms, and having a great week!

Happy reading,

Cookie O’Gorman

Big Book News

Okay, I’ve been hinting at this for a while, but…

I have some big book news about ADORKABLE!!!

And I’m finally ready to share :). It’s a hard thing, knowing when to share news, because I’m always afraid the good things will fall through. What a way to live right lol? But it’s time to get over it, and be brave.

Plus, if you’re reading this, you’re probably one of my awesome readers/biggest supporters, and who better to share fantastic book news with than you, right?

So, here it is: ADORKABLE will be coming to print in December of this year and is being published by Entangled Publishing!!! Not only that, but there will be a new cover, and I wrote new exclusive bonus content for the new edition (which I love *sigh*)! <3

It all still kind of feels like a dream.

While I was in Ireland last year, I received a message from Liz from Entangled, saying she’d read and loved ADORKABLE and was interested in the print rights. Honestly? I was surprised, elated…and absolutely terrified.

The fear came because 1) I worried that this was all some big joke/mistake. Great things like this just don’t happen to me.

And 2) ADORKABLE is my debut, my first book baby, and I love, love, love that book and was so scared to make the wrong decision.

It’s no secret that I’ve always struggled with marketing. Though the ebook soared–and it really did, you guys. Despite my not knowing how to market/sell the book, it sold itself. There was some kind of magic in that little YA romance–I always wondered what the paperback could do if it was in the hands of a great publisher, how far it could go if it was available in stores.

Entangled Publishing is one of the biggest names in romance. I think anyone who writes or reads the genre knows that name lol! It was crazy to think about them having any interest in my little YA romance.

But they did, and they have a love and vision for the book.

Sally & Becks’s story is in good hands, and I couldn’t be more thankful for that! I’m still scared, terrified really, that something will go wrong, or I’ll wake up to find it was all a dream.

But I’m looking forward to seeing ADORKABLE on bookstore shelves this winter. I’m hoping Sally & Becks will reach even more readers who will love their story. And I’m looking forward to continuing this wonderful publishing adventure with a publisher who I know and respect!

I hope you are all doing well and reading awesome books! Look out for the print version of ADORKABLE in December 2019!!! <3

Happy reading,

Cookie O’Gorman

P.S. Thank you so much, Michelle, for letting me know about the ADORKABLE audiobook in your state public library in Australia!!! That’s so awesome & I greatly appreciated your message! 🙂

P.P.S. Honestly, the Ireland connection helped with my decision as well. I always feel closer to my Aunt Pat when I’m there. It’s one of the reasons I love the country so much. I hope she would be proud, and I know she would be first in line to buy a copy of the print version of ADORKABLE <333.