Category: doing what you love

Just For You

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Isn’t that the most adorkable book tree you’ve ever seen???

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Mister Potter seems to think so :).

Okay, ADORKABLE readers, I have something just for you.

Since this is the first book I’ve ever published–and it will always be my first, my book baby, sigh–I wanted to do something special to celebrate this Christmas.  And what better way than to give back to the ADORKABLE readers?

Tomorrow, December 21, 2016 at 12:00 pm EST I’m going to do a few quick giveaways on Facebook.  I’ll be giving away three $5 Amazon gift cards and one ADORKABLE paperback.  Signed or unsigned, if you win, you decide!

All you have to do to win is be first to correctly answer a few questions (one per giveaway) about ADORKABLE.

Easy, right?

Like I said, I really wanted this one to be for the readers, and it may completely flop.  My fear is that no one will show up or even attempt the questions lol.  But you never know until you try, right?

If you want to participate, I’ll see you at 12:00 pm EST on the Cookie O’Gorman Facebook page!

Good luck, and I hope you’re having a great week.

Happy reading,

Cookie O’Gorman

P.S. The ADORKABLE e-book is only $0.99 on Amazon and Amazon UK for a limited time!  The Kindle Countdown Deal will last until December 25, 2016.  If you have any friends who’d be interested, please let them know and spread the word so they can get the deal before it ends.  Merry Christmas, everyone!

 

ADORKABLE Christmas Giveaway

It’s giveaway time again!

This is supposed to be the season for giving and good cheer and all that good stuff.  I really do love giving–even though I don’t have a whole lot to give.  Ugh.

But like I said, I love giving especially to you ADORKABLE readers :).  I’m calling this one the ADORKABLE Christmas Giveaway, and it will be open from midnight on December 15 until December 25th.  You can enter to win a $25 Amazon gift card using the widget below, my Christmas present to you!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I wish you so much luck.  May the odds be ever in your favor.  May your days be merry and bright.  And as always: May the Force be with you.

I hope you have a great week.

Happy Reading,

Cookie O’Gorman

Tis The Season

It’s nearly the end of 2016.

The Christmas tree is now up, and I wanted to share with you this little beauty.

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It’s one of my favorite ornaments because 1) It was given to me by someone I love very much, 2) She did it because she loved ADORKABLE and knew how much I loved this quote, and 3) I really wasn’t expecting it.  Just in case you were wondering, those are indeed little mustaches on the ribbon.  And that quote…oh, that quote.

I do love the “Huckleberry” quote, and if someone actually said it to me, I may just melt on the spot–but you know, they’d have to mean it the way that Becks meant it when he said it to Sally.  Sigh…

Anyway, enough with the mushy stuff.

I wanted to let you all know that I’ll be running an ADORKABLE Christmas Giveaway soon!  Yay!!!  Be on the lookout and, as always: Good luck!

I also wanted to let you know that Ash’s book will be coming out in 2017.  I’m shooting for a March release.  His book is one that I love so very much.  And for those of you who were hoping for a December release (I know, I know, me too!), I will tell you this:

Half of the book is written from Ash’s POV.

Yep, that’s right.  We are going to get a glimpse straight into our hero’s thoughts.  Eep!  Ash’s book was my first story with dual POVs, and I had a great time writing it.  The heroine is crazy awesome and so cool and badass and matches up just perfectly with our Ash imo.  I hope everyone loves them and the book as much as I do <3.

Hope you all have a great day, and like I said, be on the lookout for that giveaway!

Happy reading,

Cookie O’Gorman

5 Things: I’m Thankful For

This was actually a tough one.  It’s not that I don’t have anything to be thankful for, not at all.  The hard part was narrowing it down to 5 :).

Actually, the holidays are a hard time for me, but I am thankful for so many things.  And because I watched Pollyanna last night and learned about the “glad game”–right after watching the new Anne of Green Gables, which was okay, but will never take the place of the original <3–I’m going to focus on what makes me glad.

So here are 5 Things I’m Thankful For:

  1. Green bean casserole. Yummm!  It’s my favorite, made exactly as it says on the box. The green bean goodness cannot be beat.
  2. Fall weather.  I love blankets, warm socks, sweaters, and a nice chill in the air.  Living in the South, you’ve got to appreciate weather like that.  It’s just the best.  Ooh, and warm tea…sigh.
  3. Books, the writers who write them and the readers who read them.  My week has been filled with books, books and more books.  I just wish I read (and wrote) faster lol!  As a reader, I appreciate writers so much for putting their words and stories out there.  As an author, I cannot say it enough: ADORKABLE readers, you really are the best!  Thank you so much for your enthusiasm and encouragement!
  4. Dogs.  Puppies and full grown senior dogs, young or old, long or short haired, small or large, what can I say?  I love them.  God bless all the fur babies!
  5. Family and friends.  I don’t have a lot of either, but the ones I do have are tops.  They are the best of the best, the cream of the crop, and I wouldn’t trade them for anything.

And I gotta say, in keeping with the glad game, even though I don’t have Netflix and missed the revival of Gilmore Girls (ugggh), I’m happy I got to see the new Pollyanna.  There was no Rory.  Even worse, there was no Jess :(.  But there was also no Logan, who I disliked greatly, and I suppose that’s something to be glad about lol.  But seriously, that Pollyanna had so much spirit and endless cheer.  I happy cried, and I’m not even sorry about it.

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Happy reading,

Cookie O’Gorman

Happy Thanksgiving & Congratulations!

I can’t believe it’s already the end of November!  How did that happen?  Seriously, I blinked and it’s Thanksgiving Day :).

Annnd now, we’ve reached the end of my first Goodreads Giveaway!

I’m honestly floored by the amount of people who requested ADORKABLE.

1308 people 0__0.

That’s just…wow.  Thank you to everyone who entered; the sheer amount of interest in the book floors and humbles me.  And I’m so happy to announce the names of the 2 winners:

Tiffany and Jennifer!!!

Congratulations to both of you, and thank you so much for entering the giveaway!  I will be sending your signed copies of ADORKABLE in the mail tomorrow.  Gah…I hope you love it :).

I’ll also be doing another post tomorrow about “5 things I’m Thankful For.”  I hope everyone has a very happy thanksgiving full of great food, friends and family and all the best things!

Happy reading,

Cookie O’Gorman

Never Give Up

Warning: This post may come off as a little kumbaya at times, jaded at others, but I always try to stay positive.  Here, I tried to keep it real.  You have been warned.

My favorite books are the ones where the hero wins in the end.

I mean, seriously, does that surprise you?  I wrote a book called ADORKABLE for crying out loud!

The girl gets her guy.  Good triumphs over evil.  The world is going to crap, crashing down all around us, but somehow…the dog lives in the end.

That is what I think makes a great story.

The difference between the younger books I read versus the adult books is that in YA and children’s books there is an innocence but, within that, a definitive sense of right and wrong.

Young adults read books like Harry Potter.  They grow up on these books.  They devour the pages and breathe the words in like oxygen.  Some may call it naive, but young people read books like Harry Potter, and they just know Voldemort will lose in the end.  They see someone who stands for hate and racism, a man who surrounds himself with deatheaters who want to get rid of all the “mudbloods” to keep the magical race “pure,” and they know, without a shadow of a doubt, that that.is.wrong.

They believe in the wisdom found inside HP’s magical pages like, “If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals,” and “We’ve all got both light and dark inside us.  What matters is the part we choose to act on.  That’s who we really are.”  Whether they remember the quote or not, young people absorb the meaning and truth of these words.

They see good people like Harry, Ron, and Hermione fighting back, doing all they can to keep us from returning to the dark ages, and they cheer them on.  They want the good guys to win.  They want the bad guys to lose.  It’s that simple.

Because really, how could we get to the end of book 7 of this best-series-in-the-entire-world only to find out that…Voldemort wins???

No.  Young people would never stand for it, readers would revolt, and a great author like J.K. Rowling would never let that happen.

This is one of the reasons I love YA and children’s books.  The worlds in these books, however bleak, are often full of hope.  Things may sometimes seem hopeless…but then you realize that you still have about 100 more pages left to read, and you know, you just know, that things will turn around.  The promise of a happy ending drives us to keep reading, keep hoping, to never give up.

I wish the world was more like the books I love so much.  (Although not The Hunger Games.  That would be pretty messed up.)

I think the world needs more hope and less hate.  More happy endings and less tragedies.  More heroines and less bad guys.

I’ve got to be honest with you.  Right now, I don’t see a whole lot of light.  There is darkness everywhere.  I’m not giving up, and I don’t think anyone who feels like I do should either.  But my faith in people has been shaken.  I do not know how people could dismiss a man’s despicable actions, hateful words and beliefs and support him anyway.  I just…don’t.

So that’s where I am.  To try and end on a positive, I’ll leave you with some words said by a smart man, created by the mind of an even smarter woman:

“Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”–J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

The next blog post will be lighter, I promise.  Hope everyone has a great week.

Happy reading,

Cookie O’Gorman

 

Goodreads Giveaway!

I’m very excited to announce my first ever Goodreads Giveaway!

I’ve seen giveaways around for other books, always hoped I might get to do one.  And now that the paperback version of ADORKABLE is out, I can :).

FYI, for any first-time self-pubbing authors out there, you have to set the giveaway date 7 days before the actual day (who knew?). So I set it all up last week, and it just went live today.  Anyone with a Goodreads account can enter and it is open to users in the United States.

What can you win, you say?

If you enter, you can win one of two signed copies of ADORKABLE!  That means there will be 2 winners!!  Again, I can’t wait.  When I looked just now, I saw that 9 people had already requested, and I was like “yesss!”

Here is the widget for entries.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Adorkable by Cookie O'Gorman

Adorkable

by Cookie O’Gorman

Giveaway ends November 23, 2016.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

I hope you enter the giveaway and help me spread the word about ADORKABLE.  I hope the winners love the book–or maybe they’ll be winners who already loved the book ;).

Good luck, and may the Force be with you!

Happy reading,

Cookie O’Gorman

Trying

Last week I missed posting which stinks.

The thing is I just didn’t know what to post about.  This happens to me a lot, the whole running out of things to say.  Sucks, right?  Is there anything sadder than a writer with no words?  Eh well, I’m going to keep trying anyway lol.

I saw this movie the other day that I really loved.  It’s called Sing Street.  Basically, this boy falls for this girl who he tries to impress by asking her (since she says she’s a model) to come be in a music video for his band.

Thing is…there is no band.

So the main guy scrambles around finding members to be in his band, writing song lyrics (inspired by girl), putting together hilarious costumes etc.  Did I mention the movie is set in Dublin in the 80s?  Ack, the makeup, the clothes, the MUSIC!  The story was just brilliant, funny and heartfelt, with a pair of brothers and their tight-knit relationship at its core, making up my favorite part of the story.  Brotherly love at it’s finest, and it was beautiful.

The movie reminded me of how tight Becks and his brothers are in ADORKABLE.  I’m a sucker for this kind of sibling relationship.  Absolutely loved writing Becks, Clayton and his brothers so much.

And you better believe, if Sing Street was a YA book, I’d be all over it :).

I mean, boy forms band just to impress the girl of his dreams?  I had to love it!  It kind of reminds me of 10 Things I Hate About You and how Cameron learns French just so he can tutor Bianca.  Le sigh…

When I was struggling to figure out what to post, someone told me I should write about the books I love, and I may definitely do that sometime.  This little movie, though, was such a bright spot.  I don’t know if many people have heard about or seen it, but I loved it.

In other news, I’m trying to set up a giveaway on Goodreads for ADORKABLE.  Currently, I’m waiting for my cover to be added to the paperback version–who knew you had to request these things?

Hopefully, I’ll have more on that later, but until then…I’ll just be here.  Trying my best.

Hope you are all enjoying your week so far!

Happy Reading,

Cookie O’Gorman

Bookish Firsts

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Can we just take a moment to take in all that pretty? <3 <3 <3

It’s the first time I’ve ever seen so many ADORKABLE books in one place lol.  A magical moment for sure, so of course, Mister Potter had to make an appearance. 🙂  But seriously, someone in my family (here’s lookin’ at you, Colleen) decided to order and have me sign a whole bunch of copies to give as gifts, and I can’t thank her enough.  Thank you, thank you, thank you, Colleen!

When I decided to publish, I didn’t know I’d get to take a picture like this.  I didn’t know I’d see one of my students reading my book, in real life (sigh…a first I will always remember).  I didn’t know my grandpa would come to visit and be spotted on multiple occasions reading the little book that I wrote.  I didn’t know I’d be using Google Translate so much thanks to book reviews from all over the world.  Definitely didn’t know there would be so many amazing ADORKABLE readers and supporters.

Anyway, just feeling really thankful today.  Hope you all have a great week, and if you’ve supported ADORKABLE, thank you so much again!

Happy reading,

Cookie O’Gorman

A Happy Surprise

I got an unexpected (and awesome) email from Amazon over the weekend.  They’re doing this thing in October called #PoweredByIndie to celebrate great writing with a focus on indie KDP published titles/writers.  And that’s only one part of the awesome.  The other part is…they’ve chosen ADORKABLE as one of the featured titles!!!

Like I said, so surprising and definitely very cool.

You can check it out here.

It’s all about the indie and promoting self-published work, which I think is a fantastic idea.  And it gave me the topic for this week’s post, so thank you, Amazon :).

Here are some of my favorite things about being an indie author.

One of my most favorite things is the readers.  I love it when someone contacts me to say they read and loved my book.  That is something I never take for granted.  I love that the story they read and loved is the one I wanted to put out into the world.  Going indie allowed me to safeguard the heart of my story, the characters, and I will always love it for that reason.

I also love the empowerment.  It is such an amazing feeling to take charge of your own destiny.  Going indie, taking that first step and deciding that you are going to make all the decisions about your book, it can be a scary thing.  But if you believe in your book, your story and your characters, you have the power to put the story out there.

You are the one who decides when it’s ready.  You are the one who decides what the cover should look like, how the summary should read, and when to release the book.  The power is in your hands.

Amazon, KDP and indie publishing made it possible for me to publish the books that I love so much.  #PoweredByIndie is right.  Indie publishing empowers authors and allows them to create books that they love and reach readers who may love them as well.

That’s why I’m proud to say I’m an indie author.

I hope you all are having a great week so far, and if you haven’t, I hope you give indie books like ADORKABLE a chance <3.

Happy reading,

Cookie O’Gorman