The Crossroads Blog Tour Day 6

Welcome to day 6 of The Crossroads Blog Tour and today I am hosting the very lovely Jeri Smith Ready and Amanda Ashby. If you have no idea what The Crossroads Blog Tour is, then you are seriously missing out and URGENTLY need to click here to find out more information as there are TONS of fabulous prizes to be won!

First up is Jeri Smith Ready, author of the WVMP trilogy (adult urban fantasy books) and the Shade trilogy (YA series).
Welcome to the blog Jeri! Please give us a revelation about your newest or upcoming book (something new, something no one else knows)

In SHINE, we find out what’s really going on at Area 3A, that mysterious place in the Pennsylvania mountains run by the Department of Metaphysical Purity’s Investigation Division. It’s…not pleasant.

Sounds a bit creepy! How do you get your inspiration for story ideas?

Any way I can! Sometimes from the news, sometimes from my own experiences, and sometimes from music.

Are you doing anything special for Halloween this year?

We’ve spent Halloween with the same friends for the last ten years, usually handing out candy (and eating it) and watching cheesy horror movies. No matter what else is going on in our lives that makes us too busy to get together most of the year, we never miss Halloween. So that’s pretty special.

Sounds like fun, I like the idea of watching cheesy horror movies! What are you working on next?

I’m still revising/perfecting SHINE, the third part of the SHADE trilogy, which comes out May
Then I’ll write the final book in my adult vampire series, LUST FOR LIFE, which comes out next October.

Then I start my first YA contemporary, slated for a Fall 2013 release. We’ll be announcing more details later in October (probably by the time this interview is out!), but I can tell you this much: 1) it’s about a boy and 2) I am very, very excited about it!

Ooooh, I didn't realise you were working on something new so I'm hoping you will keep us posted and tell us all about it soon! To find out more about Jeri and her books, click here to visit her website. Next up is Amanda Ashby, author of Zombie Queen and Fairy Bad Day among others.
Welcome Amanda! Please give us a revelation about your newest or upcoming book (something new, something no one else knows)

In one version of Fairy Bad Day my heroine got sucked into a computer and had a long conversation with the woman who lived inside the computer. It was actually quite a funny scene though of course it was completely irrelevant to the plot so I had to ditch it!

I love these king of revelations! Tell us how do you get your inspiration for story ideas?

If you look at my above comment I think you can see that I like to play with ideas no matter how weird or dumb they are (and most of them are). So really it’s not so much inspiration, it’s about what we do with the ideas that we have.

Are you doing anything special for Halloween this year?

Halloween isn’t such a big deal over in Australia though my kids (who watch a LOT of American television) do like to dress up and go trick or treating, though a lot of people don’t have anything to give them so it can be a bit of a pointless exercise!

I had no idea you were Australian! What are you working on right now?

I’m waiting for revisions on the third book in my upcoming middle grade series and I’m also playing with a few new book ideas to send my agent. None of which involve a talking computer!!!!

I believe there is another book in the pipe line too called Demonosity which sounds really interesting. To find out more about Amanda and her books (including Demonosity), click here to visit her website.

Thank you to both Jeri and Amanda for being my guests on the blog today. Don't forget that each day of The Crossroads Blog Tour, a new research question will be revealed on The Crossroad Blog Tour main page here and each day the answer to that question will be found within one of the different blog posts by Crossroads Tour authors. Your job is to get the question, read the blog posts, and collect all answers by the end of the tour, on Halloween. Answers are to be emailed to bridgesocialmedia@gmail.com by October 31st at MIDNIGHT. Winner of the grand prize will be announced on November 1st, the DAY OF THE DEAD. I will also be holding a contest in the near future and details are coming.

Follow the tour on Twitter here and on Facebook here

BRIDGE Social Media is holding a special promotion for public libraries. Libraries that actively promote the Crossroads tour (post a link on their website, mention it in their newsletters, etc) can email us proof of their promotional activities by midnight on OCTOBER 31st to be entered in a draw to win a FREE SKYPE AUTHOR VISIT FOR THEIR LIBRARIES – WITH BEST-SELLING YA AUTHOR, RACHEL VINCENT.