Celebrate Independent Bookstores!

As you may know, I recently announced that I was offering a special pre-order set of gifts (including an art card of the quote to the left) for anyone who purchased A World Without You through my local independent bookstore, Malaprops. You can read more about that--and see the awesome stuff you'll get for pre-ordering--here, and you can actually pre-order the book and get all the goodies here.

But I wanted to celebrate all local independent bookstores. Because honestly? Bookstores are like a second home to me. In the last few years, I've been lucky enough to do several book tours throughout the nation (and even Canada!), and I am in awe of how each bookstore is unique, a reflection of their community, but also they share one important trait--a deep, unabiding love for books and readers.

So I want to spend this month celebrating that. And I want to reward the readers who patronize local independent bookstores, because they are absolutely bloody awesome. The community of people who read and spread the love of books is the best in the world!

So: I want you to tell me what your favorite independent bookstore is! There are so many, but please--tell me your favorite. My publisher and I will then pull out the top twenty five stores and send them a special thank you gift for being so awesome--a gift that means you will have the opportunity to get some special goodies too! We're going to keep the gift for the bookstores a secret...for now! Who doesn't love a good surprise?

But we need your help! In order to this, we need to know which bookstores you love, so we can know which ones to send the gifts to! In the space below, I've got an entry form that simply asks for the name and location of your favorite bookstore. Please fill it out--and please also let your friends and fellow bookstore lovers know!

To thank you for helping us out and loving bookstores, I'm offering you a prize, too! If you're a newsletter subscriber, you know what this prize is--an epic ARC box full of goodies featuring  A World Without You! You'll get:

• A signed ARC of my latest book, A World Without You--it's super rare and they're going fast!
• A signed art card featuring a quote from the book
• A beautiful pocket journal featuring the quote, "To Thine Own Self Be True," something highly relevant to the book, designed by Icey Designs
• Two Cadbury Creme eggs to represent a scene in the book where the characters learn how to poach eggs (it's more romantic than it sounds!)
• A Doctor Who magnet--this book has time travel, after all!
• A time-turner necklace like the one Hermione uses in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
• An ocean-scented candle, since the book takes place on an island of the coast of Massachusetts

If you want a closer look at what's inside the book, you can also check out this video I made!



I have six of these boxes already made up and ready to go, and this is the first one that will be sent out! Sadly, because this is linked to something I'm doing with US bookstores, this contest is limited to entrants who have a US mailing address--but don't worry, the next contest will be international.

REMEMBER: If you want to pre-order the book with the special signing stamp and the free goodies and art, you can do so here!

TO ENTER: Fill out the Google Docs form below. And if you can, please help me spread the word--and the love of indie bookstores!--by tweeting as well!