Authors Are Rockstars- It's a Wrap!

August has ended and so has the 2nd Annual Authors Are Rockstars Tour. This year’s event, with over 160 authors on tour, was a bit more of a challenge, but still a lot of fun.

There were guest posts, interviews, dueling interviews in which two authors interviewed each other, playlists, top ten lists, deleted scenes, excerpts, a chat and much, much more.

This year’s author participants sent along some amazing posts for their blog hosts, proving our point that authors are in fact rockstars. And the bloggers that hosted their favorite rockstar authors did a phenomenal job of showing those who stopped by exactly why their author was a rockstar.

In the end we had 168 participating authors plus one author spotlight and 155 bloggers involved in this event. Which was totally surprising and absolutely amazing. Even with a few mishaps along the way we definitely consider this event a success.

If August was as crazy a month for you as it was for us and you didn't get a chance to visit all the stops, CLICK HERE for the full lineup with direct links to each of the stops on tour. There may even be a few giveaways still open, so be sure to check them out.

For this year's event we were honored to welcome back a number of authors from last year and were thrilled to welcome a number of new authors to the tour. Some of the author participants have long been on our rockstar authors list but we are totally stoked to be able to call many new or new-to-us authors rockstars this year.

We hope, for both readers and author and blogger participants alike, that this event was a lot of fun. And we hope that with this year's tour we were able to put a few new authors and bloggers on your radar.

The authors on tour this year are all ones we consider rockstars, but they are not all the authors we consider rockstars. While we would have loved to include every single rockstar author on our tour, we are only three bloggers and can only do so much. But we were super excited to be able to add to the number of authors we had on tour last year.

When we hosted this event last year it was only ever intended to be a one-time event. And while we decided to do this again this year, we currently do not have plans to do this again next year. It's eleven months away and who knows where we'll be. But you never know... anything is possible....



The Tour Giveaways

We will each be announcing the winners of our tour "kick-off" giveaways on our respective blogs next weekend. So be sure to stop by to see if you won. Winners will also be contacted by email after the announcements have gone live.

To Those We Owe Thanks

Firstly we cannot thank the authors enough for generously giving of their time to this event. Taking the time away from their busy writing and editing schedules to create the posts and answer the questions and to support this event means the world to us.

Without them there would be no event. And we are eternally grateful.

Once again we have to thank the wonderful team at Harlequin TEEN for their unfailing support of each and every one of their authors by offering their books for giveaway and for helping to spread the word about this event.

And, of course, we have to thank the wonderful blog hosts who wrote such heartfelt passages about why their author was a rockstar, who came up with interesting topics and questions for the authors they adore, and who put together some pretty fantastic posts which gave readers the chance to learn a bit more about each of the participating authors on tour.

We'd also like to give a special thanks to Lost at Midnight Reviews for putting together an amazing post spotlighting her rockstar author when circumstances prevented her from being able to participate. If we hadn't already considered her author a rockstar, we most certainly would have after reading her post.

And last, but absolutely not least, we would like to thank all of the readers who followed the tour, left comments sharing their thoughts about the rockstar authors on each of the blog stops, who helped to spread the word about this year's event, and who share their enthusiasm and love for the authors year after year by reading their books and spreading the word to anyone who will listen.

Every single one of you totally rocks!

From One Host to Another

This year's event couldn't be the success it was without both Rachel of Fiktshun and Mindy of Magical Urban Fantasy Reads co-hosting with me.

There is no way we could have pulled off an event as large as this year's event without being able to work together as a team. And I felt like together we were an amazing, rockstar, awesomesauce team!

Rachel and I definitely couldn't have done this with just the two of us like we did last year; with the crazy amount of authors who said yes . But with the three of us we rocked it and Rachel and Mindy were absolutely amazing to work with! I'm so glad to have had Mindy on board this year. I'm sure I speak for Rachel when I say that we couldn't have done this without you.

I have always considered Rachel a rockstar and without a doubt Mindy totally rocks, too. So I cannot thank you both enough for making this event a rockstar event and picking up the slack when I got sick or had a crazy amount of work to do.



Well, that just about does it....

If we've forgotten to thank anyone, we are so, so sorry. While the event has ended, we are still knee-deep in giveaways, so we are still just a bit frazzled. So... just in case someone was missed, we'd like to thank everyone!

Thank you everyone!

The Authors Are Rockstars Giveaway Winners will be posted next weekend, so be sure to stop by each of our blogs to see if you've won.

But for now... it’s a wrap.

Authors Are Rockstars- Wrap Up

The Authors Are Rockstars Tour has officially ended. While we would have loved to have this continue year-round, it’s time to let those authors go back to writing the books we love so very much.

We are all so amazed, overwhelmed and surprised at the response we got from authors, bloggers and readers alike. We had no idea when we started out that it would get as much attention and support. So we are eternally grateful.

In the end, we had 102 authors and 96 blogs (including our own) participating in this event. And without each and every one of them, this would not have been the success it was. And even though there were just a couple hiccups along the way, for an event as large as this one was, we definitely consider it a win.

If you haven’t had a chance to catch up with all 102 stops on the tour, CLICK HERE, for an updated tour schedule with links that go to each and every stop on the tour. While most of the giveaways will have ended, the posts are so much fun to read and you won’t want to miss them.

We tried to make this event entertaining and showcase some phenomenal authors that we love. We hope we achieved that goal.

We tried to match authors with bloggers who considered them their rockstars and tried to include a variety of authors and bloggers on this tour. We hope we succeeded in that too.

While all the authors on the tour were ones we considered rockstars, it was by no means all inclusive of the authors we think rock! Some authors were unable to participate, some authors may not have received our invitation – apparently SPAM was not our friend – and some authors we may not have reached out to because we couldn’t locate their information or because we had such an overwhelming response to our outreach.

We had hoped for 31 authors, not expecting nearly that many, so hosting 102 was a dream come true!

We hope you learned something new about your rockstar authors, hope that you found a few new authors to call rockstars and hope you had a good time following the tour around this August!

While this was intended as a once-in-a-lifetime event, who knows what may change in a year….

Oh, and before we forget….

As this tour wraps up, we are also wrapping up the mega giveaway we included as part of this month-long event. Stay tuned for the winners’ announcement post next week.

To all of those we owe thanks to….

First and foremost we have to thank every single author for generously volunteering their time and agreeing to be a part of our event. Without them this wouldn’t have been even close to the huge success it was. Their posts were the perfect mix of fun, entertaining, informative and exciting to read. With a tour that consisted of top ten lists, vlogs, interviews, character interviews, excerpts, teasers and more, visiting all the stops on tour provided hours of enjoyment.

And it put some amazing books and authors with upcoming titles on our radars.

We also want to thank them for their generous donations of books and swag and even a character naming. The authors’ time was all we asked for, so their volunteering to give away these prizes was above and beyond our wildest expectations. This event was meant to showcase them not to have them reach into their pockets.

And of course we have to thank the generosity of Harlequin TEEN for supporting each of their authors by donating books and spreading the word about our event and Entangled Publishing for their eBook donations. Both publishers’ support of their authors was an amazing surprise and one we are so incredibly appreciative of.

But they weren’t the only publishers we have to thank for their support. HarperTeen, Macmillan Children’s Books and SimonTEEN were incredibly supportive for spreading the word throughout the month about not only their authors on tour, but the tour as a whole.

And then there are the bloggers. Without their passion and love for the authors they call rockstars we wouldn’t have had an event either. It was their glowing and gushing words of support for the authors they hosted that made visiting each stop on this tour awesome.

We cannot thank them enough for signing up for the event, for writing such rockin’ posts for their authors, for donating their time and efforts to help support this event and even for donating prizes in support of their authors. They, too, are the rockstars of this event and we couldn’t have done it without them!

Last, but not least, we have to thank those readers who visited the stops, who left comments, who discovered new authors, who fell more in love with the authors they did know, and who also supported our event by just being there.

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And from one tour host to another, I would like to thank both Jaime and Patricia for co-hosting this event with me.

Rachel, thank you so very much for making this event even possible! This was your dream, your idea and without that initial email that landed in my inbox I never would have thought of it.

Also thank you for making the graphics and or purchasing them they are gorgeous! And your mad skills at coordinating an event this size absolutely blows my mind! I have no idea how you did the original pairings late one night while I was sleeping. I never would have been able to do this without you. And your generosity with the giveaways has been amazing! Thanks for keeping me sane BFF love you!

Patricia, thank you so much for your help in making this event a success. Your assistance in matching authors and bloggers and your research into finding matches for the new author adds was invaluable. And thank you so very much for spreading the word about the event and visiting the stops on the tour each day.

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Well, we guess that’s about it. If there is anyone we forgot to include in our thanks we are so very sorry. It’s been a whirlwind but we hope that we included you all!

Stay tuned for next week’s prize announcement posts on both blogs. But for now….

It’s a wrap.