New and Improved! (Well... I hope...)

Wow, you guys. Just... wow.

I really don't have the right words to thank you for all your enthusiasm and support yesterday for my book news (and if you're scratching your head going... huh? you can find the announcement HERE.)

Those of you who spread the word about it--thank you so much! And if you @replied me or messaged me or emailed me and haven't gotten a response yet, bear with me. I'm actually out of town at the moment (doing some research for a scene, amazingly enough) so it's a bit challenging keeping up. Especially since the response was so amazing. (*chokes up a little*) But I WILL get to it because you guys are awesome. THANK YOU.

And since the news was so epic--and I had FIVE MONTHS to prepare for it--you may notice a few changes to this blog now that the secret is finally out, starting with a new OFFICIAL AUTHOR PHOTO!!!!

Yes, that's right, you may have already noticed this (or seen it on FB and Twitter yesterday when I switched it) but Shannon-with-the-strangely-too-dark-hair-and-plain-green-background is gone!!! And she has been replaced with this:

I'm... not sure what I'm supposed to say now... 

Um... ta da?

So... yeah. That's the photo you'll now be seeing in blogger feeds and Twitter feeds and Facebook Feeds. I hope you guys like it, because I am SO not in the mood to go through another photo shoot again. 

HUGE thanks to my friend Matthew Allende and his company Devende Photography for putting up with my I-hate-having-my-picture-taken curmudgeon-y ways (not gonna lie, I was difficult) and taking some amazing photos of me. (Seriously you guys, if any of you are in SoCal and need a photographer, you should use Matt, he is AWESOME.) I also want to thank my friend Lucy for doing my make-up (yes, I had a friend do my make-up. I figured if I was doing this I was doing it RIGHT) and making me look far better than I actually do in real life. And my hair stylist Kris, who's styling held up even though it was SUPER windy that day.

Other things you may notice: there are two new tabs on this blog now: BOOKS (Squee!) and ARC REQUESTS (double Squee!).

I already had a few of you request ARCs yesterday (which seriously made me teary. Thank you guys so much for wanting to read my book! You have no idea how exciting it is to hear that!) so I have created a simple FORM for you to fill out. Sadly, I can't guarantee that by filling it out you absolutely will get an ARC, but it's your best chance. S&S has direct access to that form and will be selecting people from there. So if you haven't filled it out yet and would like to, go HERE.

Also surreal/amazing? MY BOOK IS ALREADY ON GOODREADS!!! No idea how that happened so fast but within a couple hours KEEPER OF THE LOST CITIES had its first official listing on the internets. So if you're a user of Goodreads and you want to make me incredibly giggly and happy, you are welcome to go HERE to add it to your shelves. *hugs and cupcakes in advance*

I've also updated my "About" page, "FAQs" and "Contact" info. And I'm in the process of designing a brand-new-shiny-author-website (!!!!) so keep your eyes out for plenty more changes to come in the months ahead.

And in the meantime, thank you guys again for all your love and support. Yesterday was one of those once-in-a-lifetime kind of crazy-surreal days, and YOU GUYS made that happen. I have an epic contest organized to thank you properly, but I'm waiting until I'm back home (and not on Hotel WiFi--which is NEVER as fast as it should be). So keep checking back--you WON'T want to miss it. Awesome, AWESOME prizes are to be had.

Oh and um... since this is the kind of post where it clearly feels like I'm asking for a comment section full of compliments on my photo--ugh--I'm going to end by saying um... so, anyone else craving a cupcake like I am????????