IWBYJR Countdown Clock and yay, street team members and teen book reviewers!

I’m extremely excited to share this fabulous countdown clock for I WANNA BE YOUR JOEY RAMONE that was created by Rachael/The Book Muncher. I’ve plastered it all over my blogs, myspace, etc and if you want to put it on your pages you can get it on my downloads page (and for those of you participating in my latest contest, putting this up would count as a contest entry so please let me know if you put it up).

Rachael is one of my street team members and this was yet another reminder of how happy I am to have all these amazing people helping me get the word out about my book. So I wanted to take a minute to give them major kudos.

Also I wanted to mention that several of my street team members are teen book reviewers like the Book Muncher. In fact the first person outside of people in my various networks (ie. friends, family, fellow authors, etc) to send me a message to let me know how psyched they were about my book was Jocelyn/Teen Book Reviewer. I remember that moment so clearly and fondly. It was the night before Thanksgiving. I’d just come home from an awesome Against Me! concert, checked my email and got the myspace message from her. I exclaimed to my boyfriend, “Oh my god, my first real fan!” and immediately responded to the message. I thought it was so cool that Jocelyn was not only a writer as I was in high school, but she also ran a book review site. Since then I’ve found out that there are tons of teens with book review sites and I can’t tell you how much this excites me. (And I probably should have known about these sites, but I was one of those oblivious writer types, who hid in her office just reading and writing and not paying attention the biz/industry until she found out she was getting published, and I should tell other new writers, don’t follow my example!) I have to admit there is a lot about pop culture that scares me, like how Paris Hilton can be famous for nothing and what exactly is she a role model for? But to know that there are still a ton of teens out there who love to read as much as I did and who in fact love it so much that they spend their free time promoting literacy and books? *Bends down and kisses the teen book reviewers’ feet* You guys seriously rock my world. You are the real tastemakers in my mind. It’s people like you who make sure civilization doesn’t decline into something completely vapid. You give me hope, you make me so happy, and you certainly make my life as a writer worth it, so kudos to all the teen book reviewers out there, too.

So yeah, that’s my big celebrating reading moment. Celebrate with me and post a comment about either what you are currently reading or your favorite (or your own) teen book reviewer site.

Happy Reading!