Okay, as promised, here are the final finalists for the Still Sucks to Be Me Launch contest, which includes a personal visit from me (for either a pizza party or an author-y visit or whatever). NOTE: If you don’t see your name here, don’t worry. It doesn’t mean you didn’t win second or third prize(s). Some of those winners have already been chosen, as well as some of the ones who are getting the bonus Skype visit + swag. But right now, this is all about helping me determine the Grand Prize winner. I wanted to announce all the winners at one time, so as soon as voting is done here, I’ll announce!
I’ll be honest…none of these locations are ones that I’m particularly keen on visiting. You know, like, say, Belize. But my vacation needs weren’t part of the consideration, though it does make it much easier for me if there’s a major airport nearby.
Please read through the entries carefully and give them your full consideration. Then, please use the form below to vote for who you think should receive the Grand Prize. Thank you so much (and thank you to everyone who entered!)! These entries are alphabetical by first name order (so no hidden meanings or anything).
EDIT July 13th: For those who were wondering, I’m not posting the vote totals for a few reasons: 1) it’s changing pretty constantly (lots of votes! but the more the better!) and 2) I think posting the leaders could unduly influence the outcome. I will say that right now the leader has 37% of the vote with the next one having 25%, but it’s changing all the time. And please, feel free to leave a comment for who you’re supporting!
Please vote by the end of the day on July 19th (voting will be open for a week)!
VOTING IS OVER! Check out the Winners!
Courtney from Jefferson City, MO
Why Should I Win: I am the Teen Librarian at Missouri River Regional Library in Jefferson City, MO. My teens love your books (and really, anything vampire) and we love to host authors at our library. We here at MRRL pride ourselves in our programming and community activities, particularly those for youth. Author visits are a particularly big deal to the kids out here. If we were to win, we would have teens from all over mid-Missouri showing up to see you speak and the excitement would be through-the-roof! Also, since we’ve been experiencing the fallout from the economy, it is difficult for us to afford these types of special experiences, so a win in this contest would be huge for us.
Gordon from Bellevue, NE & Lindsey from La Vista, NE
(This would be a joint visit; the entrants were close enough together that attendees from both locations could come, so essentially there would be two Grand Prize winners if you pick Gordon & Lindsey)
Gordon’s Why Should I Win: I should win because I am awesome! Okay, well . . . maybe not awesome; but, I’m told I’m pretty cool. Alright, I’ll be honest, I’m not really very cool at all. I’m a total nerd; but, I’m so nerdy it comes out the other side and ends up somewhere in “really fun to be around” territory. 
Anyway, I’m the Young Adult Services Librarian for the Bellevue Public Library. Our teens LOVE your book and they keep talking with me about it and they can’t wait for the next one. I can’t wait, either . . . but, that should go without saying. My teens would probably collapse in fits of excitement and disbelief if I told them that we were going to have an author visit from you. It would be an amazing sight . . . likely a bit loud, too. You know, what with all the squeeing. I decline to divulge how much of that squee sound would be coming from me in utter fan-girl mode.
Lindsey’s Why Should I Win: I am the Teen Librarian for the La Vista Public Library. I have a number of teens that love reading and love programs at my library. Unfortunately, my city is still very iffy on the whole library programs for teens being beneficial and I have to put on a summer reading program and a winter reading program that kicks butt without looking stupid or childish to my teens (grades six to twelve) all on a budget of $500. When I saw the chance to win a visit from Kimberly, I immediately thought of my teens and how they’d benefit from the chance to meet a real life author, especially since I clearly don’t have it in my budget to do an author visit normally. Plus, personally, if I won the grand prize and got Kimberly to visit the library and speak with my teens then maybe the city would see that serving teens is important and maybe they’d start budgeting more for me to get more teen books in in a timely manner and get more funds for even more awesome teen programs.
Jocelyn from Dearborn Heights, MI
Why Should I Win: I’m a Teen Services Librarian at a public library near Detroit, Michigan. I would love to be able to offer something as cool as an author visit for my teens. My city is unique in that our residents feed into seven different school districts. This makes school visits IMPOSSIBLE, but it does give me a huge number of teachers to whom to reach out for possible attendees. To be absolutely honest, I would be thrilled just to receive a third prize prize-pack. My book budget is being cut drastically this year and I’d love to have the chance to expand what I can offer to my teens, even by just a few books! Thanks so much, Kimberly, for writing for teens and helping me get them excited about reading!
Linda from Kingman Arizona
Why Should I Win: I am a Young Adult/Children’s librarian. I picked up your first book as a free advance copy at Book Expo, read it, loved it, ordered it for my teen collection and have been talking about it ever since. I read your book before the huge vampire “hype”. I really don’t like most vampire books – since everyone seems to be jumping on the bandwagon. I have a recommendation “spinner” and everytime Sucks To Be Me comes in, it goes on there. We wore one copy out and I had to buy another. Now the second one is coming out and I have teens “chomping” at the bit. I get approached regularly and asked if it’s in yet! They have to wait in line behind me though. I don’t even have to talk it up much because once someone who has read it finds out the other person hasn’t they tell them to read it. It would be great to bring you to the library, if I win. The teens would go crazy!! Love to see them excited about books!! Thanks for such a great, fun book! You make it easy to get the teens to read!!
Molly from Malden, Massachusetts
Why Should I Win: Our Malden Public Library teens would GREATLY benefit from your visit and author talk. We’re located just outside Boston (which is a wonderful town to visit – especially for a Red Sox game!). Seriously though, the Malden Public Library enjoys having excellent teen readers who just devour books – especially the vampire stories (no pun intended . More specifically and more to the point, our teens LOVE your book, “Sucks to Be Me” and have been asking for more! Author visits truly engage young readers and really bring books to life. Our goal is to foster literacy and I can’t think of a better way to do that, than for you to visit us. I’m certain that you would be fantastic in connecting with our teens. Our teens have been completely in awe and simply starstruck in the presence of an author they admire, and, really, what fabulous author doesn’t love that? 
We would be thrilled and honored to have you grace our library! Thank you so much for your consideration!
Paula from Athens, Alabama
Why Should I Win: Because at the age of [age redacted...you know, for privacy reasons ] it’s hard to maintain my reputation as the “edgy YA librarian.” A visit with you would up my cool factor by a bagillon percentage points. Heck, my son’s 18 year old girl friend would think I’m not a stick. To continue with my highly selfish reasons for wanting you to visit–At 5’4″ I need to surround myself with short persons so that I may seem taller. Our community also needs a visit from you to raise it’s self-esteem. Yes, we are like that little town in LA where football is the official religion. We also suffer from being next to Huntsville. No, we’re not the rocket scientists. We’re the cotton farmers. Having an opportunity to meet you would be mean that we don’t have to fake our own deaths or change our names. Please, please visit us.
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