TGIF #26 - Authors Are Our Celebrities

TGIF is hosted by Ginger at GReads! In this weekly feature, Ginger poses a question to her followers and then asks everyone to link up at the end of the post, sharing their responses.

This Friday's Question:

Authors Are Our Celebrities: Have you ever contacted an author you admired? How did that experience go? If not, which author would you love to have a chat with? 

I love interacting with authors and bloggers alike.  I'm not the most avid tweeter, but I do enjoy the occasional over-zealous tweet about a new release or a contest or what-have-you.  I do, however, stalk a ton of authors on Twitter, as well as on their blogs, on Goodreads, and anywhere else I can track them down.

In my year or so of blogging, I've only been to one actual signing, and I drug my then 3yo daughter along with me.  I don't have many real-life bookish friends, so it was just me and my Katiebug off to see Lauren Kate.  And was Ms. Kate ever the nicest, sweetest person!  She even posed for a pic with the Bugster!  (Katie's kinda shy, can you tell? Hehe.)

As for actually reaching out to authors, sure, I've done that on Twitter, and to my amazement, they are always so, so nice and pretty much just excited that you're reading or interested in their book(s).  After reading Fracture by Megan Miranda, I wanted to spread my love for that book so hard, so I contacted the author for an interview and signed swag for a giveaway, not expecting much because her book had just released and I was sure she'd be too busy for lil ole me.  But Megan was beyond pleasant and was so quick to respond whenever I emailed her.  It was defnitely a blog-changing experience, meaning because of it, I'll be much more likely to contact authors in the future.

Upon discovering the Shade series, I also discovered that Jeri Smith-Ready is like the most awesome author ever.  I told her this in an email the other day, and she assured me all authors were that full of awesome, but I still have my doubts.  Sure, they're all really great, but JSM is beyond great.  She makes loving her books even more fun that it would normally be.  She's a very involved author, and her interactions with her fans is one of the things I love best about her, after creating Zachary, of course.  :D  If you ever have the chance to read her books or chat/tweet with her, take the opportunity.

So, yeah, authors are my celebrities, for sure.  My sis talks all day long about this starlet and that actor and in turn, I respond with, "Yeah, well, COURTNEY SUMMERS just thanked me for including This is Not a Test in my Teaser Tuesday post this week!  Do your celebrities even acknowledge you exist?"  Yep.  I love my celebrities because they write the books I love and make me feel like a rock star.  :0)