Welcome Special Guest Kay Cassidy

I'm pleased to introduce today's special guest, KAY CASSIDY.  She has an upcoming release called THE CINDERELLA SOCIETY, the first in a new YA series that looks terrific. (Anything that pits the "Cindys" against the "Wickeds" for high school supremacy sounds fabulous to me!) Welcome, Kay!

KAY CASSIDY

Thanks so much to Jeannie and the rest of the Happy Endings team for having me over.  Any blog that's dedicated to helping you create your own happy ending is a winner in my book!

One of the keys to creating your own career happy ending is understanding what it is you're passionate about.  As an author and as a person.  For me, it's helping people be the best they can be and making a positive difference.  In fact, I've built my author platform–"Embrace your destiny, change your world"–around it.  My books, my outreach programs, everything I do as an author supports this basic idea.

Every one of us has unique gifts and our own destiny to fulfill.  And every single person has the capacity to make a positive difference in their world.  For many authors, making a difference is accomplished through their books.  It doesn't mean being preachy or hitting readers over the head with the author's values.  It means letting the soul of the story shine through.  At the heart of every great story is a universal theme we can all get behind… the underdog coming out on top, making the most of a second chance, good triumphing over evil, or the extraordinary power of love to change someone’s life.

But making a difference in the world around you doesn't have to stop with your books.  There are lots of ways you can use your passions and your skills to make a difference off the page as well as on.

For me, giving back and paying it forward are key themes in "change your world".  One of the ways I wanted to give back was to local libraries, without whom I never would have rediscovered the YA genre and become a YA author (a career I adore!).  But I wanted to do more than just give back to my own local library.  I wanted to do something for all the librarians who are facing budget cuts and reduced staffing.  The ones who are stretching every resource they have to continue putting on programs that encourage a lifelong love of reading in kids.

Welcome to The Great Scavenger Hunt Contest.

The Great Scavenger Hunt Contest is a brand-new, super easy, totally FREE library outreach program for teen and youth librarians. The program is open to librarians in the U.S. and Canada, in public libraries and school libraries alike. Over 130 YA and middle grades authors have created a 10-question scavenger hunt (i.e. super fun trivia quiz) for one or more of their books. Scavenger hunts include questions like “What was the color of Moe’s hideous car?” or “What is Gemma’s favorite comfort food?” Every scavenger hunt also has a special note from the author to give it a personal touch.

To participate, readers (called hunters) simply read a scavenger hunt book, complete the scavenger hunt, and turn it in to their local participating librarian. If they get at least 8 out of 10 answers correct, the librarian gets to enter them in the monthly contest.  Every month, I choose one lucky hunter as the winner. The winning hunter receives a $50 Barnes & Noble gift card (good in stores or online) to use for whatever their heart desires. Even better, when a hunter wins, the host library wins too… a library prize tote filled with more terrific scavenger hunt books for their library collection.

Fun, fast, simple plus free prizes. It doesn’t get any better than that, right?

In the first two weeks, more than 100 libraries have enrolled in The Hunt and registrations continue to pour in.  The Great Scavenger Hunt Contest has been blogged about in dozens of locations, announced at library conferences and by state library associations, and linked to from media outlets like YA Pulse.

The Great Scavenger Hunt Contest matters to me in a way that marketing activities rarely do.  Not only does it hit my hot buttons of loving trivia and puzzles, but it also encourages kids to read in this overly-digital age and helps librarians struggling in today's budget-crunched economy.  It's perfectly in line with my personal motto: "Do good to do well."  If you put good things out into the world, good things will find their way back to you.  

In short, it's good karma.  Can't we all use good karma in our lives?

The positive response I’ve gotten from librarians and from readers is something I treasure.  Those emails remind me why The Hunt is important to me.  And it's building goodwill with people who might even (maybe, possibly, a-girl-can-hope!) become readers of mine someday.

So here's my challenge for you, lovely readers: Think beyond the book and look for ways to make a difference in the world around you as an author.  Remember, it doesn't have to be curing cancer or creating lasting world peace.  It's about changing your world in a way that matters to you and makes a meaningful difference to other people at the same time.  That's the best win-win situation I can think of… and a great way to create your very own happy ending.

Cheers!
Kay

ABOUT KAY

Kay Cassidy is the author of teen fiction she wishes was based on her real life. Her debut novel, THE CINDERELLA SOCIETY, takes readers behind the veil of a secret girl power society where ultimate life makeovers reign supreme… until the Cindys are forced to battle the Wickeds for high school supremacy and more.  THE CINDERELLA SOCIETY will be an April 2010 hardcover release from Egmont USA with book two in the series to follow in Spring 2011.

Kay is a former college cheerleader and sorority girl, an M.B.A. and a member of Mensa.  She thinks it's comical when people are surprised to discover those things aren't mutually exclusive.  She is also the founder and host of The Great Scavenger Hunt Contest, a national library outreach program that provides year-round free programming (and free prizes!) for teen and youth librarians.  Visit Kay on the web at www.kaycassidy.com.