If you missed the news yesterday, I threw out an offer to write a short story about Rose and Dimitri visiting Russia if Spirit Bound wins the CBC's best teen book of 2010 award. You can read the details here.

But here's something very important to note. I said yesterday that awards mean nothing if people don't for the book they believe in, and I encouraged everyone to only vote if they thought SB deserves the award. Likewise, these awards don't mean much if one person is submitting hundreds and hundreds of votes. Don't get me wrong--it's very flattering! :) But all that proves is that the website can be overloaded. Really, all you need to do is vote once. If you really want to show support, then vote once a day and encourage your friends to as well. That's it. That's all we need!

The problem that's happening is that the CBC's website is getting a lot of votes that are obviously fake (i.e. all from one person or claim to be from librarians/teachers) and that aren't even completely filled out. This not only causes them technical problems, but it also means they have to throw out a bunch of votes that weren't done correctly and can muck up the final results.

Again, I'm so floored by everyone's amazing enthusiasm! I really can't express how overwhelming it is to see such love for the books. I had quite the emotional day yesterday when I saw just how excited everyone was (although, baby hormones probably played a role in my emotional state too). But seriously--everyone voting once or once daily is more than enough. The comments some have made about voting until fingers bleed are funny, but it's not necessary! Please don't kill yourselves with votes, particularly since they may not be counted or will cause technical problems for the website. We don't want to hurt the final count! It's also important to respect the CBC and make this award meaningful, and I think we have more than enough VA supporters to pull this off honestly.

Thanks for understanding, and thanks so much for spreading the word! It's been incredible how fast everyone has rallied in getting this news out. As always, you guys rock.