Blog hop: ‘The Problem With Crazy’ – donating to charity

As you guys will know, I am CRAZY about A Problem With Crazy. So I’m super-excited to tell you all that it’s on sale at Amazon and iTunes this weekend! The money you save can be used to buy a box of tissues — you’re going to need them. xo

A word from Lauren: donating to charity

I’d like to think I’m a good person. I try to do get with the whole ‘Do unto others’ program, I occasionally bake cakes for people I love and I even pick up my dogs’ business when I’m out taking them for a walk (and I have two—that’s potentially a lot of you-know-what).

That’s why, when I wrote The Problem With Crazy, it was important for me to work with a charity and donate a portion of sales to them. One of the main reasons I wrote the book was to raise awareness, but I think with an illness that affects so many people and just devastates lives, you kind of need to do more than that.

So, a few months before I hit publish, I contacted Huntington’s NSW, the state body in my, um, state, to ask if I could donate a portion of sales to them. The team there were lovely, but to my surprise it wasn’t as simple as ‘Wham, bam, we’ll take your money, ma’am.’ No, instead they wanted to read it first to make sure it was suitable.

Cue = Lauren having a panic attack.

Don’t get me wrong. Part of me was jump-up-and-down excited that I was getting an industry professional to fact-check me, but another part was freaking the hell out. What if they hated it? What if I offended them with some hideously incorrect fact that I totally made up? What if my manuscript turned into a zombie and tried to eat their brains? (I never said my freak out was rational.)

Thankfully, they ended up contacting me and saying they liked the book and that they would be happy to have me on board. Hell, one of the people who read it even said she thought it would have been a good book to read when she was a teenager going through the same thing.

And so I am now a proud sponsor of Huntington’s NSW. And I couldn’t be happier.

Blurb

The problem with crazy is that crazy, by itself, has no context. It can be good crazy, bad crazy . . . or crazy crazy—like it was when my ex-boyfriend sung about me on the radio.

Eighteen-year-old Kate couldn’t be more excited about finishing high school and spending the summer on tour with her boyfriend’s band. Her dad showing up drunk at graduation, however, is not exactly kicking things off on the right foot—and that’s before she finds out about his mystery illness, certain to end in death.

A mystery illness she is likely to inherit.

When your whole life goes from adventure and ecstasy to sad and suicidal, what’s the point? Not knowing who to love, and who to trust . . . where does it end?

The Problem With Crazy is a story about love and life; about overcoming obstacles, choosing to trust, and learning how to make the choices that will change your life forever.

Blog hop clue

Want to win one of five eBook copies of The Problem With Crazy, a paperback edition, or one of three $5 Amazon gift cards? Collect the clues hidden in the other blogs on the hop and enter to win. To find all the other blogs and the Rafflecopter link, go here.

Blog hop clue E: YOU

About Lauren

Lauren K. McKellar is an author and editor. Her debut novel, Finding Home, was released through Escape Publishing on October 1, 2013, and her second release, NA Contemporary Romance The Problem With Crazy, is self-published, and is available now.

As well as being a magazine editor for a national audited publication on pet care, Lauren works as a freelance editor for independent authors, and was a Runner Up Editor of the Year in the Publishers Australia awards in 2013.

Lauren is a member of the Romance Writers of Australia and is obsessed with words–she likes the way they work.