The Great Book Machine Exposed

I realize it’s been quite a while since I’ve given a real update on my writing side of things, and people are probably wondering if

A) The book is still coming out and,

B) It’s still set for Fall 2009

(answers: A. Yes B. Yes).

There is this interesting thing in publishing where everything appears to the untrained eye to be going painstakingly slow, and yet in reality there are a couple hundred tiny gears turning in the Great Book Machine, each one pivotal in producing a book consisting of the most epic win possible. At the moment, there are few surviving photographs of this machine, though I suspect it looks similar to this:

The Great Book Machine

To my knowledge, this machine has gone through many versions and been remodeled multiple times over the past few decades, in keeping up with the latest trends (like those cool choppy-edged pages that became suddenly popular with Lemony Snicket books, or the single-photograph-over-black-background covers that are wild now thanks to Twilight). Just because I am under contract does not mean I know everything about this business. THE MACHINE IS NEWS TO ME. In fact, with further research, I discovered what I believe to be more photographs of early designs of the Great Book Machine, dating back as early as 1918:

The Great Book Machine - 1918 Version

Many people believe that the publishing business is made up entirely of editors who edit, designers who design and artists who art. NOW I AM NOT SO SURE. As I am in the midst of scheduling a trip to see my publishers and their epic offices sometime in the beginning of next year, I will report back on the current state of events regarding the machine AKA whether it exists and is hiding in some back office or this is just another salty lie making rounds in the writer circles.

Meanwhile, I’ve been writing on the sequel to The Farfield Curse, a.k.a. BOOK TWO: code named BRAN HAMBRIC: THREE SHINY KIWIS (go ahead and try to guess what title TSK is for, which is a hard acronym to guess, especially with me who likes MADE UP WORDS, and especially since your efforts will be in vain if I change it, which I doubt). There are a great number of advantages to writing book two before book one is out: namely, since I will be done in a good amount of time, the Great Book Machine can begin churning its process whilst people are still picking up the first book. Also, and maybe the best part of it, is I’m still a fresh and pure writer whose soul hasn’t yet been tarnished by bad reviews and hatemail that insist Bran be a headless horseman and Astara be renamed to Lamey Pinehouse. So, I’ll at least get some good footing before I start to doubt the worth of my very existence.

Cool stuffs going on though: I’m still working things out with the book soundtrack. I have two more songs that I’ve laid out the concepts for, though they need some work before I finish them up. Also, certain overly perceptive persons might have said things to me along the lines of,

Picture this in Elmer Fudd's voice and receive epic lulz

No, I actually changed the title to one of my songs. I won’t say which one it was, since part of the point is not to call attention to it in the hopes nobody notices (they will anyway). But as I was going down the songs and listening to the soundtrack as a whole (the songs I have now, and the ones I’m still working on) I realized that one of the songs really had been titled wrong. As I thought about it more, it seemed to fit with a different, yet similar, part of the story (this will probably happen again as I get closer to finishing all the songs). I’ll leave it up to you to find which one.

I should probably mention also that my blog TwilightGuy.com just passed over 2 million hits, and they’ve almost doubled the daily numbers since the movie premiere. If you’re a Twilight fan, keep an eye on my Youtube since I have some cool stuff I want to give away (real celebrity autographed things, nothing cheap or tawdry). Speaking of Youtube, I just passed 4,000 subscribers this week, which means I got my latest 1,000 in less than a month. And this week some cool person set up a fan page for me on Facebook, and some other cool person is already getting set with the Bran Hambric Lexicon. Fansites getting ready this far before the book is even out = good times.

So in essence, I’m still writing lots and things are moving right along. Also, I’m making a point to post here a bit more often now that the Twilight premiere has passed, especially since there’s only about 10 months until the book comes out, which means about 7 months until you can pre-order, and about 4 months until we have a cover (oh my).