It’s been quite a while since I’ve written a regular blog post on my site, now that I’m all into the whole vlogging thing and it’s just become habit if I have to say something I pull my camera out and start talking! But for this announcement it feels best to go back to my roots, for all the Nationeers and BranFans who have been around on this site since the faraway beginning, back when Bran Hambric was just some kid in my head and my first book was still just a story.
The big news of the day is that my second novel, BRAN HAMBRIC: THE SPECTER KEY, has opened for preorders online and in stores! I can’t even begin to describe how this feels except to say that it’s a bit like throwing a second housewarming party, and sitting there ten minutes before wondering what all your friends and family will think when they walk in and see how you’ve arranged the furniture and mirrors and Edward Cullen cardboard cutouts (“Jeeves, move him to the left a bit, over there, so that Eddie’s eyes are peeking from my windowsill, yes that’s it, beautiful”). Because I’ve read the book and I know exactly what it’s like, but around 10/10/10 the doors to that big house will finally open, and all of you get to venture into my world again.
The Specter Key
I’m posting my traditional video soon about the preorders, but I would love it if you’d check out BN.com and preorder the book. I’ve also been posting preview chapters once a month. You can read these here:
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
Chapter 3 will be put up VERY shortly (as soon as my video is ready talking about the preorders!).
It feels odd talking about my second novel, when not that long ago I was still sitting at this same exact writing desk, with this same exact keyboard and this same exact computer monitor, and typing away at this little story about a boy named Bran. I don’t know if I actually imagined it would even get this far, so I wonder greatly what it will feel like when I reach the third or the fourth or even the sixth book in this series. The oddest part is when I come to a place in my notes for Book 3, and look at the date and realize it’s something I scribbled when I was fifteen. I don’t think I realized I’d actually ever need it again.
I am continually amazed by the awesome things that the BranFans and Nationeers come up with. Adrienne Frailey, one of my favorite examples, recently sent me a preview of her 14+ song album based on Bran Hambric: The Specter Key. She actually went to a studio to record it, including “The Key”, a song that sounds like it came straight out of a Bran Hambric movie (she is releasing the album in October, she also did “Dying Breath” for BH: The Farfield Curse). You also have enormously talented artists like Judith who sent me this poster in the mail and the Bran Hambric Remake from RemakersProductions.
I will be going on a tour to a few (about 5 or 6) cities in the US (sorry people overseas, I’m working on it!) and meeting as many of you as I can in stores and at schools. I will also be writing a special pep talk for NaNoWriMo participants in November as well as speaking at Wordstock in October. I wish I could go to every city and meet every BranFan but I can only go where my publishers send me and where the schools bring me!
But I was thinking about this and I had an idea. Remember when you all got Bran Hambric trending at #1 on Twitter, above Justin Bieber and The Beatles? I was shocked back then when I shouldn’t have been, because the Nationeers seem to be able to do anything when they rally together.
The biggest goal in my writing life after being published is to hit a bestseller list, just once for a single week. I remember when I was twelve and would go to the library and ask for the librarian to show me where the New York Times list was just so that I could read the names of who was there. Later I’d check it every week online to see who’d gone up and gone down and who’d suddenly sprang up on there for the first time in their lives, and wonder what it felt like to see your name printed there.
If my book ever hits a list, it will only be because of the amazing dedication of you, the BranFans. So here’s the idea: if Bran Hambric: The Specter Key hits the New York Times bestseller list, even for a week, then I will pay to fly myself to the city that bought the most copies, and have the most epic book and poster and shoe signing party the world has ever known. I don’t care if it’s in the US, England, France, Canada, Australia, or Hickstownnobodyville. I will go to your city off-tour and meet each and every one of you to thank you personally for bringing about a dream I’ve had since I was twelve. If by some miracle it hits and stays for a second week, I’d go to the second city on the list, and keep going, until every gnome in the world is signed.
With people like you behind the book tweeting and sharing on Facebook and making videos and telling your friends and librarians and teachers to read it, I know that we can make it up there. And not to leave anyone out: I’d read a chapter of Bran Hambric, on Youtube, with peanut butter covering my face, a leprechaun hat on my head, in the voice of Bill Cosby. There, I said it. This is how bestsellers are MADE.
(I pause to imagine John Green in a leprechaun hat, talking like Bill Cosby, then quietly tiptoe away from that thought)
I know that all the months of preorders with BN.com all count toward the bestseller list numbers in the first week, which will be our strongest time, so if you haven’t already go click that preorder button and be a part of the Bran Hambric army! It’s a big goal, but hey — we trended above Justin Bieber for a few hours. WE HAVE ALREADY ACHIEVED THE IMPOSSIBLE.
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