One Month To 10/10/10 [And Why An Erupting Star Could Be My Downfall]

Hey Nationeers and BranFans! I think everyone knows by now just how obsessed with numbers I am. I can’t help it: so many of my major life-changing events happened on strange dates. 3/3/03  was the idea for my book. 9/9/09 my first was published. And then 10/10/10 — my sequel! It only follows that on days like 9/10/10 (strangely resembling a phone number on an infomercial — NEED CARNIVOROUS FLOWERS? DIAL 1-800-9-TEN-TEN, SO THE FEASTING CAN BEGIN) I’d also start something special, as it’s exactly one month until the release of BRAN HAMBRIC: THE SPECTER KEY!

I’ve been following along a few email threads from my publicist and publishers talking about their plans for the book, and it’s all extremely exciting! There’s a strong buzz with the sequel that if we can get the BranFans to rally together, the book might actually hit the New York Times bestseller list. I write this with some hesitation because it’s hard to know what crazy things might happen in the future. Tomorrow, Stephenie Meyer might announce that ERUPTING STAR, her sequel to Breaking Dawn told from Charlie Swan’s perspective, will be out IMMEDIATELY, divided into 10 children’s paperbacks.

My Downfall

EDIT: Read a preview of ERUPTING STAR at Twimore.com (8/2/11) –>

Erupting Star aside, everyone seems to think there’s an enormous chance that yes, it might actually happen, and yes, sometime in the near future I might be dancing my happy dance, waking the neighbors, putting peanut butter on my face, and flying out to meet a whole lot of you at a big party. I realize that by actually putting this down in a blog I could jinx it, but at the same time — whether my dream actually becomes real now or in the future — I like being able to look back and see what was going through my head before a Big Thing happened. Besides, Nationeers have a way of making the impossible possible (remember that time we got #BranHambric at #1 on Twitter?).

Many of you are probably wondering why I’m pushing so hard on my book hitting a bestseller list. Sometimes it seems a little silly to rank books based on how well they sell into a top-ten chart in a newspaper, but in reality hitting the List is a far bigger thing than just hitting the List.

If any Bran Hambric novel makes it as a New York Times Bestseller list, a whole host of things happen. Immediately, we’re a hundred times more likely for film producers to sign on for a movie, more likely to end up on major shows like Ellen, and even more likely for my next tour to take me to your city.

All of the work I’ve done making sites and touring and filming and blogging for the past seven years will finally have been worth it. A single week on the list brings enough attention to the books that overnight, Nationeers and BranFans could completely take over!

It’s such an exciting thing for a writer to see something like this so close, but it’s VERY important that every BranFan is on board. We need everyone to preorder BRAN HAMBRIC: THE SPECTER KEY in the next three weeks!  Preordering will get you the book before anyone else and is the biggest way we can get the book onto the lists.

My publishers tell me that if about 2,010 people preorder the book before 10/10/2010, then we’ll make the bestseller list (again with the numbers!). That’s less than 1/5 of how many of you are subscribe to my channel on Youtube. All the preorders from now until 10/10/10 count toward the first week — it’ll be the big boost we need to make it on! Now is the most important time of all because we only have a short window where we can make it happen.

I have some great stuff I’m planning this month. To help us get into Bran Hambric mode leading up to 10/10/10, I’ll be posting short quotes from the book on Twitter and Facebook nearly every day. Some of these will be entirely incoherent bits from the story, others clues to things that will happen in the book. They won’t be in a special order, but have fun trying to put the pieces together into something! Here’s the first one:

My publishers are also getting set to launch some Bran Hambric street teams through their websites. It’ll be an awesome way for you to get posters and signed books for free, just by spreading the word about the books! I’ll have more on that soon.

In other news, KalebNation.com just passed 1 million hits this week. How’s that for a Nationeer army?