My vlog from the LA Times Festival Of Books 2010! I met tons of awesome authors and got to hang out with some Nationeers. Also, 3D glasses, for some random upcoming music video.
More vlogs are at Youtube.com/KalebNation.
Posted in Authors, Videos
Tags: 3D Glasses, Books, John Green
As you can see, the Advance Reader Copies of BRAN HAMBRIC: THE FARFIELD CURSE have finally arrived! Here’s video of me opening the box from my publishers and going a bit nutty when I hold my book for the first time 
This moment was truly one of the biggest in my life: getting to hold this book was somewhat symbolic of six years of work on this story and the characters. Of course I’m thrilled to finally be able to see it in print: and very soon, it will be in bookstores all across the country (in hardcover, of course!).
These ARCs and those my publisher still have will now be sent out to key media people and reviewers who will help to promote the book before it comes out. There will also be many ARCs available at Book Expo America coming up at the end of next week, where I will have my first book signing! I’ll make sure there’s plenty of video of that for those of you who can’t make it
If you’d like, you can download the first five chapters of the book completely free at BranHambric.com, as well as pre-order it from nearly any bookstore!
Posted in Bran Hambric, Videos
Tags: ARCs, BEA, Books, Bran Hambric
When I was about 12 years old, I stumbled upon a book at the Round Rock Public Library titled “What’s Your Story?” by Marion Dane Bauer. It was a book for kids that described certain steps to tell a story well. Finding that book was a huge milestone in my life.
It was about two years before I started on The Farfield Curse (then, I was writing a fun but abyss of a fantasy story called Enchanted Memories, which had nothing to do with Enchantments, and nothing to do with Memories, but surprisingly enough had many of the same character names as is in The Farfield Curse). I was very new to writing, and when I found this book at the library, I realized suddenly that there was actually such thing as a book about writing a book.
After later miraculously finding another guide by Phyllis A Whitney in our attic, I was led to my first voluntary foray into the upper floor of the library, where the adult books were kept (a milestone in itself). There were about two shelves of books that fit between the decimal numbers for Authorship and Writing Novels: and I am almost certain that I read every book there at least once. I would literally fill up backpacks and baskets with them, bringing every guide on writing that I could find back home, or spreading them out on the library carpet to see if it had anything interesting I had not yet read about.
I discovered, to my dismay, that publishing a book is not as simple as calling up the editor of Scholastic (to me back then, all publishers were Scholastic or HarperCollins, who did Lemony Snicket). I also discovered that my cousin could not be my literary agent, that you actually have to finish a book before sending it out, and that you cannot telephone head editors to pitch your story idea, even if you found their number somehow (sorry Liz at Scholastic).
Thanks to that first book by Marion Dane Bauer, I was led to a treasury of others like it, and slowly formed a list that I re-read at least every 6 months, until I pretty much had them memorized. All the research built up was an enormous help, and having a basic knowledge of publishing lingo is priceless for query letters.
The following books are the ones I recommend to anyone who asks me about writing, or anyone who is already an author and wants something humorous and informative dealing with the writing life:
How To Grow A Novel — by Sol Stein
This book is wonderful throughout. The title is pretty much burned into my memory as a Good Writing Book, so that if anybody asks me what I recommend, this is the first one that comes to mind. I don’t know what it is about it, but this book seems to focus highly on that elusive ‘unique voice’ that makes a good story. It doesn’t really go over commas or correct grammar, but rather how to tell an engaging story and how to hold the attention of readers with your words. One of the biggest things it taught me was a technique of never giving the reader what they want, and in the process giving them exactly what they want. Confusing? Read the book. You’ll understand.
How To Be Your Own Literary Agent — by Richard Curtis
Before the trolls start to hop up and down, screaming that Richard Curtis is my agent and of course I’ll promote his book, there is a secret you should know: I read this book 5 years before I ever knew who Richard Curtis was (yes, it was a very welcome surprise). This book was on my Annual Reading List, because not only did it refresh me on all the duties of agents and the process of getting published, it has a nifty little appendix that describes what a ‘fair’ book deal is (aka $) and a ‘good’ book deal is (aka $$$). The title makes me laugh: there are so many things that agents do, you leave the book all the more convinced that you need to get a good agent, and fast.
Richard has recently offered this book entirely free online through Google.com, and you can read it here. Also there are links on how to buy it from stores (really, it is worth it. When my editor says things in publishingese on the phone, I am secretly paging through this to translate).
The First Five Pages — Noah Lukeman
This book was one of the biggest influences in helping me get an agent. It is very thin (only about 200 pages) but the advice in it is absolutely invaluable. Besides going over the things to keep in mind for the first five pages in your novel (practically undisputed as the most important part of the book) it also goes over Characterization, Dialogue, Narration and all sorts of important elements that go into the story.
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Sometimes The Magic Works — Terry Brooks
If you are looking for a good inspirational story about a real bestselling author, this is the one. I have honestly (and ashamedly) never read a Terry Brooks novel (it’s on my list… I started on Magic Kingdom For Sale just before I moved to college, and left it at home). But that didn’t stop me from enjoying this story in its entirety, as the author goes over his life as a writer, certain stories from his experiences, and the things that he has learned along the way that made him the success he is.
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Beyond The Bestseller — Richard Curtis
Another book by my agent: this one I actually read after I had signed with him, and was searching the Austin Public Library for anything by him. I found this old one (originally from the 1980’s) and read it about 4 times all the way through. It is one of the funniest accounts ever from a literary agent’s point of view, telling of previous clients, wonderful book deals, pseudo-possessed authors (and editors), and much more. In the midst of the humorous stories about the writing life, from an agent’s perspective, there are scores of writing tips to be gleamed.
If you have any other great books for writers, leave it in the comments!
Posted in About Me, Writing
Tags: Books, Richard Curtis, Writing
I am suddenly torn between two goods.
On the New York Times children’s bestseller list, Stephenie Meyer holds the #1 spot for children’s series. But, at #2, D.J.MacHale holds the spot for the Pendragon series.
My ‘STEPHENIE ROCKS’ flag suddenly wavers for a second, since D.J.MacHale…has the same agent as me. That means he’s practically Literary Family.
Yoiks. It’s like rooting for your friend to be President, but then yo Momma decides to run. Whose flag to wave this week?
Shhh. Don’t tell the Twilighters. My momentary hesitation is likely grounds for expulsion from Steph’s list. Hey, we’re talking hard decisions here! This could very well be The Ultimatum: like letting your mom drop in the pit of fire to jump up and save your wife from the vipers. Who to choose?
You’re all smacking me on the head now. Look, Kaleb, you say. Don’t you, like the majority of humans, have two hands? Just wave TWO flags, idiot.
Or rather, if you’re a Twilighter: Idiot! Use one hand to wave the Stephenie flag, and the other to smack yourself for considering such an outrage!
Anyhow, in other book news, I just received my ARC of Farworld: Water Keep by J Scott Savage. Also, he’s offered some books for a contest through my site, so I’ll be able to give some away when I get my review up. He’s got a pretty cool cover for it too:
Very watery. I’ll be reporting on it as soon as I can grab a spare moment. Before you run to the store, it’s not out until September, so hold your horses.
Also in publishing, most people just got back from the famous BEA. Someone asked if I’ll be there next year. Um, erm, I don’t know. After all, my book won’t be out until late next year, and publishers don’t bring authors to BEA unless, you know, we’ve done that sell books thing. And speaking of my publishers, they just put up an awesome new website you must check out.
Much prettier than the last one. My name won’t appear under their Authors, I assume, until after I’ve made them enough profit to pay the web designer to turn off Youtube, crawl off the couch, stow away the popcorn, hide the cans of Wolf chili, and add my name. Don’t ask how I know what web designers are like.
I have word of some stuff and if it comes, I’ll most likely have another video: Signing My Book Deal II. The last one was pretty fun, though this one will be shorter so as to avoid my rambling. Keep watch.
Oh, and I bought a keyboard. To make music. Or rather, to make more music- much easier than clicking all the notes in with my mouse. Anyhow, I just finished a new song draft. It’s another soundtrack score, though I’m still working on the mastering and some small edits. In this one, I have a cool piano line. Keep watch for it here.
In case you didn’t notice on the front page, TwilightGuy.com got almost 300,000 hits in the first month. It’s much more now, thanks to being a few days into the month on June. Pretty good for a start
I shall exit with this, my favorite new song of the Second-Half of 2008:
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Posted in Authors, Stephenie Meyer, TwilightGuy, Writing
Tags: Books, Bran Hambric, DJ Machale, Richard Curtis, Stephenie Meyer, Writing
And thus I affix my signature to the publishing contract. Since my family is back home and couldn’t be there for perhaps one of the biggest moments of my life, I got it all on film.
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This may jolly well be interesting to nobody but me. After all, I’m signing a piece of paper. But to me, signing that paper represents more than a quarter of my lifetime in dreams.
This video is a five-minute short about the idea, writing the book, and signing the deal. I go back to the original black journal from that fateful night when I first had the idea, then to my filing cabinets and boxes of papers and drafts which make up the five years of writing it, and while filming I even inadvertently discovered my first writing notebook ever, from when I was 10 years old. This is a bit of my own tale as well as that of The Farfield Curse.
I realize that in the next video, I need to change my camera angle to point AWAY from the window, so the awful shadows on my face aren’t there and that huge bright light behind me doesn’t blind anyone :p .
Posted in About Me, Bran Hambric, Videos, Writing
Tags: Books, Bran Hambric, Writing
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