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Book Expo America 2009 was a BLAST! It is quite an amazing thing to go into an airplane-hangar-sized conference hall, and be surrounded by others from your own world of writing and publishing. I met countless authors and got a stack of books (including an advance copy of Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins, a signed copy of the Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, and loads more).

My book signing for The Farfield Curse started at 11:00 AM, and there was already a short line formed. Once the time hit, people began to come from everywhere, and the signing didn’t really stop! There were so many people, we actually ran out of books, so that by the time the signing was over I simply couldn’t sign any more because there were none left to hand out. Hopefully this is a good sign for how it will do in stores

I was interviewed for Borders Media by the one and only Pel from the Twilight Lexicon. It was a bit odd since it was my first film interview, and I had never been in a studio set up like it. There were five cameras, all set up at different angles, and they wired me up with a microphone and had lighting hanging all around. I also had to get film makeup put on — a first for me, and a bit itchy (it had to be explained to me that you actually have to wash it off afterward, ha ha). After BEA we headed over to Books Of Wonder, where I saw Tiger Beat play. Tiger Beat is a rock band entirely made of YA authors, with my editor Daniel Ehrenhaft on lead guitar and Libba Bray doing vocals. YES they were very good.

Even more exciting was the nearly-half-page article about me, TwilightGuy.com and my Twitter/Youtube stuff in Publishers Weekly. As with the opening of pre-orders and the signing of Brandon Dorman, publishers generally tell their authors nothing until after we’ve read about it in the papers: I learned via the article that Bran Hambric will have front-of-store placement at Borders bookstore and a 75,000 copy first printing! There are no extra zeroes in that number. It was easily 4 times what I was expecting!

Here are some photos from the event (special thanks to my friend Becka for taking them!)

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Posted in About Me, Bran Hambric, Photos, Videos
Tags: BEA, Book Expo America, Book Signing, Borders, Bran Hambric, Maureen Johnson, Publishers Weekly, Twilight Lexicon

I have a knack for meeting people at just the right moment. I met Kaza Kingsley through an email I sent after taking a peek at her book in a store. I met Renee, a radio station manager in Florida, who just happened to be looking for a new radio show for teenagers when I called. And recently I met an author named James Dashner, who has been around once with a series but is coming around again to take on the world.

I just got word that James’ soon-to-be-released book has already sold more in presales than his first series in its entirety. Also, his book The 13th Reality: The Journal Of Curious Letters has been chosen as a Border’s Original Voices pick for April. How’s that for a start? It comes out on March 3rd, 2008, so be absolutely sure to get it, and if you’re still not convinced (shame on you) go read my review.

The cleverer side of me demanded that I nab an interview in case James grows into an elusive author like Lemony Snicket or JK Rowling or Obert Skye (Charles Dickens has been flat-out ignoring my requests for some time now as well). Thankfully, James is awesome and agreed right off to answer what I like to call:

The 13 Questions for The 13th Reality

1. Thanks James so much for coming on. To start off, where did you get the inspiration for The Thirteenth Reality?

Thanks Kaleb Nation! I’m glad to be here.

It came from some serious brain pounding after being given one week to come up with a proposal for my eventual publisher. I’d submitted a different book to them, and they liked my writing, but didn’t feel that particular book was right for them. So I worked my tail off to write a proposal for an idea that had always bounced around in my head: The concept of a group recruiting kids by sending out riddles and clues, but also horrible, dangerous things to try to stop them while they solve the mystery.

2. In what ways do you feel your writing changed between your first series (Jimmy Fincher) and The Thirteenth Reality?

Oh, man, it’s not even funny. Sometimes it’s painful to go back and look at my very first book, A Door in the Woods. I’ve come a very long way, and learned many things. Hopefully, this new book knocks the socks off my old stuff. Not that I don’t like Jimmy Fincher-I’ll always love that story.

3. What was the hardest part about writing The Thirteenth Reality?

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Posted in Authors, Interviews, Writing
Tags: Borders, James Dashner, lemony snicket, obert skye

I spent my Saturday in the car most of the day, driving out to San Antonio and then rubber-banding back to Houston. I was up around 4:30 so we could get there on time, and unfortunately in my dazed stupor I forgot to pack a book. Luckily, I spotted a Borders while my mom was in Starbucks and I dashed in, stumbling up the stairs to find something. I managed to snag a copy of Eragon and was looking for the first Leven Thumps to try out, but unfortunately no one could find a copy before I had to dash back out again. The checkout people must be used to hurried customers like me: she start to offer me a Border’s card, but I waved my hands and said ‘Sorry, no time!’ So she slammed my receipt into the book, gave me a lightening-fast thank you, and had me checked out in 10 seconds, without even making me sign the receipt.

We proceeded to Houston and met up with a family who used to live close to here. We stayed there until around 9 at night. As usual it took a good thirty minutes before any of the kids would talk to someone as scary as me, but after a few British impressions, an alternate-reality Three Little Pigs story and quite a few jabs at their neighbors’ odd chimneys, all was well. I was quite surprised that good Catholic children like them knew the Souja Boy Dance, and even more surprised they knew who Soulja Boy was anyway. I tried to bring things back down to rated G by calling him 25 Cent- they cut me off saying I was wrong, it was 50 Cent. So much for un-subverting the youth. We made a bunch of videos with my cell phone camera, including one of them doing the Soulja Boy Dance and one of me as the Mad British Shusher.

On Sunday I was informed rather hastily that I am now the number 1 Kaleb according to Yahoo.com. Hopefully that will last a while. I followed that discovery with a bit more reading of Eragon followed with dashing out to be gone again by 1, to return by 7, and finally to fall into bed around 10.

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Posted in About Me
Tags: 2007, 50 Cent, Books, Borders, Eragon, Houston, Leven Thumps, Soulja Boy