I'm Baaaaaaa-aaaaack!!!!!

I'm back from my incredibly awesome trip to New York City! And I have lots, and lots of news.

First, the news I've been itching to tell you guys for two months. I've finally been given permission to announce that Random House Germany has acquired all four books in the WINGS series in an absolutely amazing pre-empt! They will be publishing the first book in Summer of 2010 (a year after it is released in the US) but then they will release the subsequent books every 6-9 months after that so the fourth book will come out about the same time in Germany as it does in the US.

Also, it's been confirmed now that Mark Tucker will be doing the photos for my cover! He's done another book some of you just might have heard of *wink* called Wicked Lovely. I am so incrediby excited about this news and have so fallen in love with his work. And on top of that, I found out that he has read my book and is brainstorming with my editor the perfect image.:)

Third in the news of awesomeness, "Cuileann" is the winner of a copy of A Curse Dark as Gold and a signed bookplate form Elizabeth! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!! Please send me an email at aprilynne pike at gmail dot com (with no spaces and the dot become a . :)) Also, although she didn't win the book, I was so impressed with Sarah (magicrealism)'s LJ icon, that she wins something special too. (I haven't decided what yet, but that icon deserves a prize!) So Sarah, would you please email me at the above address too.:)

Okay, on to the New York report. I'm just going to go blow by blow, and for those who find it boring, I did warn you.;)

The bad news is that my flight from Denver to NYC got canceled TWICE so I didn't get to attend the event I had hoped to on Monday night, which was a gathering of many of the teen lit authors who live in New York City, including Cassandra Clare, David Levithan, and Holly Black to name a few. But hopefully there will be another time to do that.

On Wednesday morning I started out by going to Writers House to meet my agent Jodi Reamer. We've been working together for over a year and a half and this is the first time we have gotten to meet in person! That was really awesome. I got to see some of the agency which is so historic and beautiful and--above all--full of books! Books everywhere!! It was so awesome! We met in the conference room and the foreign rights people came in to talk with me. They have been very excited about this series right from the beginning so it was really exciting to meet with them.

Then Jodi and I took the subway (yay!) up to meet Tara for lunch and that was fun. (I just think that the subway is one of those things you should totally do in New York, but I was not going to try to do it alone. I would have SO gotten lost. So I was excited when Jodi said we would go via subway.;) (Why yes, I am easily amused.;))

We met Tara and she was so FRIENDLY!! I fell in love with her instantly! She made me feel SO comfortable and we chatted so easily. Then we went on to Harper. I wasn't really sure what to expect, but Tara really eased me into everything gently. First I met her new assistant, Jocelyn (who is, ironically, one of Heather's friends!) and she was SO cute!! Really nice woman. Then I met Erica, Tara's old assistant who has now been promoted to associate editor, but who will still be working very closely with Tara on the Wings series. The four of us (Tara, Jodi, Erica, and me) all sat and chatted in Tara's office for a while and Tara found me a copy of Neil Gaiman's Coraline: the graphic novel, and also an ARC of his mew MG, The Graveyard Book! (for those of you who don't know, I am a HUGE Neil Gaiman fan!!) Then we all headed down to the conference room.

Where everybody was already gathered.

I have talked to other authors who have gone in to do meet and greets and they all warned me that even though the sales and marketing (etc.) people would be excited about selling my book, that I shouldn't expect them to have read it because they have SO many books to read. So I was expecting that.

They had ALL read it!!

And they were totally excited about it! Everyone had something nice to say that clearly showed that they had actually read it, and read the whole thing!! I was blown away. Then they all sat around and told me what their department was planning for my series. It was so very cool!

After our meeting at Harper I went walking int he city, just looking around. it was totally awesome!! I really enjoyed it. I passed a Barnes and Noble and was very pleased to find several book I wanted that they did not have in stock in my local B&N . . . and, of course, the whole time I was wondering where my book would be if I came back in a year!

The next morning I went back to Harper and met up with Tara to do the video thing. We went up to Harper's new studio where I got miked and they spent about ten minutes rearranging a vase of flowers that sat on the table beside me. The whole video thing was a lot of fun and when we got done, the lady who was in charge of the studio came in and was like, "So . . . have you done this before?" (Which I have. I've done a bunch of stage and a fair amount of film stuff.) So apparently the shoot went really well!

After that I went to Soho where I met a bunch of friends from my Debs group at the Feast of Awesome. We had a really lovely lunch and it was so fun to meet them. And I am totally remiss in that I did not get any pictures of our lunch!!! I am so bad!! (Actually, I didn't get nearly as many pictures as I intended to anywhere so, bad me!) But we had a blast and then Sarah O and Sarah Cross walked me around for almost an hour helping me find some bubble tea. (Thanks!!)

After that I hopped in a taxi, picked up my bags, and took another taxi to the airport where--having not counted on traffic--I missed my flight, had to run for the last minute flight I found, and barely made it home on the right day. *rolls eyes* All in all, a very fun and successful trip and I feel like I accomplished all of the goals I set out for myself.:)

Throughout the rest of the week I will be answering the incredible questions you have left for me in the comments section (thanks so much!!!) and will pick several of them to go on my website. I really appreciate you guys' help!! And there will be another fun book giveaway in about two weeks.:)

Ciao!!