Monday, August 15, 2011

How To Get Stuff

**Quick note, please read this whole post, especially the link for what a SASE is. My number one question is What is a SASE, there's a very nice link.:D**

Okay! As promised, I am through with my travel-filled summer and am ready to post an address so you can get your very own swag!

I made temporary tattoo jewelry for my swag this year and since they are AWESOME (and small) I am letting you guys send in for your own! You can get either one of each of the David necklace and Tamani bracelet, or you can get two for your guy of choice.

I will also send signed bookplates that can be personalized, etc.

You have to follow directions though.



Step One: Make a SASE (Great instructions in the link with one caveat, you don't have to have different-sized envelopes. Just fold the SASE and put it in the first envelope. Super-simple!) **From comments: If you don't know what a SASE is, follow the link! That's what it's for!!:D**

Step Two: Include a small note that tells me what you want: if you are requesting a bookplate PLEASE tell me who to sign it to, and what book it is for. Here's an example:

Hi Aprilynne! I would like a set of the temporary tattoos (I like them both!) and one book plate for each of the three (ETA: four) books. Please sign them to SARA. Thanks! Sara

See? Very, very easy!

I check my mail once a week and will stuff envelopes there at the post office, so there should be a fairly fast turn-around, but give me two weeks in case your letter arrives the day after I check my mail.:D

To avoid the spambots, I have a picture of my address rather than just typing it.:D (Also, it's sideways. Security FTW.)



I don't normally reply to comments here on the blog, but if you have any PLEASE post them and I will update this post if I've missed any vital information.

**From the comments: International is fine. As long as I can walk the envelope to the postal counter and give it to them and it gets back to you, it's good.:) (Please don't send money; really, I just don't want to go there.;))**

**I used an International Return Coupon (IRC) today! It worked great!!! So yes, those are fine for my brilliant and lovely international fans!!**

**Yes, you can ask for an extra bookplate for the upcoming book four!**

Ciao!

Friday, August 05, 2011

No News, But Thanks Anyway!

Hello everyone!

With the whirlwind of edits, the release of Illusions, touring, and having kids out of school for the summer, it's been a while! It's also been a while since I talked about the business of writing, so I'd like to do a bit of that today.

Because I finally got my contract!

Or rather, I finally got a contract I've been looking forward to for a while. :) I actually have to sign contracts about once a month. The Wings series has now sold in about 30 languages--I say "about" because I know it's at least that many, but some languages sold in more than one territory (e.g. Portugese in Brazil and Portugal, French in Canada and France) and some territories sold in more than one language (e.g. Catalan and Basque in Spain). Some territories bought the whole series, some bought a book or two and then sent new contracts for later books. And many territories just get the books from other territories (I do not have a publisher in South Africa, but I know you can get Wings there). I just get paperwork in the mail from the awesome foreign rights department at Writers House, I sign it, and I send it back! As a result, I'm embarrassed to report that I've lost track of exactly how many countries and languages the series is actually available in.

But the contract I'm talking about today came from the Walt Disney Company.

Some of you probably remember this announcement from two years ago. I even blogged about it! If you don't remember: Disney optioned the rights to make a movie of Wings.

The detailed negotiations on the contract took two years.

If you are an aspiring author, or an author who has yet to ink a screen deal, or even if you're just curious, I want to emphasize that this is not typical. Most of my author friends who have deals with Hollywood took 3 to 6 months to get their contracts signed. Why did mine take so long? I would like to believe it's because everyone involved was just so excited about the project that they wanted to get every detail of the agreement perfect! :) But realistically, it probably took two years for a million tiny reasons, none of them particularly important. It took two years because that's how long it took, and that's how these things go: it takes however long it takes.

There's still no guarantee that the movie will ever be made. The deal I just signed was the same deal I agreed to accept in 2009. So, sorry, I still don't have any movie news to share. I'm excited about the project and I hope Disney decides to move forward with it.

But signing that contract got me thinking about all that has happened in the last two years, and that got me thinking about all that has happened in the years since I started seriously working toward publication. When I started this blog, I knew almost nothing about publishing. Fortunately for me, there were (and are!) a ton of great resources out there for aspiring authors. And once I graduated from "aspiring" to "contracted," I was able to find other authors in the same boat who were willing to share their experiences and increase my knowledge of the publishing industry.

Now, as I begin work on my second series (!!!) for HarperTeen, it's amazing how different everything looks. Some of that has nothing to do with me; when Wings came out in 2009, for example, e-books accounted for a tiny fraction of my sales and I had very little interest in owning an e-reader. This year HarperTeen did an awesome e-book promotion, including free electronic copies of Wings and exclusive content for different retailers, and I spent a lot of the summer reading e-books by my pool. When I went on a pre-publication tour to meet booksellers across the country, one of my stops was Ann Arbor, Michigan--home of Borders, a company that could make or break an author by promoting (or not promoting) a book. This year, Borders is closing its doors. The industry is changing.

But I've also changed. You may have noticed that I don't blog as often as I used to. There are several reasons for this; one is simply that I'm busier. I am trying to find a good way to put out more than one book per year, and that means developing more than one project at a time. I wrote a piece for Harper's Dear Bully project and I've got a short story to write for an anthology. My husband is going back to school (again). I have four children instead of three. :)

I'm still learning! I hope to write many more books. I feel like each one has improved my abilities and I'd like that to continue. I've made tons of awesome friends and met tons of awesome fans and I'd like that to continue, too. Because ultimately it's you, my readers, who I have to thank for the amazing, transforming experiences I've been privileged to have in the last 27 months or so. Your support and feedback never cease to amaze me, and looking back, I probably don't thank you for it enough.

So, thanks for reading! It's been an amazing couple of years and I look happily forward to more of the same. I'd say I will try to be a better blogger, but I'm not gonna lie--I will probably continue to blog irregularly at best. :P But I hope you will keep in mind that if I am not blogging, it's probably because I am writing something fun for you to read later, and I hope that when you remember that, you will forgive me. :)

Ciao!