Evil Librarian Twitter Chat TODAY

Join me today at 4pm EDT for an Evil Librarian Twitter chat! Use #EvilLibrarian. Ask questions! Answer trivia! Win prizes!

Chat will be moderated by Candlewick Press. Hope to see you there!

Evil Librarian Blog Tour Day 8!

Last stop on the blog tour! Q&A over at Book Chic. Thanks to all the bloggers who participated, and to everyone who followed along!

If you haven't yet, please check out all the previous stops on the tour!

September 9: WhoRuBlog (Guest Post)

September 10: Random Chalk Talk (Guest Post)

September 11: Books 4 Your Kids (Q&A)

September 12: Green Bean Teen Queen (Guest Post)

September 13: Elizabeth O. Dulemba (Guest Post)

September 15: Katie's Book Blog (Guest Post)

September 16: Word Spelunking (Guest Post)

September 17: Book Chic Club (Q&A)

Evil Librarian Blog Tour Day 7!

Today on the blog tour I'm talking sweets over at Word Spelunking. SWEETS!

Also, you could win a free copy of Evil Librarian!

Also, SWEETS!

Go visit!

Evil Librarian Blog Tour Day 6!

Today I'm at Katie's Book Blog, talking about my favorite musical theater chorus experiences. :)

Evil Librarian Blog Tour Day 5!

Today I'm over at Elizabeth O. Dulemba's blog, talking about some of the writing process behind Evil Librarian. Please come visit, and enter to win a free copy of the book while you're there!

Evil Librarian Blog Tour Day 4!

Come visit me today over at Green Bean Teen Queen, where I talk about some of my favorite musical theater songs (because there's a musical theater/Sweeney Todd subplot in the book, and also because musical theater = awesome).

Also, don't forget that the Evil Librarian official launch party is happening TONIGHT at WORD bookstore in Brooklyn! Full details here. I hope you can come and help me celebrate! Free and open to the public.

Evil Librarian Blog Tour Day 3!

Today on the blog tour I'm over at books4yourkids.com, answering Tanya's really great interview questions!

Also a reminder for anyone in the NYC area that tomorrow is the official launch party for Evil Librarian! It's at WORD in Greenpoint Brooklyn, staring at 7pm. You can see all the info here. (RSVP encouraged but not required — you can totally decide to just come by at the last minute! There will be SO MUCH FOOD AND DRINKS and also many delicious mini cupcakes.)

Evil Librarian Blog Tour Day 2!

Come visit me today over at Random Chalk Talk, where I share part of my writing playlist for Evil Librarian!

ALSO! Please join me on Twitter on Friday, September 19 at 4:00pm for a post-tour Twitter chat with hashtag #EvilLibrarian! You could win a signed copy! See you there!

Evil Librarian Pub Day and Blog Tour!

IT'S EVIL LIBRARIAN PUB DAY!!!!!!!!!!!! I am super excited. Can you tell that I am super excited?

That means today is the day you can find EVIL LIBRARIAN out in the world, ideally in your favorite local independent bookstore, but also in various other bookselling places and libraries (except maybe evil ones).

It ALSO means that today is the first day of the EVIL LIBRARIAN BLOG TOUR! You can find me at my first stop on the tour: over at Liza Wiemer's WhoRuBlog.

Here's the whole list of blog tour stops for the next week or so. I hope you'll come visit me along the way!

September 9: WhoRuBlog (Guest Post)

September 10: Random Chalk Talk (Guest Post)

September 11: Books 4 Your Kids (Q&A)

September 12: Green Bean Teen Queen (Guest Post)

September 13: Elizabeth O. Dulemba (Guest Post)

September 15: Katie's Book Blog (Guest Post)

September 16: Word Spelunking (Guest Post)

September 17: Book Chic Club (Q&A)

If you've already read the book, or whenever you do read it, please consider posting reviews on Goodreads, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, your local library website, etc.! Reviews are a great way to help spread the word (and help authors that you like to reach more readers). I also welcome comments on this blog, and you can email me through my website, as well.

I would also like to give a shared-pub-day shout out to fellow authors Caroline Carlson, whose second book in The Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates series, The Terror of the Southlands, comes out today, and Matt Phelan, whose lovely picture book Druthers comes out today, too!

EVIL LIBRARIAN BOOK TRAILER

Hey look, it's the book trailer for EVIL LIBRARIAN!

Director/Animator: Brent Felker

Illustrator: Barbara Ng

Composer: Joemca

Voice: Jessica Luck

Something to tide you over until you can get your hands on a shiny new copy TOMORROW!

Also tomorrow: check back here for links to all my blog tour stops over the next eight days!

As for tonight, you've still got a couple of hours to be super awesome and pre-order your copy of the book. After tonight, you'll just be buying the book like a regular person. (Which is still awesome, it's just not quite as super awesome as pre-ordering.)

And don't forget to come party with me and a whole bunch of other people at WORD this Friday, September 12: https://www.facebook.com/events/263292263860273/

(There will be food and drinks and lollipops will little devil heads on them. You really don't want to miss this, I think.)

EVIL LIBRARIAN IS COMING

Less than three weeks until my new book (and debut YA novel) EVIL LIBRARIAN is set free to roam the Earth! I could not be more excited. Here is some news about the release and pre-ordering and the PARTY that will be happening in Brooklyn very soon!

But first, please look at how awesome the full jacket design is:

The designer is Matt Roeser, because I am the luckiest girl in the world.

OK so here is important information you need to know about this book:

1. The release date is September 9, 2014.

2. You can pre-order RIGHT NOW, and I hope that you will. Pre-ordering is THE most important thing you can do to help an author's book. Among other things, pre-orders get rolled into the first week's sales figures, which can help get a book onto a best-seller list. It also signals to the stores that there's a demand for the book, which might encourage them to order more copies for the store, which will help it to stand out on the shelves and be discovered by new people, and so on. (Two good posts that explain the importance of pre-orders really well are these by Kevin Hearne and Brian McClellan, if you would like to know more.)

3. You can pre-order from anywhere you like, but if you pre-order from WORD in Brooklyn, I can sign it for you! Then you can either pick it up at the store (at the party or any other time on or after 9/9/14), or have it shipped to you wherever you are. You can order from WORD here; just put a note in the comments field saying whom you would like the book signed to (e.g., "For Sue and Linda" or "Happy birthday, Joe") or say "just signature" if you want it signed but not personalized.

4. WHAT'S THAT ABOUT A PARTY? I'll be celebrating the book's release with some of my very favorite book people at WORD on Friday, September 12, at 7:00pm, and you are invited! See the handy launch party invite on Facebook for all the details. RSVPs encouraged, but not required.

5. The book has been getting some great reviews, which makes me really happy. Here are some particularly nice little snippets, plus the very kind words from Stephenie Meyer (you know, she wrote those Twilight books you may have heard of) that appear on the back cover, in case you can't see them clearly in the picture above. :)

[A] self-aware supernatural dramedy... The writing is clever, the tone wry, and the stakes high, with surprises that keep the plot unpredictable. Cyn’s internal monologue provides plenty of amusement, especially when her hormones threaten to overpower her common sense. It’s an entertaining tale with room for future installments.
— Publishers Weekly

Snappily narrated, tightly plotted and generally just right. Forget paranormal romance; this horror-humor-romance pastiche is where those in search of hot nonhumans should set their sights.
— Kirkus Reviews

"If Louise Rennison and Christopher Moore had a bibliographic love child it would be this cheekily narrated supernatural offering."
— School Library Journal

Hysterical! Smart and funny, with a little drama, a little romance, and just the right touch of evil.
— Stephenie Meyer, author of the bestselling Twilight Saga

Guest Post at What Was on Her ...

Come visit me today over at Sandra Nickel's What Was on Her ... blog, where I talk about my most evil plan, karaoke favorites, and other fun things. Also, information you need to know about appropriate numbers of spiders.

BEA 2014 Schedule!

So excited for BEA this week! If you want to get a signed EVIL LIBRARIAN galley, here's where to find me:

WEDNESDAY: BEA Blogger Conference Party (Javits Room 1A06) 3:45–5:00pm

FRIDAY: Candlewick Booth #2857 galley signing 2:30–3:30pm

I'll also be at the ABA Silent Auction Wednesday evening, Friday afternoon's ABC/CBC Speed Dating Lunch, and various other places around the floor on Friday throughout the day. Please come find me and say hello!

Princess of Trelian in paperback!

It's paperback pub day for The Princess of Trelian! 

As always, I strongly encourage you to get a copy at your local independent bookstore, but it's also available at Barnes & Noble and on Amazon. 

If you want a signed and/or personalized copy, you should order from WORD bookstore in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. They'll let me know and I'll head over to sign a copy just for you! (If you only see the hardcover listed, just click "other editions of this title" to get to the paperback.)

If you've already read The Princess of Trelian and are waiting for book 3 ... I can tell you that the third book is now scheduled for fall of 2015. I'll post more specific details when I have them! :)

Blog Tour: The Writing Process

My friend Paula Freedman, author of the wonderful MG novel My Basmati Bat Mitzvah, invited me to participate in this blog tour about the writing process. Every author on the tour answers some questions about his or her own writing process, and then tags two other authors to answer next. I'm excited to be part of it, both because it's making me post something after way too long away from this blog, and also because I'm always fascinated by other writers' processes. You can read Paula's responses here; mine are below!

What am I currently working on?

I am almost always in the midst of multiple projects at once. I just finished final-final-final changes on my young adult novel EVIL LIBRARIAN (coming 9-9-14!), but I'm also waiting for my editor's notes on the first draft of the third book in my middle grade fantasy trilogy, working on a revision of a new picture book, and planning out the synopsis for a follow-up to EVIL LIBRARIAN. My next picture book, MARILYN'S MONSTER, comes out next spring, and my part of the work is mostly done on that one—it is being illustrated (as we speak!) by the super amazing Matt Phelan.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

This is a hard question. I know some of my picture books are different because they're longer than a lot of picture books out there ... but I hope that's not the only thing that makes them different! Obviously every author's work is going to be unique because of his or her individual voice, and I think that applies to my work as well. I also seem to come back to some of the same themes over and over in my books. I write a lot about friendship in various forms, and love in various forms, and also creatures (lions, dragons, demons) showing up in unexpected places. 

Why do I write what I write?

I guess I write the kinds of stories that I'd want to read. Fantasy novels were the stories that first really grabbed me as a young reader and turned me into one of those kids who carried a book around with her everywhere. Picture books appeal to me for some of the same reasons—they're stories in which anything can happen, where the rules of everyday regular life don't necessarily have to apply. In all of my books, I'm always interested in the relationships among the characters ... who they are, why they do what they do, how they feel about one another, etc. I remember growing up and wishing I could know the characters from my favorite books in real life. I try to write those kinds of characters in my own books—if I care about them and want to spend time with them, hopefully my readers will, too!

How does my individual writing process work?

My process can vary a lot from book to book. For picture books, a story usually starts with one image or idea or feeling. I might carry that image/idea/feeling around in my head for a while before I know anything more about the story ... I'll check in on it every so often, take it out, look at it, and think about it, but sometimes I have to wait a long time before the rest of the story starts to take shape around it. Once I feel like I have enough of a sense of where the story is going (not all of it, just enough to start) I'll begin writing it down and see what happens. Often I'll make little notes in my notebook (or on whatever paper is handy at the time) as more pieces of the story start to take shape, so I won't forget.

For novels, the process could begin the same way, with an image or a feeling. For The Dragon of Trelian, I saw an image in my mind of two characters at a window in a castle. I knew they were looking out at something exciting, and that they probably weren't supposed to be there, but not much else. I started asking myself questions about them—who they were, why they were at the window, etc. The story started to take shape from there.

EVIL LIBRARIAN started with the voice of the main character. I was working on a different novel at the time, a darker, more serious fantasy (which I'm still working on, but it's been temporarily put on the back burner while I'm focusing on the other books) and Cyn's voice was funny and smart and engaging and made me want to hear more of what she had to say. I wrote the first page and a half (which mostly stayed put as the opening of the final version) and then kept coming back to it as often as I could. When I had about 70 or 80 pages, I realized I had to stop and figure out what the heck was going to happen in the rest of the book. I wrote a synopsis, and then expanded that into a longer synopsis, and eventually created a chapter-by-chapter outline of the rest of the story. That was really the first time I've ever written with an outline, and I have to say it made writing the rest of the book a lot easier! But I don't think I could start with the outline right at the beginning. I need to write a big enough piece to know the characters and the feel of the book before I can think more analytically about the structure and pacing and all the rest.

Once I have the first draft, it goes to my agent and editor. For picture books this might be the first time they see or hear of it; for novels, they've almost certainly seen some pieces of the story already. I take a breather (which sometimes just means switching over to the next project, but I do try to take at least a little bit of a break when I can!) and wait for notes from my editor. Then I start the revision process, based on her feedback and my own thoughts/notes of what I think needs reshaping (or rewriting or expanding or deleting). When the second draft is done, I might share it with one or two trusted readers, who also give me their thoughts. I usually end up doing at least three full drafts with novels. Sometimes four. And then I'm always still tweaking the text during copyediting and galleys, until my publisher makes me stop. :) Some picture books only take a couple of drafts, not including additional edits after we lay the book out into pages and I see how it starts to work together with the artwork, which often calls for at least some small changes to be made to the text. Others I end up revising over and over, twenty times, maybe more, before they really come together. And sometimes they never do, but I still have some that I haven't given up on, despite many years and drafts since I first started them. Sometimes I think it's just not the right time for a particular story, but if it's one that really speaks to me, I have to trust that I'll find the right time/approach/idea to make it work eventually!

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Next up on the blog tour:

I met Rachel Wilson at the Vermont College of Fine Arts, where we were both getting our MFAs in writing for children and young adults. Her debut novel, DON'T TOUCH, comes out from HarperTeen this September. When she's not writing, she makes theater in Chicago, so it's not surprising that DON'T TOUCH is full of theater (although, she says, she's not a "serious actress" like her main character). She also has a horror novelette, "The Game of Boys and Monsters," coming out as an ebook for HarperImpulse in October.

FA Michaels writes about real-world teens in not-so-real-world situations. Coming soon is a time travel tale that's part sci-fi, part mystery and part star-crossed-lovers romance. Follow Mic on Twitter @FAMichaels and read more at FAMichaels.com.

Look for their responses on their own blogs on Monday, April 21!