Amanda Hocking

I like Valentine’s Day. I don’t understand why people hate it. Of the 27 years that I’ve been alive on this planet, I’ve had a boyfriend on exactly 2 Valentine’s Days, and I still love it.

Part of that may be because I live in Minnesota, and by the time February 14th rolls around, I’m sick of being cold and depressed and it’s always dark and I look for an excuse to buy flowers and look at pink hearts. I’m also not adverse to rom-coms.

I should confess that I rarely spend Valentine’s alone, even though I don’t have a boyfriend. And spending Valentine’s with your friends is about ten billion times spending it with boyfriends. Friends are fun and silly and don’t care that you want to go see This Means War almost entirely because you like looking at Tom Hardy and Chris Pine. Friends also don’t judge if you eat a entire box of chocolate by yourself or if you put on sweatpants when you get home instead of a thong. (In fact, my friends probably prefer if I put on sweatpants instead of a thong.)

To me Valentine’s Day is a day to have fun and act girlie and remind the people that you care about that you do in fact care about them. Nothing about that sounds depressing to me. It just sounds like a good time.

P. S. I am actually going to see This Means War tomorrow with a few of my pals. Expect some type of review on this tomorrow or the next day, because man, do I dig Tom Hardy.

This opinion is most likely not popular, but I really enjoy the song “Diet Mountain Dew” by Lana Del Rey. I also don’t completely understand why people were so upset about her performance. Maybe it was because it was so over-hyped. I was in England, so I didn’t get to see SNL that night, and my Twitter was blowing up with how terrible she was, and I was all, “What the crap?!”

I finally saw it when I got back to the States, and I didn’t get it. It wasn’t the most exciting performance I’d ever seen, but her music sounded the way it does on her album. Also, I once saw Nirvana play on SNL, and Kurt Cobain was so high, he just lay on the stage and mumbled the words. I mean, it was grunge, so I guess that still counted as being pretty awesome. But the point was at least Lana Del Rey stood up when she sang. And she didn’t seem to lip sync or tear up pictures of the Pope. So whatever.

I also super loved SNL’s response to it last Saturday, when Kristin Wiig came out dressed as Lana Del Rey. My favorite part was when Kristin Wiig said, “In this age of dangerous school bullying, you have sent an important message: If you think someone is weird, you should criticize them as much as possible.”

Anyway, that’s enough about Lana Del Rey, who I’m actually not all that interested in, despite what it might seem by how much I’ve been talking about her. I just like the song “Diet Mountain Dew.” But I do not like the beverage Diet Mountain Dew. Only regular Mountain Dew. Which, as an aside, is IMPOSSIBLE to find in England or Italy. At the places I went to, anyway. And that’s what counts.

Now onto something that really matters to me: Are you guys watching Southland? That is literally my favorite show on TV that isn’t animated or Episodes. (I’m also not sure if Episodes is still on. I mean, I heard it was coming back, but it’s still not on, so I don’t know. But I really, really love that show.) I also really like Up All Night, but part of that probably is because I’m in love with Christina Applegate. And Dexter. (I’ve recently come to the conclusion that Dexter is basically just Batman. But better. Don’t tell Christian Bale I said that, though.)

So back to Southland. It really is the greatest hour of television you can watch. It’s a cop drama, but it’s not all easy answers. A lot of these shows, like CSI and Law & Order: SVU follow one case each episode, and it’s all glossy and dramatic. But Southland feels a bit more like an episode of Cops, but with more depth. It’s grittier and more genuine. Sometimes it’s really sad, sometimes it’s really funny, and there at times when it’s so intense I think I’m going to have a heart attack of intensity.

Also, it’s always at the risk of getting cancelled, and it was really nice of TNT to pick it up. It airs on Tuesdays at 10/9 central on TNT, and you should watch it, so it doesn’t get cancelled, because it’s awesome. And Regina King is super bad ass and could totally crush Mariska Hargitay in a fist fight or an “tear up” off. Michael Cudlitz is really funny & has a nice story line going, and Ben McKenzie is super pretty. Plus, he punched a snotty teenager in the face the other week, and I liked it. Oh, and Lucy Liu is on now.

This blog really has no point, except that it feels REALLY good to not talk about books or publishing. So I might write a whole series of blogs where I talk about everything about books or publishing. That might make me really happy.

Hey, everyone! I just updated the FAQs section at the top of the blog, so before you ask a question, make sure you check it out. I also explain where you can get Wisdom for the Kindle.

You may have noticed my absence on the blog. It’s been almost a month since I last blogged, which is the longest I’ve gone without blogging in a very long time. Probably since I started the blog.

The absence was partially because I was very, very busy. I was on a tour promoting Switched, and I spent a lot of time doing interviews. That was the other reason why there wasn’t blogs. After spending all day talking about publishing and books, I found that I wasn’t very interested in writing when I get done.

Also, I think I just needed a bit of a break. I wasn’t very active at all on the internet last week, rarely tweeting or going on Facebook. Sometimes it’s good to unplug and relax. But anyway, I’m back! I’m refreshed, and I’m working on Lullaby, the sequel to Wake. So all’s well.

I also have some fun things to share with you. Where to start?

When I came home from the book tour, I got a nice surprise. An ARC of Wake were waiting for me, and they look lovely!  As you can kind of tell from the grainy image below.

Wake is the first book in my brand new series Watersong, and the publication date as been moved up to August 7th, so that’s also good news. If you’re not familiar with what an ARC is, I suggest you read: here. The Story Siren breaks down exactly what it is.

If you’d like to get a copy of Wake for review, you can email publicity@stmartins.com. I do not personally have any copies that I can give out for review, so you have to contact St. Martin’s. I can’t guarantee that you’ll get an ARC, because they do have a limited supply.

UPDATE: ARCs of Wake are sent out for people to review, but since they have a limited quantity of ARCs, they can’t send them out to every person that requests them. That means they try to only send ARCs to people who have review blogs or journalists or people who have some way of promoting the books.

My publicist has said they’re getting many requests for the books, and that’s great, but they won’t possibly be able to fill them all. If you’d like a better chance at getting an ARC of Wake, in your email, list your blog (if you have one) and any relevant stats, like how many hits it gets and how many followers you have and any other promotional stuff you would want to do for the book. I also recommend that you read what the Story Siren has posted about ARCs. She’s done a very good job of explaining what they are, how to get them, and what to do with them.

Both myself and my publicist are sorry that not everyone can a get an ARC of Wake. But there will probably be giveaways on the future, and I’ll be sure to post about them as soon as I hear of any. And I really appreciate all the excitement around the book!

Here’s a couple of fun videos. This one is a tour of my office, done all MTV cribs style:

And here’s one of my favorite interviews I’ve done. It’s from a local PBS affiliate KSMQ show called “Off 90.” The KSMQ viewing area is all around Interstate 90, so the title is a play on that.

In that video, where it shows my hands typing, this is what I was actually typing:

You can click to enlarge.

 Okay. Yay! That was enough of me talking about me. Here’s something really cool. The Other House is the production company that did an amazing job making the fantabulous US trailer for Switched. They posted some behind-the-scenes videos and pictures from the Switched shoot on their blog. Here’s the link to the full blog: here.

If you haven’t seen the awesome trailer, I’ll post it again, and here’s a couple choice pics from their blog, but you should really go to their site and check out the behind-the-scenes video.

Switched trailer:

And finally, Switched has been on the New York Times Best Sellers list for four weeks, and it’s also back on the USA Today Bestselling Books List! Thank you to everyone for buying a book and to all the readers for being so supportive! 🙂

If you’ve read my book Switched, then you’re familiar with the leading lady, Wendy Everly. And as you discover in Ascend, her birthday is January 9th. It’s also the birthday of my friend Valerie, who is a real person. I just thought I should point that out since Wendy is fictional.

So Switched has been out for over a week, and the response has been pretty great.

I spent last week in New York doing some press, and not blogging nearly as much as I wanted to. Doing interviews is more work than it sounds. I did a great interview with NPR, which aired yesterday, and based on the replies I got, I’d say a lot of people heard it & liked it. I also did a radio interview with a BBC station, but I’m not sure when/where that will air, because I’m not nearly familiar enough with the BBC as I’d liked to be.

I also taped a segment for the hit daytime talk show Anderson starring the silver fox himself, Anderson Cooper. It was pretty much the most terrifying/fun/surreal thing I’ve ever done in my life. I’m not sure exactly when it will air, but the producers told me they thought it’d be somewhere around the 13th. But you’re DVRing it everyday, anyway, right? 😉

I also did a meet and greet with a few local book bloggers in New York. That was actually really cool, and it was awesome to be able to have a conversation with them in real life. It’s something I’d definitely want to do again. You can check out more about that at Good Choice Reading, where they have pics and a really awesome giveaway: here.

I’m back home in Minnesota now, enjoying a few more days with my friends, family, and menagerie of animals before I hit the road again for a big tour in the UK, Italy, and Spain. Over the next couple days, I’ll be doing some local press, and a book signing in Rochester, MN at Barnes & Noble.

Right now, I’m sleepy, and should be sleeping, I wasn’t sleepy like twenty minutes so I decided to give up on sleep after tossing and turning for 3 hours in bed since I have get up at 4 in the morning to drive to Iowa to do an interview for KIMT. But now I’m tired, and I don’t think I should sleep, because then I’ll be super tired, and won’t get up in time to get ready, and I’ll be on TV looking gross, and nobody wants to see me on TV looking gross.

Anyway. I’ll try to be better about blogging. And after Anderson airs, I plan to post more about the taping of the episode.

Oh! And have you guys read “The Vittra Attacks?” I’m seriously dying to know what people think of it.

Today was the day that Switched came out in bookstores. Here are some pictures of Switched in bookstores:

That’s J. L Bryan’s son John.

David Dalglish bought a girlie book.

Her husband made her the fancy shirt.

Those are my cousin’s kids, Leyton and Miley, standing in front of my book.

That’s my BFF Pete with my book at Walmart, You may recognize her as the original cover model for the first edition of Switched. So it’s all come full circle.

I also did a book signing in New Jersey at Barnes & Noble. Thanks to everybody who turned out! It was a fun time.

That’s what I look like when I sign my name at the Princeton, NJ Barnes & Noble.

Now I’m in the hotel room with Eric, eating sushi and watching What’s Your Number? starring Anna Faris and Chris Evans even though Eric doesn’t really like Chris Evans but I do, ever since I saw Not Another Teen Movie. (Also, did you see Chris Evans in Captain America? Him as a little guy, that was CGI, but when he was buff, he was really that friggin buff. That was crazy, right?)

So that was what my book looks like in stores. If you haven’t picked up a copy yet, you should. And if you have, thank you! And if you’ve read the short story, you should tell me what you think about it!

Tomorrow, hopefully, I’ll post more interesting things. But right now, I’m sleepy, and Chris Evans is half naked on the TV, so think I’m heading off. But thanks for making it a great book birthday!