Amanda Hocking

One time, a month ago or so, I had dinner with my publisher and editor, and it went really well. But my publisher had talked with their website design guy, and he said that I post blogs at the worst possible times ever because it’s like three in the morning, and that’s bad blogging posting time.

I know he’s right. Because he is. And I suppose eventually I’ll have to correct it by posting blogs at real times, but for now, I’m writing and posting this blog right now because I want to and I can.

I actually have quite a few things to share with you guys, and almost all of it’s awesome.

So in no particular order: Here’s something new I’m doing. It’s called Formspring. I don’t really know what it is or why it exists, but you can ask me questions there and I’ll answer them. Not all of them all the time, but I’ll check it sometimes and answer some questions. So if you want to ask me a question, you can check it out here:  http://formspring.me/AmandaHocking

I like the format, because I can pick which question to answer specifically, and it shows all my previous answers. My profile there can become a living breathing FAQ.

Also, a few days ago I got pictures of the placeholder cover for the Trylle Trilogy books for St. Martin’s Press. Here’s what I understand a placeholder cover to be: A cover that holds the place until the real cover is revealed, like on sites like Amazon where you can already pre-order St. Martin’s version of Switched.

I am pretty sure I can show you guys the placeholder covers (which are really pretty and hint at what the real covers will look like), but I’m not 100% sure, so I’m going to wait and double check on Monday before I show you guys. Just to be sure.

I know they’re planning a real big cover reveal deal. I’m not sure what all it entails, but I got a voicemail and an email about it today, so I’ll find out on Monday more about that. But it sounds fun, and everybody likes fun things.

Not sure when the cover reveal will happen, but I’m thinking sometime early this fall. My understanding (which could be wrong) is that St. Martin’s wants it coincide with when I take the Trylle Trilogy off sale.

Which brings me to the next point. As of August 1, 2011 I’m going to be unpublishing Switched. The release date for the St. Martin’s edition of Switched is set for January 2012, and we (both me and the publisher) want that to have the most success it can, so we want to give Switched some time off the market.

I’m leaving both Torn and Ascend for sale until September 1, 2011 when I’ll be unpublishing them both. I’m leaving for sale longer, so people who buy Switched now have a full month to purchase the other two books in their current state at their current price.

But even if you don’t buy them in that thirty days, it’s only a few months until St. Martin’s releases their versions. So it’s not that long of a wait.

Both St. Martin’s and I are trying really hard to make this transition as smooth and as easy on the readers as possible.

I’ve just gone over the copy-edits on Switched, and it’s looking really good. There haven’t been major changes to the story – readers who’ve already read it will be happy to see find the things they loved about the book haven’t changed. But the story is really polished up, grammar cleaned up and ideas streamlined a bit better. I’ve always believed it was a good book, but now I think it’s actually pretty great.

Onto something less pleasant that I feel I need to bring up. It’s more a writer’s beware for authors out there. I’m mentioning it because it’s a cover artist I once used and once recommended, and as a result, I feel his bad behavior falls back on me. If people choose to use him because of something I once said, I want them to understand that I recant any recommendation, and here’s why: http://www.kindleboards.com/index.php/topic,74897.75.html

That’s a link over to the Kindleboards, which I don’t frequent as much as I used to, but it’s still overall a great bunch of people and the best place to learn anything about self-publishing. I don’t know why I stopped hanging out there as much. Because they are neat and helpful.

Okay, so onto a happier note. I know I pre-ordered Panic! at the Disco’s album Vices and Virtues, but I just today realized that I never got it. So I bought it on iTunes, and I’m listening to it now, and it’s very good. I think I like it more than their prior two albums. If you like music that is a delight to your ears, you should buy it.

Also, I’ve made another vision board, since my last one worked out astonishingly well. When I started making it though, Eric told me that it didn’t count because I’d just put wants on there and not dreams. We ended up in a debate about whether or not the Secret worked on wants, too, since it supposedly worked for a boy wanted a bike. But that’s not the point.

What constitutes the difference between a want and a dream? I have so many plans for my life, so many things I hope to do and accomplish. Aren’t some of them dreams?

Here’s what’s on my vision board (or what I’m trying to convince the universe I want with it): the Trylle Trilogy being a movie (with Michael Wincott), getting to go to The Dark Knight Rises premiere next year,  a Delorean, and Pete Wentz.

Okay, yes, I get that the Delorean could fall under a “want” since it’s a car, but it’s a magic car that I’ve wanted for years, so I think it should fall under a “dream.” And then obviously, having my books turned into movies would be a dream come true. And I really, really want Michael Wincott to be in it, and I think I want it enough to be a dream.

Alright. Pete Wentz probably isn’t a dream, and I’m also not really expecting the vision board to follow through with it. But it’s the only thing that my last vision board didn’t deliver on, and even if this one doesn’t, I can still look at him. And I can’t imagine that it really hurts to let the universe know that I’m interested in dating foxy rock stars. You know, just case in the universe was wondering.

Something you might not know: When I was in high school, I got really sad about the idea of being a writer. I mean, I wanted to be a writer, but everything I knew about writers made them seem boring and stodgy, or they were older men and alcoholics and depressed. I didn’t want to be any of those things. I wanted to have fun and be silly, like a rock star.

But now that I’m older, I realize I can be whatever writer I want to be. That’s an important truth. Or at least is to me. You live your life on your terms. Don’t let anybody else’s definitions rule you. Define yourself.

I have been alive along time (nearly 27 years), and in that time, I have seen many things. Some things made me laugh. In fact, lots of things make me laugh, quite a lot. But I have never once laughed as hard as I did back in that fateful night of November 2009.

That is the night I saw RiffTrax Live – a live telecast performance of RiffTrax riffing on Plan 9 From Outerspace in theaters across the country. RiffTrax are three of the fellas from Mystery Science Theater 3000 (namely Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett (Crow T. Robot), and Kevin Murphy (Tom Servo)), and RiffTrax is essentially the exact same thing as MST3K but without the puppets.

When I’m explaining it to you, it sounds stupid. Because basically, it’s just three guys talking over a movie. But the fact is, it’s really frickin funny.

Anyway – to continue with this story. I’ve seen many funny things. I have both entire serieses of Monty Python and Kids in the Hall on DVD, as well as having a lot of episodes of Family Guy, Archer, Futurama, and Perfect Strangers on DVD. And I’ve seen most of the episodes of MST3K.

I’ve also seen lots of movies. Perhaps as many as 85% of the movies that have come out of America in the past 50 years. I would say that number is close to accurate.

Despite all that, I have never seen anything as funny as RiffTrax LIVE doing Plan 9 From Outerspace. So it was much to my splendid, glorious surprise when Amazon recommended that I buy said performance on DVD. The very show I saw. Available on DVD.

I have just ordered the DVD, so I have not received it yet, and I’m not sure how the live performance looks on DVD. What I do know is that I laughed so much by the end of the night I was literally in pain in my belly. Nothing has ever or will ever be funnier.

So it is what that in mind I strongly urge to rush out and buy yourself a copy. I can’t imagine a scenario in which you’d regret it. Buy it: here.

P.S. Johnathan Coulton also performed live that night. So… that’s an added bonus. And there’s a really funny shorty about being a stewardess. So, it’s totally worth it.

I went ten whole days without Tweeting or blogging or Facebooking. TEN DAYS. (Although I did retweet things Mark Hoppus and Neil Patrick Harris said last week, because I wanted to).

Side note: Did you see the most awesome thing in the universe?

(In case you’re wondering the significance of said tweet, it’s that my heroes are John Hughes, Jim Henson, Mark Hoppus, and Batman. Out of those four, Mark Hoppus is the only that’s still alive and not fictional. So… that’s awesome.)

Anyway, back to the story. You may ask, why did you go ten days without using those things? Were you trapped in a cold dark cave without any internet?

So I’ll recap for you what my life was like for the past ten days:

Last Tuesday, I left to go on a houseboat with Eric and my dog Elroy. The plan was to get away, relax, enjoy nature, and finish my book. I’m going to make a long story short but what ended up actually happening was that we got on the boat, parked to take a nap, and woke up to find ourselves stranded with a dead engine, no radio, no cell phone service. We were completely stranded, and our only means of escape would be swimming several miles to Canada.

After several days of this, we were rescued by some nice people who saw us waving from our boat. After that, we decided to cut our trip short and return home.

On the boat, while suffering fear of my imminent demise (and frequently muttering, “This sorta thing would never happen to J.K. Rowling”), I got no writing done. And I still had much to do.

So when we got home, I decided to keep the internet ban that had been imposed on me on the boat so I could work without distractions. I would pretend I was still on the boat, but I could call 911 if I fell down and cracked open my skull. Well, I probably couldn’t call 911 if I cracked open my skull, but Eric could. And that’s what counts.

At any rate, that’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve been finishing Wake, the first book in the series that St. Martin’s purchased. I’ve gone through it twice, for edits and revisions, and Eric’s gone through it once. He just finished reading it twenty minutes ago, so I’ll be going over that with him and seeing where he thinks I can improve stuff.

Then next week, I’ll send out to the book to my lovely editor Rose and find out what she thinks of it. (Fingers crossed she doesn’t hate it).

I’ll be honest – this book took me an awfully long time to write. I’d been about half-way through with it for months. I started it back in February and was working on it really well into my life started blowing up publicly. Then I really slowed down and didn’t work on it much until recently.

Don’t get me wrong – I love the story. I’m really excited about the premise and the characters, and I think it has a lot of potential to be a really awesome series. It was just that whole “butt in the chair” thing.

Every time I’d get my butt in the chair to write, I’d start surfing around on the internet, and I would start thinking about how I needed to write a really good book. The good people at St. Martin’s Press have been ridiculously supportive of me, but there is a sense of pressure on me that I didn’t have before. Not from them and not even really from my readers. Just from me.

I feel like I really had to prove myself with this book, and it’s hard to focus on the story and get any perspective when you’re thinking, “This has to be the best book I’ve ever written.”

When I finally got out of my head and forced myself to sit there and write, then it all just came together. I write because I enjoy writing, and sometimes that’s easy to forget when writing becomes your job. But once I started, I was on a roll of awesomeness.

For those of you who want to know more about Wake, I don’t want to really say a lot at this time. Also, since I have St. Martin’s with me on this, I don’t have write blurbs for it anymore (true story – writing blurbs is harder than writing books). So when they come up with a blurb, I’ll share that.

All I can really say is that it’s a young adult paranormal romance and things happen in it.

I did make this fancy soundtrack to go with it, though. And you can listen to that. (My soundtracks consist of the 15 or so songs that I listen to while writing the book that fit the best with the book itself. I think.)

Anyway – I’m glad to be back. Believe me when I say I missed you more than you missed me.

You may or may not have read the fun piece by Strawberry Saroyan in the New York Times Magazine today. (If you haven’t, and you’d like to, here’s a link: Amanda Hocking, Storyseller.) I thought it was a very nice piece, and Strawberry was super cool to hang out with and talk to.

The interview was actually very serendipitous. An editor from the NY Times emailed me about doing a story on me sometime in February (after I posted the blog on the amazing William Fichtner, because he talked about Fichtner in the emails). Eventually, Strawberry called me, and we set up a time to meet. She just happened to pick March 24th, which just happened to be the day St. Martin’s Press announced the book deal for the Watersong series. I had no idea those two events would occur on the same day, but they did.

The one bad thing about it is that both events happened on Eric’s birthday (March 24th), which made me feel really guilty because I pretty much hijacked his birthday, since the day ended up being quite a few phone calls and press about the book deal. And I still feel bad about that. Sorry for stealing your birthday, Eric.

If you read the NY Times, you may have noticed the picture of me that accompanied it. In case you missed it, here’s the pic:

(Side note: The guy who took the picture – Ben Innes – is the first person to photograph me using an actual camera that uses real film instead of digital. Also, he told me this great joke: What do you call a wharf next to a pier? A paradox. Get? Cause they’re a pair of docks? Anyway. It’s a great joke, and he was a nice guy.)

Anyway. Back to the picture. I don’t know how many have you noticed something odd about the picture. But check out the picture frames in the picture:

Yep. Those people aren’t my family. They are the pictures that came with the frame. In fact, two of the frames have the same picture, and two of them are upside down.

There’s a reason for this. I put them up the day before the pictures were taken. Strawberry interviewed me way back in March, but Ben took the picture a few weeks ago, and I haven’t lived in my house that long. So I hadn’t finished putting things up and decorating.

But I knew people were coming to take the picture, and the music room is like the coolest looking room in the house, so I wanted to have it semi-finished. (The music room is where the picture was taken. It has a piano in it and a giant picture of the Beatles. Hence the name).

For some reason, I assumed that the frames wouldn’t really be in the picture so you wouldn’t be able to tell that there’s random strangers in them. But then if the frames wouldn’t really be in the picture, then why did I hang them? I don’t know. I didn’t really think it through, I guess.

Also – here’s something my mom wanted me to clarify. Well, she didn’t want me to clarify, but she was upset by it. In the article, it says this:

My mom doesn’t think I’m better than anyone. She loves me a lot and thinks I’m neat, but she doesn’t think anyone is better than anyone else. Honest. If she ever thought I was acting like I was better than anyone else or that I even thought it, she would smack me upside the head. Literally.

So. That’s that.

My poor neglected blog. It’s been over a week since I last posted. I don’t know where my head’s at. I guess I like to save up days so when I blog, I feel like I have a lot to talk about (even though I don’t. Not really).

First up on things I’m talking about today – my friend/fantastic author J. L. Bryan just posted a great blog and included some insanely cute pics of his brand new baby boy.

Here’s just one snapshot of the adorable Bryan Jr:

Jeff also has these words to share with you all: Here’s how you can help with the baby: 60-70% of each book I sell goes directly to providing for him.  This would be a great time to try Jenny Pox or any of my other books, conveniently available on your favorite e-reader platform (or Smashwords if you really want a good deal–you get all ebook formats, so that’s handy if you decide to change e-readers in the future).

He talks about more stuff in his blog, including some hints on the third book in the Jenny Pox series. So you should check it out, if you like checking out awesome things. 


Things you may not know about me news: I am crazy about my birthday. I am more excited for this upcoming birthday than I have been since my sixteen birthday. I don’t know why, exactly, since I’m turning 27 and that isn’t too exciting. But I am excited. 

So today I ordered my birthday cake, and it’s fantazamazing. That’s right. It’s new word awesome.

I ordered it from Daube‘s in Rochester, because it’s a well-known fact that they make some of the best cakes in the area. My dad used to get stuff from them all the time when I was younger. This was my first time ordering anything from them myself, and my assistant Eric was looking up reviews on Daube‘s, and everybody was saying that their food was amazing but the staff was super rude. So I was a little afraid to go there.

This turned out to be entirely false. The guy helping us at Daube’s was incredibly nice, even though I basically just ordered a cake with a picture on my cell phone. The place was pretty busy, but the staff was very nice and courteous to both me and Eric. They were the opposite of rude, and my cake is going to be the opposite of terrible. So a big shout out to Daube’s for being rad!

I actually had a super fun day today. I didn’t do anything too exciting. But I got to have lunch with my friend Pete, and today is her birthday. (Happy birthday, Baby Pete, even though you’re getting to be less and less of a baby). And that was fun seeing her.

The worst thing about being adult: You never see enough of your friends. I watched Super 8 the other day, and it was a really good movie. But all the kids running around, being silly and doing kid stuff, that made me realize that’s what’s bugging me about growing up. I miss just being an idiot with my friends. I mean, I still am, but growing up is silly.

Also, the score for Super 8 was phenomenal. I assumed it was John Williams (because Spielberg produced), but it was actually Michael Giacchino. He’s very quickly become a composer to watch. He stuff is very sweet with a bit whimsy, but he can also do the grandiose. He’s sorta like if John Williams and Danny Elfman had a baby, and it was a savant composer baby, that was also magic since two men conceived it.

Anyway – enough of that bit of a ramble. Onto the next tangent: For those of you who enjoy reading my tweets and blogs, I have sad news for you. For 10 days towards the end of June, I will be renting a houseboat, and I will most likely have little to no internet access. This means no tweets or blogs.

But for those of you who like reading books I write, this is good news. I’m getting away to work on some writing (as well as relax and clear my head a bit).

I’ll be finishing up the first book in the Watersong series (a lot of the book revolves around boats and water, so I thought a houseboat would be the perfect place to finish it up). But I’ll also be working on some fun little treats for fans of the Trylle series. You’ll have to wait a while (like… six months to check it out), but I think it’ll definitely be enjoyable for you guys.

My friend Fifi (her name’s really Tiffany, but we call her Fifi, even though I think she hates it) is going to be housesitting for me when I’m gone. This is really good news, because Eric and my dog Elroy are going on the houseboat with me, but my beloved cats and fish will be home. I have this insane, obsessive fear that something will happen to both the cats and fish every second that I’m not home, so I’ll feel better knowing Fi is here to protect and watch over them.

The more stuff I wanted to say, but I feel like I’ve rambled on long enough, and I’ve forgotten what it was. The point is: You folks rock, and I love you.