squeetus

What did the Newbery ever do for me?

There's been a lot of talk in trade publications and the blogosphere lately about the "decline" of the Newbery award. I'm not going to weigh in with an opinion, but some have suggested that the Newbery doesn't inspire the same respect or buying power as it used to and I want to address that from personal experience.

The day before I got the Newbery call in 2006, princess academy had a sales rank in the 40,000s on amazon.com. (The lower the sales rank, the better.) The sales rank had been on steadily putting on digits over the past several months. After the announcement, it dropped to the double digits, and ever since, I've noticed that all of my books have maintained a relatively low sales rank. Amazon sales rank can't accurately show how well a book is selling, but as Nathan Hale once told me, "It's all I got."

The next week princess academy jumped on the New York Times best seller list, where it stayed for seven weeks. Once in paperback, it returned to the NYT list and remained for over six months, and spent time all three of the four major best seller lists. The only book of mine to appear on any best seller list is the one with the shiny silver sticker. It has outsold my other six books combined and then some. You may argue that it is the best or most commercially appealing of my books and that's why it's done so well. But among people who have read all my books, the goose girl is by far the majority favorite. It's the Newbery Honor book, not the fan favorite, that outsells the rest.

Besides sales of the awarded book, this honor has affected me personally and professionally in a profound way. Wherever I go as an author, people introduce me as a "Newbery Honor author" (or quite often, as a Newbery Medalist or Newbery Award winner, which isn't true, but we don't need to nitpick). I have felt that title legitimize me. Winning the award shined a light on me and all my books that three years later hasn't faded a bit. For the layperson, even if they don't know what the Newbery is exactly, I've found they recognize the name and believe it is a significant honor.

Whatever your opinion of the quality or accessibility of the recent winners, I think the power of the Newbery is still very real. It is one of the most recognizable awards in all of literature. For me and my publishing career, it has done a whole whole lot. I still can't talk about it without crying. Cheers to the valiant librarians* who are deliberating this weekend on the winners. A few authors are going to get life-changing calls early Monday morning, and I think they'll find, as I have, that the word Newbery casts a magic spell over them and their books. As a jewel in the crown of children's literature, it's still very shiny.

*Just so you don't think I'm sucking up in hopes of getting a call, rapunzel's revenge, the only book I published this year, isn't eligible for a Newbery because it depends on pictures to tell the story.

Princess Academy contest results

Hooray! I can announce the winners of the princess academy contest.

Terah S. of Paia, Hawaii
Markie C. of New Hope, Alabama
Shannon M. of Bristow, Virginia

Congratulations, you gorgeous girls! What lovely, thoughtful, funny, perfect entries. I'm so honored to have such smart ladies as fans. It may take a few weeks to get your books to you. The grand prize winner gets a print out of rapunzel's revenge, of all the cool prizes, in addition to signed books and a phone call and a gift certificate. I wish I could say the phone call will be from George Clooney, but it'll just be me. I'm not sure when I'm supposed to do that...I guess we'll probably set up a time with your parents.

Can I say how incredibly difficult it was to choose? Bloomsbury received thousands of entries. They narrowed it down to forty for me, then I had the tough job of picking just three. I was able to get it down to fifteen without too much stress, but I'll admit that at that point, the winners were somewhat arbitrary, because all fifteen were so fabulous. I really had empathy for contest judges (it was the week after the Newbery announcements that I was doing this) and I don't think I ever want to be a judge again. So, if you entered and didn't win, just assume that you were one of the final fifteen, and it was a random typo that kept you from the gold. (Olivia T., I checked, and you were one of the final fifteen like I thought--but I'm not telling anyone else because I want you to just assume that you are.)

Here are a few of the tips to brighten your day:

After outwitting those bandits and saving your friends, plan your next adventure!
Never eat an apple to help out an old lady--because if you do you will be poisoned and no prince wants a poisoned princess (from a darling 10-year-old reader)
Be comfortable in your own skin.
Smile and laugh (the trick is for it to come as naturally as breathing)
Make sure you dance with every boy at a ball--because you never know which one is going to be your prince.
Seek the good in others.

Now go forth, young princesses, and save the world!

Eavesdropping the academy

Tomorrow (Saturday) is the release party for book of a thousand days at The King's English here in Salt Lake, and it's supposed to be rainy. I'm fairly certain Under, god of tricks, is to blame. We will be going on in any event. I'll be dressed like a proper girl of the steppes (more or less), and my dad's bluegrass band will play during the signing, because nothing evokes the sounds of the steppes like...er, a banjo. And mandolin. ahem. Anyhoo...

I recently had the extraordinary experience to listen to the princess academy audio book, produced by Full Cast Audio. They got an Audie award (the Oscars for audio books) for their production of the goose girl this year (that has nothing to do with this post--I just wanted to brag for them). I remember having a similar experience listening to the goose girl. I hadn't read princess for three years. And since, all this stuff* has happened, and I didn't know what I would think of it now. I was nervous. What if it wasn't any good? What if it's out there and everyone's reading it and it's bad? Or what if all I can hear in it are my own writing flaws?

Well, the completely awesome thing about listening to someone else read/perform your book is that the story isn't yours. It's theirs. You're the audience really for the first time. And Full Cast Audio did such a spectacular job with casting, I wasn't always thinking things like, "Hey, that's not how she'd say that! That's not what his voice is like!" I was able to just listen and be taken away in the story. Truly a miraculous experience.

I forgot or didn't realize how funny it was! There were parts, things that Miri said, that actually made me laugh. The actress playing Miri really delivered those lines well. My new favorite scene I think is the conversation between Miri and Peder at the Spring Festival. It was so great to hear in audio, such fun. And I love the relationship between Miri and her father. That subplot has become to me one of the most important aspects of the story, and I didn't even recognize it, didn't find it until the final two drafts. What if I had decided the book was good enough a couple of months earlier? What if I'd called it good and never found that story of their relationship? It would've been a sadder book, a half a book. Revision is godly power granted to mere authors. Hallelujah.

Even as I was completely transported in a story that I couldn't have written, I'm reminded what a huge pain in the spherical-rear-part it was. I think princess academy is the most difficult book I've ever written. Tortuous. the goose girl went through more revisions than anything else I've done, in part because I was still discovering my writing process. But princess academy--yeesh. On two occasions I honestly thought it was a lost cause and almost trashed the whole thing. Only stubbornness got me through. And blind hope. And revisions. Lots of painful revisions. (Did I mention the revisions?)

This is the book I thought no one would like. It's a small book. It's not what I was sure people expected from me after goose and enna. It was not what people would expect from the title. It was going to disappoint. I wrote it stubbornly, writing it strictly for myself, because, after all, I was the only one who was going to like it. And now here we are three years later, some 300,000 copies out there in North America alone. Crazy. It goes to show--you cannot anticipate what people will like. You cannot write for THEM. You cannot plan a bestseller. You cannot write a good book easily. And you cannot find a story right away--you have to work for it, fight for it, earn it. This is truth to me. And when people claim otherwise, I do not believe them.

I really really love this book. (I can't tell you how happy--and relieved--that makes me!) I'm so happy it's not mine anymore. I'm so happy it grew up and moved out and made it's own way in the world, made new friends, became it's own story. That's so gratifying. And I'm overjoyed Full Cast Audio helped me experience the story separate from myself, as its own tale. What a gift to an author.

*Newbery Honor, spending the past four months on the New York Times best seller list, that sort of freakin' cool stuff that I still can't process, and feel weird shy about mentioning again so I'll make it a footnote...

I'm back

from spending a week at a lake with my family. It was gorgeous, wonderful to have so much time outside, swimming and staring at the beautiful scenery. Maggie is crawling everywhere and about as cute and edible as humanly possible. Max, of course, continues to be a genius boy.

I'm behind in three books right now and trying desperately not to get stressed about it. My publisher is being very patient, but I really want to finish them for my own sake. The rapunzel sequel is taking so long. We keep going back to the drawing board. Last week we threw out half of it entirely and started over yet again. I do think it's getting better, though. And I just can't wait for ya'll to see rapunzel. Did I mention how kickbutt the art is? Did I mention it less than a hundred times? 'Cause ya know, it's kickbutt.

And in startling news, princess academy appears to be rippin' it up! The paperback is on its 10th week on the New York Times best seller list, now at #3 on the children's paperback list. It's also popping on the Book Sense and Publisher's Weekly list (on that one, the only books selling better are Stephenie Meyer's three and Deathly Hallows. Wow. That freakin' blows my mind.). And it is or shortly will be in twelve languages. [When I just reread this paragraph, I thought I'd written "It's also pooping on the Book Sense and Publisher's Weekly list..." Tee-hee. That made me laugh.]

I will be touring this fall for book of a thousand days, but for the sake of the kiddies, we've cut it down from four trips to just two. I'll be headed back out again after the new year to kick around wiht the ever-lovely Libba Bray, so it'll be nice not to overdo it this fall.

Did I mention how beautiful my children are? My goodness but they take your breath away...