Stuart Gibbs

As a writer, one of the greatest joys in life is seeing your book finally get published.

Only slightly less exciting is seeing it published in other languages.

Especially Swedish.

I mean no offense to my numerous Swedish fans, but I don’t think I’m alone in finding Swedish funny.  After all, the Swedish chef on ‘The Muppet Show’ wouldn’t have been nearly as funny if he’d been speaking German.  (In fact, he would have been scary.)

Must be all the umlauts.  Lots of umlauts in Swedish.

It’s less than a month until Spy School comes out.  I have received the first official review of it.  (I actually got this two weeks ago, but I’ve been busy on Spy School 2 and haven’t had time to post.)

This is from the School Library Journal.  I have actually edited it a tiny bit, because I felt there were a few spoilers in it.

“Ben Ripley, a 12-year-old math genius, receives a mysterious summons to join the Academy of Espionage, a secret recruitment arm of the CIA. Since his life’s ambition is to become a spy, he is thrilled by the offer, but his first day is hardly what he expected. It involves ninjas, flying bullets, and Erica, the most beautiful girl he has ever seen. Twists and turns in the plot keep readers guessing until the very end. The story, over-the-top funny, combines Alex Rider’s espionage skills with a huge dose of the sarcasm of Artemis Fowl. Subtle digs at the stuffiness of a federal agency and the romance of spying abound.”

The woman who wrote this was also kind enough to post it on Goodreads.  What’s odd is that there are two other text reviews on Goodreads, written by people who must have somehow managed to get an advanced copy of the book.  Luckily, they are both good reviews as well.

For the record, Spy School seems to be generating some excitement.  It’s already pre-selling decently well on Amazon.

And now that I’m done with Spy School 2 (at least the first draft) I can say that I’m quite pleased with this book as well.  You folks will just have to wait a year or so to read it for yourselves.

Sad news from the LA Zoo today.  Jabba the Hippo was euthanized yesterday at the age of 28.

Although I go on about how dangerous hippos can be in ‘Belly Up,’ they’re not all as awful as Henry.  Jabba was, from what I can tell, rather mild-mannered as hippos go.  I never heard of him attacking anyone, and while he certainly sullied his pool with poo a lot, he never blasted anyone with it, Henry-style.  (In the picture above, he’s begging for food from one of his keepers, like a 4,000 pound labrador retriever.)

Since Jabba was the closest hippo to my house, I spent a good amount of time watching him while writing ‘Belly Up.’  I didn’t base Henry on him, but it was always interesting to observe people’s reactions — especially children — when they watched him.  Have you ever seen a child see a hippo for the first time?  It’s quite incredible.

This photo of Jabba adorned my blog page for a long time:

Now, for the first time in at least 28 years, there is no hippo at the LA Zoo.  (Although there are still quite a few animatronic ones at Disneyland.)  Such a shame.

Jabba, we’ll miss you.

I have just been informed that Belly Up is a final nominee for the Mark Twain Readers Award.

My competition to actually win this is pretty stiff, but that’s praise in itself.  It’s nice to be included with such a great bunch of books.

Frankly, it’s nice to have my book associated with anything with the words “Mark Twain” in it.

In addition to that honor, though, it’s always nice to have praise like this:

Review from A Random Hodgepodge of Bookishness

Or this:

Review from DogEared Book Blog

Or this:

Review from Teen Ink

For the legions of you who follow this blog (6.5 million at last count), you know that I’m a little obsessed with tracking my sales.  Well, this year, for the first time, I was able to pay particularly close attention to the trending of my books over the holidays, and I noticed something that was pretty interesting.  (Although, in retrospect, it should have been obvious.)

Up until Christmas Day, my books were selling a bit better than usual.  This makes sense, because a lot of people are out there looking for books, and what better gift is there for a middle grade kid than a book, right?  So then, of course, sales dipped a bit right after the holiday, because no one needed to buy presents any more.

But that was only for actual, physical books.  E-books had the exact opposite trend.  They didn’t sell all that well before the holidays.  (Because, let’s face it, an e-book makes a rather lousy gift.  Yes, it’s a book, but it’s very hard to wrap.)  But then, on Christmas Day, sales went through the roof.  For Belly Up, Christmas was actually my best e-book selling day ever.  And sales of e-books have stayed pretty high ever since.

So what happened?  Obviously, a bunch of kids got e-readers for Christmas.

This is actually a pretty clever deal for all the e-reader makers.  And a rather good indicator that their master plan — sell e-readers at a loss and then make the money back in selling product — is working.  People give the e-reader as a gift — and then the first thing the recipient has to do is spend more money to buy the actual books.  (Because, let’s face it, an e-reader without any books on it is just a really expensive paperweight.)

I have no idea how many e-readers were sold this holiday season, but given the trend, I’m guessing it was a lot.

Just thought you’d like to know.

First off, there’s a new trailer for Belly Up on YouTube.  I believe that makes 1,473 overall, though I may have overestimated this a bit.  Keep them coming!

I’ve been meeting the kids at a lot of elementary schools lately, but my most recent had a little twist.  I’d been asked to come meet the kids at Grand View Elementary in Manhattan Beach, CA… only, when I got there, it turned out they hadn’t told the kids I was coming.  It was going to be a surprise.  So I stood behind a curtain off-stage while the parents announced that I was there.  This was cute, although I have to admit there were a few moments when it was a little nerve-wracking.  There was always the chance that they’d say: ‘The author is here!’ and all the kids would groan in disappointment.  Luckily, that didn’t happen and, as usual, the kids were really engaged and asked some great questions.

It’s good to know that, after being out for almost two years now, Belly Up is being discovered by more and more people.  Here’s a nice new review from a really great site called Reading Junky’s Reading Roost.

And, of course, it’s always nice to get a good review for the Last Musketeer as well.  (In fact, I’ll happily accept nice reviews for anything I do.)  Here’s a nice review for Last Musketeer on epinions.

OK, really I said it couldn’t be done.  I fully believed that there was no way I could actually write an entire book before Thanksgiving.  (See my ‘Insane Deadline’ post from a month ago.)  And yet, I did it.

Well, I wrote a first draft.  But still, that’s 200 pages long.

I realize that, by sharing this, I might not exactly be making a strong case that the book in question (book three of the Last Musketeer series) is quality work.  However…

1) Work will continue on it over the next few months.

2) Part of the reason I wrote it so quickly was that I was swept up in the excitement of telling the story.

Book Three, I assure you, will be quite the action/adventure spectacular, with prison breaks, hidden tombs, army battles and plenty of swashbuckling.  (You all know how much I love swashbuckling.)  It should be out in a mere 14 months or so.

In the meantime, to tide you over, there’s book one.  Check out this great review of The Last Musketeer from epinions.

I’d like to thank all the fine folks at the Manhattan Beach Barnes & Noble for having me down to their store twice last week, both times to raise money for local schools.  The events were great fun, and I have to give big props to the store for the fine promotion they did.  I mean, look at this:

And then check out this fine book arrangement:

Take a lesson, other bookstores.  That’s how you promote an author.

I have just been informed that Belly Up has been selected for the 2012 Lone Star Reading List by the Texas Library Association.

As you all know, after being selected as a Dorothy Canfield Fisher finalist in the great state of Vermont, I have made it my mission to be selected on a library reading list in a much larger state.  (By which I mean no offense to Vermont.  Really, VT, you’re a lovely state.  Size doesn’t usually matter — unless you’re talking about book sale potential.)  Well, Texas is significantly larger than Vermont.  I know this for a fact, because when I was a kid, I lived there, and on road trips, it would take a day just to get out of Texas.  Meanwhile, you can cross Vermont in less than an hour.  And that’s on a bike.

I’m guessing that, perhaps, setting Belly Up in Texas had something to do with its selection.  Although this is what the committe chair had to say:  ‘We think it is an excellent book for middle school students and are delighted to put this hilarious, clever book into the hands of our readers!’

So thank you, Texas!  And as for you other 48 states, pay attention.  You’re starting to look pretty uncool without Belly Up on your state reading lists.

In posting the following list, I do not mean to indicate in any way that Belly Up is actually better than any of the other works.  Only that, according to the reviewers on Goodreads, it is:

Belly Up: 4.05 avg rating

Hamlet, by William Shakespeare: 4.00 avg rating

Romeo & Juliet, same author: 3.73

A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens: 3.64

The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway: 3.78

Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen: 4.02

Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck: 3.71

Slaughter-House Five, Kurt Vonnegut: 3.88

The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne: 3.27

So, the next time your teacher catches you reading Belly Up instead of the book you’re supposed to be reading for class, just let your teacher know that Belly Up is considered a better piece of fiction by the masses.

I’m sure that will go over well.