I'm reporting back from my newly disclosed location, on the Strip in Las Vegas!! It's been a crazy trip but I can't tell you much about it. After all, everything that happens in Vegas-Stays in Vegas. One of the things we did was drive out to a Barnes & Noble store where I was able to buy my first in-store copy of The Hollow.
I've been privileged to read some of the wonderful responses people have been sending in to the author. I love that people are "getting" the whole trilogy-thing. A lot of b
ooks are great "series books" but a true trilogy has 3 books that are interdependent on each other and not stand-alones. Part 1 of The Hollow Trilogy is being devoured in a day or two and people can't wait for the sequel which gives me a little breathing room to brag on my favorite author and wife, Jessica Verday.
What I like about the hard cover version of this book. 1) The dedication of the book is very sweet with many, many stories behind it that warm my heart and successfully put MY NAME in a published book for the first time EVER!!! Thanks, Jess! The cover is striking. The title font is gorgeous. The book is super thick (544 pgs) but some of that is size and spacing which helps make this feel like an even faster read to most. I'm a slow reader and the first time I read it I was finished in two days! And then of course there's the special surprise at the back of it that I'm sure people will be talking about.
The next thing worth mentioning, is Vegas itself. Construction is everywhere but the casinos are still hopping with the drunk and disorderly. We came here, of course, to celebrate the release of the book. Jess' big day ended spectacularly (with the best show going on, on the Strip) but I'll let her share the details about that later. There's a lot to do here, and we've done quite a bit, but I think if my book gets published, I'm going to ask my famous, author wife to take me to Disney World instead.
September is still going to be an interesting month here at the blog. I'll be reformatting a little bit more. You may have noticed that I created new pages and a menu bar on the top left margin. I noticed that my blog posts can run on a bit and I wanted to make it simpler for people to find what they've come for. So there'll be an "about me" page where you can learn a little more about me and about my current work in progress (WIP) and why I blog.
You'll also find out how to contact Jessica. A lot of folks have buried me in emails, tweets and blog comments for Jess and that's not the way to send her your thoughts. My memory is Swiss cheese and in no way am I able to get all of the messages that've been sent to her. I'll hand over her email on that page so you can cut out the middle-Lee.
There's also going to be a "Contest" page. Oh yeah, you know you love getting free stuff, everybody does. My friends over at Scholastic and Little Brown have offered to sponsor my next contest which will be revealed September 8. The contest may get even bigger with more houses to come but we'll have to wait and see who offers what. But what will happen is you'll get a short write up on the home page and get directed to how to enter on the contest page with the click of a mouse. (Contest will likely be comment driven)
I do review some books. As I said earlier, I'm a bit of a slow pace reader. So there's usually about two-three a month. I'll preview it here and add a link for the rest at my review page. And there will be a page that details my road to publication (which I probably will be traveling for a while) and writing tips in general.
I also invite guest bloggers frequently and that will have its own page. That's always an exciting time, when others share their voices with me, and of course with you. I'm hoping to have most of these changes done for a Tuesday or Wednesday evening relaunch.
This is a place for readers and book bloggers. I hope that I will eventually make it into your regular routine and that I'll hear from you often. If there's anything specific, you'd like to see added to the blog please let me know by adding a comment or shooting me an email. But anywho. Thanks to everyone whose been picking up THE HOLLOW and sharing some of Jess' well earned attention with me. The influx of web traffic has been staggering and that wouldn't have been possible without Jess writing a great book.
Stay tuned.