Aeternitas Harry Potter Conference
I just got back from Aeternitas, an amazing Harry Potter fan conference in Laconia, New Hampshire, where I was a keynote speaker along with my friend, fellow Victorian-era enthusiast and author Leanna Renee Hieber. The conference was amazing. Potter fans took over the whole hotel, and it was so much fun. Here are some pictures from the event!
Giving our Keynote speech! If you want to watch a video of the speech, it’s HERE, on Facebook.
This photo is from the Magic Is Forever Ball, with Leanna and Keith from Mugglenet.
I’d only brought a pathetic floral cocktail dress, so the wonderfully adorned cosplayers loaned me some things to wear to the ball. I felt like a slutty goth Cinderella in the most fabulous way possible.
Doctor Who NYC Premiere!
Here’s my video segment of the Doctor Who world premiere, which I covered courtesy of BBC America:
Playlist Live :)
I had a great time meeting you guys at Playlist Live! Here are some pictures and videos from the event, where Kaleb, Shawna and I discussed being authors and Youtubers.
Moderating a panel with Kaleb (Kaleb Nation) and Shawna (Nanalew)
Clearly I am the QUEEN OF THE WATER BOTTLES. They’re all MINE!!!
Meeting some awesome fans!
More fans, at the merch signing/meet & greet.
The merch signing/meet & greet was ridiculous! There were so many of you who wanted to buy books and t-shirts, or get posters signed or take pictures that we wound up running 45 minutes over our signing time. I didn’t mind at all. I love meeting you guys, and it was really fun having the three of us there signing merch and books together and joking around and stealing each other’s Sharpies (ahem, Kaleb).
Here’s some video from our meet & greet:
And here are some fan-taken videos of our talk. The first video’s pretty long, and the second one’s just a quick clip of us each explaining how we got our books published.
I’ll be at Playlist LIVE!
Hopefully you already know this from my (increasingly frantic) tweets, but I’m going to be at Playlist Live, an amazing Youtube convention in Orlando, Florida this weekend! There are tons of (way cooler than me) youtubers going, like Julian Smith, Livelavalive, iJustine…yeah, it’s going to be pretty much amazing!
If you’re going, I’d love to meet you! I’ll be giving an interactive talk/Q&A with my friends, fellow videobloggers & authors Kaleb Nation and Shawna (Nanalew) on the main stage at 11:15AM on Saturday, and we’ll be having a meet & greet afterward at noon. I hope to see a bunch of you there! I (obviously) made some videos about the event, which I’m putting below. The first is part of a really cool TEMPORARY COLLAB CHANNEL that I’m doing with Kaleb where we upload videos straight from our iPhones during Playlist Live, so you guys can see what the performers are getting up to, whether you’re at the event or stuck at home.
DistrictLines T-Shirt Store Now Open!
A couple of months ago, I tweeted something that went viral. “If you like nerds, raise your hand. If you don’t, raise your standards.” Over 250 re-tweets later, the phrase was officially A Thing. And now it’s officially A Shirt! I’m super excited to announce that my Robynisrarelyfunny Official Merch store is now open on DistrictLines! You can choose from two designs, either the nerds shirt, or a really cool modern Knightley Academy crest designed by graphic genius Karen Kavett (she designed both shirts, but we had to tweak the colors a bit in the final version, so if there’s anything wrong with the colors, that’s totally my bad, not hers!). The shirts are $15 each and are LIMITED EDITION, which means that they’re available for pre-order until mid-April and then will be available in extremely limited quantities, so you really should pre-order if you’d like one. They’re screen-printed on American Apparel, so they’re super soft and have a great fit. I’m also donating 50% of the profits from pre-orders to the Red Cross for Japan :) Hope you like ‘em. Click below to be re-directed to the store!
Knightley Academy Now Out In Paperback
ZOMG! Knightley Academy came out in paperback today and I totally forgot! What was I doing!? Actually…I wound up at a Good Charlotte concert with Meghan (http://www.youtube.com/strawburry17) in the press pit with our cameras, not really sure what we were doing there. We left early and spent the rest of the night drinking tea and wandering through the Barnes & Noble in Union Square with me never once thinking, “bookstore…why does that sound familiar? Oh, right…”
It wasn’t until I got home that I saw all of these tweets about it. The hardcover came out on March 9, so I assumed the paperback was ALSO coming out on March 9, exactly a year later. Yeah, I assumed wrong. Oops.
If your interest is interested in doing so, you can pick up a copy of the Knightley Academy paperback on Amazon or at your local bookstore. It’s $5.99 and has about 30 pages of extras, including a really cool SHORT STORY featuring new characters you’ll be seeing a lot more of in Knightley Academy #2: The Secret Prince. There’s also a preview chapter from The Secret Prince. Pretty cool.
Robyn on Rumour Room?!
When I was in Ireland last month, I worked on a couple of secret projects, and here’s one of them! My friend Stephen (youtube.com/3sixty5days) asked me to be on his show The Rumour Room! You can click the image below to watch the episode (I’m not sure how long it will be up, but it’s a multi-region player). So cool!
Come meet me at New York Comic Con
Hey! So, I’m going to be autographing free limited edition Knightley swag (plus limited quantity free books) at New York Comic Con as my alter ego Violet Haberdasher. Check out the video for the info! If you want a poster but aren’t going, see if you have a kind friend who will pick one up for you. Mobile Libros will be on hand selling copies of Knightley Academy, or you can bring your own. Free hug to anyone who brings me a soundfail potato to sign. xx
Errr…
Hey guys, the blog is coming back soon, I promise! In the meantime, have you seen the updated Knightley Academy website?
HOW TO CREATE A "PREVIEW CHAPTERS" E-BOOK FOR FREE
And then, about a week ago, I was clicking though a random music e-zine when it occurred to me that, whichever company had produced the e-zine, their format was perfect for an e-book. I pulled up the website, Issuu.com, curious how much it would cost to have them produce some preview chapters of Knightley.
I clicked on the “about” page, looking for a “cost of services” section. That’s when I realized that Issuu.com allowed you to instantly convert any PDF into a read-only, non-downloadable e-book or e-zine hosted on their website for free.
I quickly formatted the first two chapters of Knightley, saved them as a PDF, and hit upload.
When I let my publicist know about what I’d found, he immediately passed the discovery on to his colleagues. When I told my agent, he excitedly rattled off a list of clients who could benefit.
And so, I’ve decided to share the wealth: if you have a short story, preview chapters, deleted scenes, or anything else that you’ve always wanted to share with readers, here’s how to create it for free using MS Word and the internet:
1. Sign up for Issuu.com
2. Open a Word Doc. For sample material relating to a book, it’s best to Insert–>Picture–>From File and place a picture of the book cover on the front page.
3. Include important information: ISBN number? Release date? Publisher?
4. If you’re using text from an ARC (AKA 1P), think about adding a disclaimer along the lines of “uncorrected proof”
5. Add chapter headings. Get as creative as you’d like with the formatting. You can find some great fonts at http://www.1001freefonts.com/ and it’s a few easy clicks to install them—just google “how to install fonts on a mac/pc”
6. Go to File–>Print–>PDF–>Save as PDF
7. Follow instructions to upload to Issuu.com
8. Use a URL shortener for a customized, shareable URL. I chose bit.ly/kach12
9. Share on your website, Twitter, Facebook, etc.
You can read the first two chapters of Knightley Academy, out March 9 from Aladdin, as an online preview here: bit.ly/kach12
Older Posts »