In Which I Apologize for Things That I Imagine To Be Problematic

This morning, I visited my publisher. For some reason, I was under the mistaken impression that I was there to meet my publicist for Knightley Academy who would, if I completely charmed her, hopefully help me to set up a bookstore signing for the release.

Publicists, you see, are generally very busy people who have to set up book tours for important people like Scott Westerfeld and Holly Black (with whom I share a publisher).

So there I was, early morning, following my publicist through the halls of the Simon and Schuster Fortress, desperately clutching my cup of coffee and wondering why we were in such a hurry and where, exactly, we were headed.

The Simon & Schuster fortress

We went into the publicity director’s office, where he was waiting for me. There was nowhere to put my coffee cup. My chair was that awkward height where, unless I sat at the extreme edge like I desperately wanted to flee at any moment, my feet did not exactly touch the floor. Yes, I am mini, now hush.

My publicist and I sat across from the important man in the big, imposing desk. And then he said, “so you know Knightley is getting a new cover, right?” Actually, man in the big, imposing desk, I did not know this. It had been midterms, you see, so my editor was being very lovely by not interrupting my study panic.

I was all, “um, what cover?”

And then everyone scrambled to find the new cover. Luckily my editor came in and saved the day and gave me a glossy, fabulous mock up of my just-approved new cover with a fantastic blurb from Tamora Pierce (“steampunky, subversive and enthralling!”) on it. I can’t show you guys the cover yet, but it is very, very awesome, and green, and it involves a castle.

I was sort of thinking that maybe everyone had expected me to panic over the cover change, and that was why they had taken me to this important-looking office. I tried my best to look un-panic prone.

Then, the publicity director told me that my book was “flagged,” which was why he wanted to speak with me.

Not usually a good sign.

I thought: Oh crap, they are not going to publish my book after all! They are canceling it right now. They made up this ruse about a new cover to judge how well I take shocking news. I bit my lip and waited for it.

“Your book has been flagged,” he continued, “because there’s been a fantastic response from buyers and we’ve been receiving a ton of enthusiastic emails about the series.”

Omg. Flagged was a good thing. Perhaps I wasn’t in trouble after all.

I ventured that I had brought a few copies of my marketing plans with me. I passed them out, and everyone flipped through these stapled minipackets I had prepared detailing my plans for how I was going to promote the series myself, since publicists are very busy with famous authors and, anyway, I didn’t mind setting up my own library visits.

“Multi-city book tour,” the publicity director read aloud, flipping through a packet.

I turned bright red.

“About that,” I quickly amended. “I was just going to stay with some of my old friends from college over Spring Break and thought that I could maybe visit a library or a bookstore while I’m in Boston and NYC. I was going to set it up myself and–”

“–What a fantastic idea.”

“Um, sorry? What?” I asked.

And then I was informed that they would be happy to set up visits to libraries, schools and bookstores in like a million cities, and they started talking about what was an appropriate speaker’s fee (I have only ever charged zero dollars and zero cents, but I didn’t say that), and which were the best independent bookstores for me to visit, and how it was such a good idea for me to do a book tour, and a zillion other incredible things that do not happen to mildly geeky graduate students who harbor an unhealthy Harry Potter obsession and sometimes write Twilight fan fiction.

I just sat there and listened to it all and waited to wake up to the sound of my alarm and head over to meet my publicist for real, because there was no way that this was really happening.

I shook everyone’s hands and said goodbye and followed my editor out to the elevators in a daze. And then she was like, “what are you doing right now?”

I didn’t think that “mentally pinching myself and wondering why this dream is incredibly realistic because I sort of have to pee” was the best answer, so I said “Oh, um, nothing, why?”

And that is how I wound up spending my afternoon drinking Diet Coke with my editor and going over the synopsis for Knightley 2, which is TOTALLY SERIOUSLY I AM NOT KIDDING called The Secret Battle Society (this is obviously subject to change, but come on, is that title not made of pure, ridiculous win?). We talked about the overall arc of the series, and polished up everything that was sort of vague and/or WTF-y in the synopsis and generally fixed all of the plot holes.

If you drink enough of this stuff, it makes plot holes disappear.

Since I worked on Knightley 1 while I was living in London (back when I was still cool, sigh) I had never had the opportunity to do this before in person, and it was amazing. I’d heard my editor was good (I’d worked with a different editor on Book 1) but wow, good does not begin to describe it.

Anyway, it is actually 6AM now, and no I didn’t just wake up. I, um, never went to sleep. I actually have to be at the NCTE conference in a couple hours (eep), and I probably shouldn’t show up as a sleepless zombie. But, seriously, this has been the most incredible day and I haven’t gone to sleep because I’ve wanted to draw it out as long as possible. Okay, I’m going. Goodnight.