my launch party! (+some china pictures)

ALL THAT GLOWS has been out in the world for a week now, and what a good week it's been! There were blog tours and a Twitter party and, of course, a real live and in-person launch party! This past Saturday was the night I've spent the past 30 months looking forward to (okay--let's be honest, I've really been looking forward to this my entire life).

Blue Bicycle Books on 420 King Street was gracious enough to host the launch. They allowed me to take over their counter space with hot tea, cookies and glowsticks:

The tea was custom blended for ATG. It's rooibos with vanilla and strawberry! Delicious!

The cookies were made by my mom! Just as delicious!

They allowed me to take over their back room with a photobooth and faery wing props:

Husband and I

My brother loves me very much.

So do my parents.

Husband. Bestie. Brother.

While my friends were playing around in the photo booth (excellent blackmail material, bwahaha!) I was signing books!

And people were signing my "guest"book:

It was such a fun, thriving evening. I'm fortunate to have a really huge community of friends both old and new. I've spend 26 out of my 27 years living in Charleston, so people from all walks of life came out. Friends I've known since before I could walk. High school teachers and class mates. College professors and roommates. Family and friends who feel like it. Even strangers!

And in the evening I caught sight of the wonderful window display!

I signed a lot of stock at Blue Bicycle Books, so if you want a signed copy of ALL THAT GLOWS you can stop in or order one via their website.

 -

In the meantime, I spent an entire month in China, filming promotional material for THE WALLED CITY and visiting some dear friends who live by Hong Kong. Husband and I were fortunate to travel around the country a good deal, which helped me deal with some of the jitters of the impending release week!

Harbin. Where they make a city entirely of ice. And it's -30F.

The Great Wall has been on my bucket list for a while. Struck it off beautifully!

Rice terraces of Pingan.

PANDAS!

BAMBOO!

The five colored pond at Jiuzhaigou.

Hong Kong in the evening is one of the most gorgeous sights there is.

And this is me freaking out over a model version of the Kowloon Walled City.

I'll be posting more about THE WALLED CITY as the release date draws closer (it's November 4th - 9 months away!), but visiting the site of the park where it once stood was just amazing. Just amazing.

I am so, so thankful.

ALL THE THINGS FOR ALL THAT GLOWS

The time for celebrations is fast approaching! February 11th is nearly upon us, which means there are lots of blog tours and giveaways and launch parties!

Here's where you'll find me in the online world the next few weeks:

Blog Tour #1: http://areadingnurse.blogspot.com/2014/01/ffbc-all-that-glows-by-ryan-graudin.html

It is in progress right now! Go check out all of the links for various reviews and guest posts and dream casts and giveaways!

Blog Tour #2: http://www.rockstarbooktours.com/

This one will be from February 3rd to the 14th and there will be a giveaway as well!

Twitter Party! Come celebrate my launch with me on release day! I'll be on the hashtag answering questions and giving away more things! Custom tea blends and signed books! Yay!

The actual physical launch party!!!! I'll be at Blue Bicycle Books on February 15th from 5-7. There will be books and refreshments and glowsticks!! Come celebrate with me.

ALL THAT GLOWS trailer contest

Well, we've almost hit the one month mark (give or take a few days!) for ALL THAT GLOWS's release! Today the book trailer is being unveiled over at Epic Reads. Go over and watch it and leave a comment to be entered to win an ARC from them!

I've also decided to hold another ARC contest of my own! Here's how to enter.

Spread the Faery love. Share the trailer.

Twitter: Faeries, modern London, partying princes, assassins... Watch the ALL THAT GLOWS trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZLNuXDOrw8 #allthatglows #yalit

Tweet this, and then link your tweet in the comments below! (I'll also be keeping an eye on the hashtag!)


Tumblr: You can either create your own Tumblr post using the video embedding code <iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/7ZLNuXDOrw8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> and link it here in the comments or reblog this post.


Facebook: Share the trailer on your Facebook and post the link here in the comments.


Your Blog: Share the book trailer on your blog and post the link here in the comments. If you're on a blog that's not blogger, you can use the embed code here in your blog's HTML settings: <iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/7ZLNuXDOrw8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>


Oh and, this is what you'll be sharing!!! :) Many, many thanks to my wonderful friend and fellow YA author Phoebe North who designed the trailer!

If you have any questions feel free to put them in the comments! The contest is open until January 14th at 11:59 PM EST and US only.

ARC winners

My three months three ARCs jubilee giveaway has come to a close! Many thanks to all who entered and showed their very great anticipatory enthusiasm. Without further ado, here are the winners, chosen by a highly functional numbers randomizer!

Twitter: @kellisamberlee_

Tumblr: tenismydoctor

New follower: @suekitty13

Three ALL THAT GLOWS are ready to fly/media mail their way to you! A huge congrats!

If you didn't win, fret not! There are still opportunities to snag an ALL THAT GLOWS ARC! There is currently a Goodreads giveaway sponsored by HarperTeen you can enter! And there will be a few more giveaways as the release date draws closer!

ARC giveaway!!!

So, it is November 14th, which means that it's LESS THAN 3 MONTHS until ALL THAT GLOWS hits a bookstore near you on February 11th, 2014!

*book shimmy!*

I happen to have some advanced review copies burning a hole in my proverbial pocket, so to celebrate the nearness of release day I'll bye hosting an ARC giveaway! If you want a chance to read ALL THAT GLOWS before it hits bookshelves you should be all over this!

I have three advanced review copies of ALL THAT GLOWS that I will personalize and sign for the winners.

These pretties!

The contest will be open from November 15th to midnight EST November 24th. It is open to US & Canada.

Since there are three ARCs, there are three ways to win:


Twitter: One copy will be given to a random person who tweets the following. You may tweet once per day (and thus get one entry per day!).

Faeries, British royalty & paparazzi! @ryangraudin's ALL THAT GLOWS comes out 2/11/14. RT to win an ARC! Details here: http://tinyurl.com/mobhvm5

Tumblr: reTumbl this post. Again. Only one reblog per person per day.


Follow me: On Twitter or on Tumblr. Or both. I will pick one random entry out of my new followers from November 15th on for this ARC.


I think that about covers my bases! Best of luck!!! If there are any questions please leave them in the comments!


UPDATE: It was brought to my attention that the tweet was just a few characters too long, so I revised it with a shortened link! Feel free to use the old one or the new!

I'm taking a day off of revisions (All That Glows sequel!), so instead of cleaning my house I've decided to slink back to this blog with a life update.

Where have you been the past one and a half months, Ryan? What have you been doing all this time when you could have been typing letters into the white blog box?

Good questions, interwebs. Good questions.

Writing wise I've been juggling projects (which is hardly new, I might add). THE WALLED CITY has been sent off to copyedits, I added about 15,000 words to sekrit novel (with the help of one of the best pumpkin spice lattes I've ever had*), and dove into revisions for my second Faery novel.

I can smell autumn from here...

As for the rest of the non-writing time:

The husband and I photographed an engagement shoot with a couple who pilots Black Hawks! Ridiculously cool!

 After five years of eating on the couch, we bought a dining room table!**

I rescued a baby squirrel and named him Rackety Sam. I gave him to another foster mama who does not own a wolf-hybrid who named him Phil.

The other reason I passed Rackety Sam/Phil off to a foster mama is because we went to Turks and Caicos for a scuba diving trip! I'd never been diving before, so I had to get scuba certified while I was down there.

All you see is blue...

Some of the prettiest waters I've ever seen.

Of course, when you're a writer, you never really leave work behind. I had one last round of THE WALLED CITY edits to get through in my temporary office.

The dives themselves were amazing! I saw sea turtles, reef sharks, stingrays. I also got stung by fire coral, which was substantially less awesome. On the flight home we had another unexpected surprise. Our layover in Miami was not two hours long, but twenty-four hours long. We made the best of it by going out for Cuban food:

Seafood Paella

We got home from the trip and I found a package from my editing team at Little, Brown by the door. This beauty was inside:

It's a nautilus necklace! This particular seashell plays an awfully big role in THE WALLED CITY. So this is an incredibly thoughtful gift! I've pretty much been wearing it every day!

And I can tell you up front that these next few months will be just as busy. YALLfest is coming up!!! Yay!

Also! If you want to enter for a chance to win an ALL THAT GLOWS ARC, there's a giveaway going on at Goodreads right now.

*legit. If you're ever in Charleston in the fall, visit the Orange Spot Coffee Shop. They'll hook you up.

** We're real adults now. If you couldn't tell.

breaking radio silence (aka a post of excuses)

So. It's been a while.

I have excuses! I swear! And photographic evidence to back up ALL of them. In fact, maybe it's just better if I let the images do the talking. (A picture's worth a thousand words, right?)

About a month ago I got this in the mail:

First pass pages for ALL THAT GLOWS! For those of you who don't know what FPP are, they're pretty much the final chance the author has to go through the manuscript and change things. It means reading your story for the *^%$-teenth time searching for typos and things you want to change.

BUT when you get to that last page you're DONE!!! And you have a brick of paper that could probably kill someone if you dropped it from ten-stories up.

So, lo and behold, my first completed novel:

About 24 hours after I slipped the death-brick FPP back into the mail, husband and I got on a plane and skipped the country for two and a half weeks. I plan on doing a more extensive post on this once the photos are edited (though this could be a while). But here's the outlined version:

We hung out with my husband's side of the family in Bolivia for a week and a half (his sister lives down there.) We went to the jungle and tramped around looking for anacondas and fished for piranha. And I realized my lifelong dream of seeing a wild capybara! (They're the cutest giant rodents ever!)

Then we scuttled on over to Peru and did a 5 day trek in the Andes around Machu Picchu:

We also got stalked by llamas.

Then I came home to a round of revisions for THE WALLED CITY! AAAH! You guys, I'm so excited about this book I can't even--

Here's my handy revision map. I just finished them up on Saturday.

Meanwhile, during my break from the revision cave, I moved my baby brother into college!!! He's all grown up now. Or at least, he's now responsible for his own diet and schedule! It was so weird being back in a dorm on move-in day. You could smell the sad and excitement and now what the heck do I do oozing from each freshman's room. Don't worry, kids. You're about to start one of the funnest, free-est times of your life!

And then there were a few boat breaks. Where we taught wolf-dog how to swim.

We also determined he's about twenty times the size of a Maltese. (And still growing!)

So yes. That's what's been happening while I've procrastinated posting.

Hopefully the silence won't be so long next time!

the wonder of ARCs

So. This happened today.

At around 6:00 I got an email from my agent telling me she'd just gotten two ARCs of ALL THAT GLOWS in the mail. So naturally, I spent the next few hours glued to the window, watching for the great brown bearer of packages that is known as the UPS truck.

When it finally pulled up, I was ready. The following scene occurred.

Me: *bursts out of the front door, arms flailing*

UPS man: *stops at the gate, uncertain*

Me: I WAS HOPING YOU'D COME TODAY! YOU HAVE A PACKAGE FOR ME!

UPS man: Um. No. No, I don't.

Me: YOU DO! YOU DO!

UPS man: This is for Ryan. *

Me: I'm Ryan.

UPS man: No you're not!

(At this point I was getting fairly nervous, because there was still a chain link fence between us, and, seeing as I acquired a leash-burn injury on my daily jog, I was confident he could outrun me. Even with a box of 15 paperback books in his hand.)

Me: No. Really. I am.

He didn't back away from the gate quickly enough, so I succeeded in acquiring the box. And giving him a signature. That quite clearly said RYAN.

I took the box inside, opened it, and THIS is what I found:

....

....

....

A lovely note from my editor.

ALL THE EMRYSes!

Aren't they gorgeous?! It feels so surreal to actually HAVE A PHYSICAL THING that embodies these last 3.5 years of work (I started writing the rough draft in March 2010). It really makes all those early morning writing sessions, rejection letters and months and months of waiting worth it!

Me & Emrys being besties.

And the inside. Oh you guys. The inside is pretty.

Even the chapter headings are pretty. Magical curly wisps abound!!

So yes. I'm happy to finally be hanging out with a real paperbound Emrys! Woot!

Do you want to hang out with her too?

They're still giving away an ARC at YA Books Central, though you'll have to hurry, since I believe the contest ends in 8 days!!





*This is not the first time in my life that people have refused to believe that my name is actually my name. Because, clearly, I am not a boy.