Cool Stuff

UPDATE: Ok, now that video should be showing up at the end. I don’t know what happened to it before. I meant to get this post up yesterday, but somehow the time got away from me. I guess I needed an extra day to fully recover from my busy weekend. I had a great time Saturday at the book signing at the Borders Express in Exton, PA and another fun day on Sunday at the BooksNJ 2011 festival in Paramus. Here’s a photo from BooksNJ with fellow KidLit Authors Club members Margie Gelbwasser and Alison Formento: My weekend wasn’t all work. I did get the chance to enjoy a little concert on Saturday evening. I should probably mention that this was a concert in the basement of my boyfriend’s parents’ house and that it was incredibly short. Did...

Look what arrived yesterday afternoon! That’s right, 2 copies of my beautiful, beautiful book. Also, this is just in time for my library events tomorrow and Monday, which means I will be able to read from the actual book instead of my printed out page proofs. Very cool!

I am going to attempt to put together my own book trailer. Technology isn’t always my friend so we’ll have to see how this goes. Anyway, I’m posting this because I need some help with my book trailer. Specifically I need some pictures of you, your friends, your kids, your pets or even local statues (I’m not that fussy) holding up a sign that reads “I am popular”. Yes, I know most normal people put together their book trailers using readily available stock photos, but I think it’s already been established that I am not exactly normal. Anyway if you would like your picture included in my book trailer please email it to me at alissagrosso@gmail.com. If you also include your name/website I’ll make sure you are mentioned...

Advance copies of my book have been out in the wild for a few weeks, and I finally got my hot little hands on one (and have photographic proof.) Isn’t it beautiful? The bad news is I don’t get to keep it. The good news is you just might be able to get your hands on a copy. It’s all part of the promotions going on when you join the street team over at the Class of 2K11. Among the prizes up for grabs are one-of-a-kind advance copies hand-annotated by the books’ authors. How cool is that? And who knows, we could have a future Printz or Newbery winner in our midst and some lucky folks out there are going to have a one-of-a-kind copy of their debut novel. There are a few different ways to enter our contests, but one fun and super easy way to get...

Today over at the Class of 2K11 we’re having some fun with our own hand-drawn versions of our book covers. If you have a chance, I invite you to stop by to find out Why Authors Should Definitely Not Design Their Own Book Covers.

If you’ve spent any time browsing the wares on Etsy or taken a look at any of the online t-shirt vendors, you’ve probably noticed that fake mustaches are huge right now. I do not have an explanation for the sudden popularity of fake mustaches other than the fact that they are inexplicably cool, but I do have photographic proof that my grandfather was way ahead of his time. Here’s an old photo of my Grandpa Hersey and his brother sporting fake mustaches, when he was younger than I was. Obviously, my grandfather was a great visionary who foresaw the day when fake mustaches would be all the rage. Let’s just hope his granddaughter inherited some of his visionary...