AletheaKontis.com

Official Release Date: March 16, 2012

The release date for Snow White and the Huntsman is June 1, 2012.

Long live 2012, THE YEAR OF THE FAIRY TALE!!

You guys know how much I love and depend on you to succeed. You are all precious and wonderful to me. Some of you I have met before, some of you I’ve known forever, some of you I only know online, and some of you I just don’t know yet. But we will meet, and when we do, we will have a great time.I want to be as successful an author as I can be FOR YOU. Books made me who I am today. Now it’s my turn to give back. And I can’t do it without you.

Would you like to help make me THE AWESOMEST AUTHOR PRINCESS ON THE PLANET? Here are a couple of things you can do:

1.) AlphaOops fans: Send an email to Candlewick Press (bigbear@candlewick.com) and let them know how much you love the series. Let them know how much you would LOVE to see a Christmas book. As of right now, Candlewick has not officially put AlphaOops: Christmas on their publishing list. If you would like to see it exist, please LET THEM KNOW!

2.) Fairy Tale fans: If you can’t wait to read Enchanted…or are one of the chosen few who have already read it and can’t wait to get your hands on more titles, please preorder the book as soon as you can. Here’s a handy-dandy link from Amazon you are welcome to use. You guys know how this works: the minute the book comes out, it’s going to go out of stock. It’s happened for both Alphabet books and the Dark-Hunter Companion…why should this be any different?

I am currently planning a Southeastern US tour that includes: Raleigh  NC, Greensboro NC, Charlotte NC, Charleston SC, Columbia SC, Atlanta GA, Chattanooga TN, and Nashville TN. If you live in any of those places and would like to have me sign Enchanted for you, go ahead and preorder one now.

3. Spread the word, PLEASE! I am going to put myself out there and be the Best Author Princess I Can Be, but I need your help. I need you to clap your hands and believe in me, just like the fairies. This is it. MY FIRST NOVEL IS COMING OUT IN SIX MONTHS. And it’s going to be amazing. You’re going to want the hardcover first edition, aren’t you? I thought so.

Thanks, everyone. More amazing magical updates to come!

xoxox  Alethea

My plate still overfloweth, and I need to work on the novel today instead of playing on the intarwebs and catching up on my blog & pesky emails. So I leave you with the Foo Fighters’ finale song from the concert on 11/11 — my favorite song of theirs, and by far my favorite video. Guess why?

The password for the deleted scene of “Counterclockwise” is what the people from Nodnol (Tertiary Kingdom) are commonly called.

You can read “Counterclockwise” over at IGMS.

Happy Guy Fawkes Day!!

xox

Okay, People. Here’s how it’s going to go down:

First, you’re going to pop over to SideShow Freaks and read my essay about the idea behind my timetwistedsteampunklovestory “Counterclockwise.”

Then, if you haven’t already, you’re going to want to read “Counterclockwise” over at Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show.

When you’re all done with that, you’re going to come back here and realize that I have posted–as a special bonus for Guy Fawkes Day–a secret deleted scene/alternate ending for “Counterclockwise.”

One minute after that, I’ll post what the password to access that scene is. (Of course I’m going to password-protect it — the scene’s not going to mean anything to anyone who hasn’t read the story, and I don’t want to be a big Spoilery Princess.)

This is all very particular, and super-kind-of-special because today is GUY FAWKES DAY, and Mr. Fawkes is sort of pivotal in the creation of my slippery-twisty-timey-wimey-backwards-and-forwards universe. Trust me–if you do this all today, you will be very glad you did. There’s just this whole other layer of awesome. But if you can’t make it today, that’s okay…I promise I won’t blow up Parliament. Much.

Happy bonfire night, everyone!

Many many MANY thanks to Jean-Marie Ward (jmward14 on YouTube), who filmed and edited this video of Princess Alethea’s Traveling Sideshow at Dragon*Con this year!

There was unfortunately no video of my reading, but you get to see my intro, Leanna Renee Hieber’s FANTASTIC reading, Gray Rinehart’s HILARIOUS song, and Danielle Friedman’s MESMERIZING dance performance. (You guys get enough of me as it is, right?)

(This one’s for the horror fans.)

From my good friend Dave Buchert, director of Blood Oath comes this trailer for a series of projects called Night Terrors.

Caution: It is very much Rated R and NSFW.

Miracle Max: Go away or I’ll call the Brute Squad.
Fezzik: I’m on the Brute Squad.
Miracle Max: You ARE the Brute Squad!
~The Princess Bride

******

At 8:05pm last night, book blogger Amanda Copulos sent out a bunch of tweets to authors, letting them know that she had stumbled across an eBay seller with multiple listings of ARC (advance reader copy) auctions on eBay…including one for Enchanted.

I didn’t bother my publisher about this — these things happen all the time. Reviewers for big magazines get flooded with books. Some of those reviewers put up the excess unread review copies on eBay to make a few [hundred] extra bucks. Yes, it’s illegal (the books have “ADVANCE READING COPY x NOT FOR SALE” clearly printed in a starburst on the cover) and no, it’s not fair…but Mr. Goldman warned us that life was not fair many years ago. A few of us listened. A few of us still fight the good fight.

As Amanda requested, I RTd the tweet she’d sent me, and I posted it on Facebook. I went to eBay and dutifully reported the seller as best I could. I also sent her a personal email, politely asking that she remove the listing out of professional courtesy. I’d rather see the book given away on a blog than sold to some stranger six months before the release date. I was annoyed, but I was not distraught. And then I went back to Facebook.

I had received a few responses and DMs on Twitter about the subject, but Facebook exploded. My friends were trying to understand 1.) how this person could have done such a thing and 2.) how to take them down in the quickest way possible. My publisher doesn’t have a lot of review copies for this book, and reviewers who couldn’t get their hands on one were livid that someone else would do this with a book they’d been so desperately trying to get. Many folks were irate that the item was described as “unread.” In their eyes, my honor had been besmirched, and they frantically–and passionately–did all they could to set the world to rights.

By midnight, the seller’s auction had been removed from eBay.

I am shocked, pleased…and I have to admit, a little scared at the power of my own private little Brute Squad. It reminded me that even in this Unfair World where it always seems we’re swimming upstream, a tiny pebble can still start an avalanche. The way to make an example of people who sell ARCs on eBay is to take them down one book at a time. One small thing really can make a difference. In this case, a handful of people who treasure books came down like a hammer and made a statement. I love every single one of those people.

Do yourself a favor and don’t make them angry.

My alternate-reality-time-travel-romance “Counterclockwise” is now live over at Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show — just in time for Guy Fawkes Day!

I’m also honored to be in the sixth anniversary issue. Happy anniversary, IGMS!

Yes, I know it’s only an excerpt — just splurge for the subscription, folks. This is a really great magazine. I promise you, it’s worth it. And what an awesome illustration I got from the fabulous Kevin Wasden, right? What’s even more clever is how it changes throughout the story. (Which you can only see if you buy a subscription!)

I wrote my “origin” story and sent it in today — it will be posted over at SideShow Freaks in the very near future.I mean near like…before or on Guy Fawkes Day.

And because Guy Fawkes Day plays such a huge part in this story, I will be posting (password-protected for those who don’t like spoilers) a deleted scene from the original ending of the story ON GUY FAWKES DAY.

[The password: What the denizens of Nodnol in the Tertiary Universe are called.]

If you liked the movie “Somewhere in Time,” you’ll like this story. If you read it, I’d love to hear what you think! Email me: akontis at gmail dot com! xox