Meg Cabot's Blog

Questions! Have I read Shades of Grey? How do my book covers get chosen? Will there be a spanking robot in the next Underworld book? When’s my next book tour? How’s Henrietta? Etc.

I wasn’t able to get to all of your questions during my live video chat on Goodreads (but thanks to all of you who came! I hope you got to see Henrietta—her visit might have gotten cut off at the end due to her dislike of human contact), so I thought I’d try to answer some of the rest of them here. So here goes:

Q:...

You know that old saying, April showers bring May flowers? Well, sometimes in April it can a little rain too much, bringing forth more than just flowers. This May at my house, April showers have brought forth:

- a new book (in stores TODAY!)

- an awesome book trailer contest (you could win an iPad!)

- a Goodreads video chat, and…

- possibly even opened a door in my local cemetery to the Underworld, releasing all the vengeful spirits who feel that they were wronged by John Hayden, Lord of the Dea...

Did you know April 22-28 is National Princess Week? Of course you did!

(If you’re like me, you assumed every week was Princess Week and were surprised to learn this isn’t true.)

But according to Disney and Target, they only “officially” recognized Princess Week is this week. That’s when they will be promoting all princess-themed books and toys and movies in their stores, under the Julie Andrews Collection.

This collection includes Julie Andrews’ own books (yes! She wrote some! So did her daughte...

Spring is here (officially, if not temperature wise in most places), and you know what that means:

1) School's out for Spring Break in a lot of places, so Key West (where I live) is packed with vacationers.

2) Some of those vacationers are staying in my house!

3) But that doesn't mean new books aren't getting written (and read and reviewed. More on these below)!

4) Official sneak peek excerpts are getting posted (see below) and Advanced Reader Copies are being released (again, see below)!

5...

Just a quick post since I am (as always) on deadline!

Tons of authors (including this one) are offering up autographed books to raise money for the Red Cross for the recent Midwest tornado victims, many of whom lost everything, but especially their school libraries!

Here's your chance to be a hero not just to book lovers in need, but whole families! And you get something GREAT out of it (besides a warm fuzzy feeling). Bid on one or more of these signed books these authors have generously...

This has been a very tumultuous week at Downton Cabot. Here are the things you need to know if you want to keep up:

Lady Henrietta "Fussypants" Cabot has begun rising before 7AM every morning, insisting on being fed Whiska Temptations by hand.

Portrait of Lady Fussypants in the Powder Room, waiting for hand feeding

As there is no butler (I tried to hire one, but annoyingly, he wishes to remain with his current employer. Ungrateful wretch!), and I do not rise until 8AM (preferably 10AM) at...

The first month of the year is already gone and I haven't even bought a 2012 wall calendar yet for my office.

But what do you do when you get to OfficeMax and the only calendar choices left over in the store are Indy 500 and Glee? No offense to either of these fine institutions but sometimes I fall asleep in my office (aka my bed). I do not want to wake up and see a car crash or Mr. Shu looking at me first thing in the morning.

Although it's a bit ironic because I'm from Indiana (home of the I...

Hi, it's me, Princess Mia Thermopolis! I stopped by Meg's blog to post for her because she's so busy promoting Abandon, which just came out today for the first time in paperback!

You would think that as a royal, I'd be the busy one, what with going to college and helping my dad to rule a country (for the last time: he only died in the movie version of my life. He is alive and well in real life).

But I'm getting pretty good at multi-tasking. I'm actually writing this during my Interactive...

Happy New Year! By the time you read this, it will most likely be 2012. How could another year have passed so quickly?

I don't know. All I know is that 2011 went by like lightning.

Like most writers, I am a person of deep reflection (mostly when it concerns the lives of my characters, and celebrities, too, of course), so I realize that most of the highlights of 2011 — for me, anyway — involved all the traveling I did for the books that I wrote that came out this past year (Abandon and a

So this morning I'm getting on a plane for my book tour in France. This is exactly the kind of glamorous thing that I always imagined I'd be doing if I were ever a published author!

But here's a little known secret: in real life, hopping on a plane to Paris for your book tour turns out to be less than glamorous (at least if you're me).

Because right now I can't find the leggings I just bought (two pairs!) for this very trip.

And I've suddenly realized I only have one hour to change planes...