Trudi Canavan's Blog, page 23

Polish Tour Events

Sunday 15th May

noon – 1:30 pm

Signing

Warsaw Book Fair

Pałac Kultury i Nauki

Warsaw, pl. Defilad 1

Stand 318C (Platon)

5 pm – 7 pm

Meeting with readers, interview, signing

Paradox Cafe

Warsaw, ul. Jezierskiego 3/5A

Monday 16th May

5:30 pm – 7:00 pm

Meeting with readers, interview, signing

Empik Junior

Warszawa, ul. Marszalkowska 116/112

Deal of the Week!

We arrived in the UK on Monday and have been simultaneously beating jet lag into submission while preparing for The Tour, which seemed to involve an awful lot of messing around getting the phone and internet working.

Today the fun begins. Many, many cool things are happening. The Rogue has been arriving on doorsteps and appearing on bookshop shelves, and readers have been emailing and Tweeting that they've finished (extraordinary) and enjoyed (phew) it. Numbers are coming in and it seems you lovely readers have sent it into the top ten hardback bestsellers list again. Thanks!

For those who don't already have a copy, this week Amazon.co.uk is featuring The Rogue as their Deal of the Week. Find 'Today's Deals' in the menu at the top, then select 'Books' from the side menu.

Tonight The Rogue is being launched at Forbidden Planet. See my tour posts for details. I'm looking forward to celebrating, talking about my books, and meeting lot of readers.

Early Birds

I've received a few emails and Twitter posts reporting sightings of The Rogue in the wild before the official release date, and asking why this is so and if any of the shops have done something wrong.

Well, while it would be sweet if every shop voluntarily co-ordinated their unpacking of stock and shelving of my book at exactly the same hour and day through the entire world, but it's not going to happen. It's just too impractical to expect, though I think publishers try to insist shops stick to official release dates for really big releases like Harry Potter and Twilight books.

Otherwise, what tends to happen – or so I've been told – is that books are shipped to the shops and, due to the different distances they must travel, they arrive at different times. Boxes are unpacked when bookshop staff have the time, and it's probably better they do it a few days early than a few days late.

As for ebooks becoming available early, I don't know what the story is there.

Book Spotting

This morning I recieved an email from a reader named Mat to say he'd spotted one of my books in a video tour of a student hall, so I had a look and sure enough, there it is – on top of a Lonely Planet book, which is amusing to me because I used to work for the company.

Finding Nido (The book appears near the start of the video.)

Can I now tell people that someone has filmed The Magician's Apprentice?

Thanks Mat! Well spotted!

Which Order Should I Read Your Books In?

This is a question I'm asked fairly frequently at signings. It mainly comes from people who are new to my books, or who just discovered there are books that follow on from the Black Magician Trilogy. You can find the answer under the Books menu on this site, but to make it easier to work out I've written this post.

And the answer is… there isn't one single order to stick to. To get the most out of my books, you should probably read the ones within a trilogy in the right order. Otherwise, the only recommendation I'd give is that you read the Black Magician Trilogy before its sequel, the Traitor Spy Trilogy.

The Black Magician Trilogy consists of:

The Magicians' Guild

The Novice

The High Lord

The Traitor Spy Trilogy consists of:

The Ambassador's Mission

The Rogue (due May 5th 2011)

The Traitor Queen (not yet released)

The Magician's Apprentice also relates to this world.

It is a stand alone prequel to the Black Magician Trilogy, set six hundred or so years earlier. You don't have to read it first, you don't have to read it between the trilogies, or after. It can be read at any point and not spoil the plot of books you read later.

The Age of the Five is set in a different world. It consists of:

Priestess of the White

Last of the Wilds

Voice of the Gods

These books are longer and are aimed at an older readership. There's no reason a more sophisticated young reader would have any problems reading them, however. The books are considered to bridge the adult to young adult market because the main characters are mostly older than teenagers and there are one or two (not overly described) sex scenes.

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You can find back cover blurbs and the first chapter of all currently released books under the Books menu above. But do remember that reading the blurbs and extracts of later books in a series can spoil the plots of earlier books. If you haven't read a series, just read the first book's blurb and chapter.

I've set this post so it will stay at the top of this pag...

I've set this post so it will stay at the top of this page for the duration of my Tour. It'll contain links to information about the Tour. Please look below for new blog posts.

Tour Events Schedule: UK, Ireland & Poland, Germany

A Guide to Book Signing Etiquette

Which Order Should I Read Your Books In?

Interview & Another Competition

The lovely Rowena Cory Daniells, author of the Chronicles of King Rolen's Kin, recently interviewed me in her series highlighting female fantasy authors. I'm offering another free copy of The Rogue to the best answer to "Why do you think there are so many fantastic female fantasy writers in Australia?" and we'll be selecting a winner in the next couple of days.

So pop on over to Rowena's blog to read Meet Trudi Canavan and enter the competition.

We have a winner!

Congratulations to Cal, winner of the copy of The Rogue. As I said in the competition post, I picked a winner at random not by whether their answer was right. I don't want to spoil the plot for readers!

(To get a random winner I took the total number of comments for that post, counted up all the ineligible comments (replies to other comments, my comments, etc.) and subtracted them, and ran the total through a random number generator. Then I counted from the earliest comment, skipping ineligible comments, until I found the winner.)

Now I'm going to wrap myself up warmly and have lots of warm honey and lime drinks, because I have a head cold and I want to be over it before the Tour starts.

Win a Signed Hardback First Edition of The Rogue!

They're here! They're here!

("The Towering Rogueferno")

Which means I have just enough time to run a competition before I head off overseas. So… to win a signed hardback first edition of The Rogue, answer this question in the comments:

Who do you think has/had Akkarin's third blood ring?

Next Monday (Melbourne time) I will randomly select a winner and post them this:

Nope – I am not going to pick a winner based on who is right or wrong. You'll have to read the book to find out the answer. But I'd love to hear all the different theories. Will any of you guess correctly, I wonder?

(Also bear in mind that if I post it next Monday it may not get to you before the release date, since it'll be coming from Australia. But you will have your own signed hardback first edition to read and treasure.)

Captioning…

I created the last post on my iPhone, from Supanova. Which was the first time I'd tried blogging while out and about. I'm hoping to be able to do this while on Tour.

Typing blog posts on the phone isn't fast, however, so they're likely to be short. I didn't get to caption the photo below, so I'll do it now…

Closest and on the right is my good pal and Supanova mentor, the talented Jennifer Fallon, who is constantly entertaining to be sitting next to at a signing (and had munchies to steal). Next in line, moving to the left, is the lovely Robin Hobb, the infamous Isobelle Carmody (with the inevitable Carmody Posse forming behind her), the legendary Marianne dePierres and the amazing Rowena Cory Daniels.