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Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Princess Mia comes to town – A Meg Cabot Book Signing

Meg Cabot at Exclusive Books in Cape Town
29 September 2008

There I am, standing in a sea of 9 – 16 year olds (something I haven’t done since schooldays!). There’s a buzz in the room as the crowd wait impatiently for the celebrated author to arrive. As I gaze around me I’m struck at how little girls have really changed “since I were a lass”. There’s the same self conscious behaviour, the same brittle confidence, the same embarrassment at parents.
“Moo-oom,” hisses one 11 year old, “I know they’re serving snacks, it’s not like I can’t see you know. No! I don’t want any! Moo-ooom!” It’s curious that the snacks are wolfed down by the mothers, while most of the kids say no; only 12 or 14 years old and already so horribly conscious of their appearance. And all of them are of course dressed in “regulation uniform” – skinny leg jeans, ballerinas or boots, and long hair.

There’s a commotion near the back of the bookstore and an excited buzz ripples through the crowd. “Ooh, there she is, there she is!” and Meg Cabot walks towards the podium.

“Just look at you guys!” she says, “You’re like all so gorgeous. And thank you for coming out on what I’m told is a horrible night in Cape Town!”
Appreciative squeals and giggles ripple through the crowd.
“But oh my god, where are your tiaras? Oh come on, didn’t they tell you had to wear a tiara. But like, you should have known that. Okay, so tell me, like when can you wear a tiara?” says Cabot, herself sporting a sparkly tiara on her head.
“When you visit someone,” offers one young thing.
“When we meet you?” says another.
“Of course!” says Cabot, “when you meet me. And when you get married…”
There’s nervous laughter at this.
She goes on to tell her young audience about the importance of living your dream, of life being short and it being important to do what you love. But in the same breath, she talks about the rejections.
“I had so many rejections, I had like a whole US postal bag full of them – that’s like ‘this’ big! You know I was getting so many rejections I figured, like, you know, all the publishers in New York must be on crack. There must be like, a crack epidemic. Then one of them got off it and accepted my novel…”
She talks in a kind of sing-song way, bubbling and vivacious. She talks their language and connects with them not as an adult per se, but as a sort of űbercool older sister. They in turn hang on her every word and giggle in all the right places. I find myself smiling both at how she holds them and their enthusiasm. It’s kind of, like, you know, infectious - or whatever...


I wonder how on earth she sustains it. She’s exhausted – I can sense that, her luggage has been lost and she’s clearly working to a hectic schedule on this book tour. I wonder, if faced with any of it, how I would cope. I also, looking at her audience, recognise that they are not my audience. I was never the Princess Mia sparkly, ditzy kind of teen and my writing today is most probably not for that audience either. It starts to make me wonder just who might be in any audience I might one day face.

Cabot, a prolific author, goes on to talk her about her children's books (she also writes for adults) and her ways of reaching her market. She has a Facebook account (this I already knew since I’m like, you know, “friended” to her, along with a gazillion others), a MySpace account, a Beebo account, she has a Meg Cabot.com website (where she hosts message boards and a blog) as well as a Meg Cabot.co.uk site and soon Princess Mia will be getting her own website. Her publishers are running a Meg Cabot Ambassador programme. Kids sign up to be an ambassador – they get free books, provided they promote Cabot’s books to their friends.
I’m amazed at how much of the marketing is electronic – almost the whole customer relationship management side of her marketing is done via the internet – aside from the book tours and books signings. But the key marketing focus, it strikes me, aside from having a decent product, is customer relationship management. It’s interesting that in an increasingly competitive market authors are having to focus less on their product and far more on customer relationships in order to up and sustain sales figures. It’s no longer solely about how good the book is, but it’s also about how accessible you are to your market and how you woo them. That gives authors two full time jobs rolled into one – writer/entertainer and marketer. No more sequestering yourself away in the drafty attic or garden shed, if you want to succeed.


Cabot opens the floor to questions.
“What’s your favourite book?” asks one teen.
“I love them all equally,” she says, “You know, just like your mother tells you she love all of you, all your brothers and sisters the same - like yeah…Whatever! So yeah, I love them all equally, because, like, you know, I don’t want any of them to get upset.”
“You’ve like, set the bar quite high for guys in your book…” says one girl.
“Well, yeah, but like Jesse is a ghost… But no seriously, the nice guys are out there, they’re just the ones sitting like right at the back of the classroom, too shy to talk to you.”
“Which of your books do you like the least?”
“Well, like, I don’t dislike any of them. I can’t say I do because my publishers are here.”
It’s interesting that there are questions she will not answer, questions to which she simply says, “No, I’m not going to answer that.”
“What’s the best place you’ve been to,” asks one girl.
“Cape Town! Like duh, you think I don’t know how to answer that question!”

With the questions over, Cabot moves off to do her book signings - followed by a mob of excited teens who just can’t believe their luck. Me? I duck out and head off for sushi and champagne!

Sunday, September 28, 2008

A Whale of Tale... or the Tail of a Whale...

It's that time of year again, when the Southern Right Whales arrive at our southern shores to mate and calve. You'll have got plenty of this from me last year, but, hey, can one ever really get enough of these magnificent creatures? Since I'm not given to repeating my words if I can help it, I suggest you take a look at last year's post to get more on the whale story. What can I say, it's been a long day out, I'm tired and my eyes are sore from squinting at bright and glistening sea.



So we went here...
Walker Bay, Hermanus

To do some of this...

Well no, not exactly like that... because we're a bit wussy...
We prefer to stay on terra firma.
(Yar! Landlubbers!)

Ahr, thar she blows...

Coming to getcha!

Him and her, shall we, dear?

Starting to breach...

Splash! breach all over

Whole whale

Whale tales, I mean, tails...

Tail of a whale

Whale of a tale

Who goes there?

Sky hopping

The whole whale

It's really hard to give you a decent indication of just how enormous these magnificent creatures are. Just think... very, very much bigger than an elephant. Or think, something like an iceberg, what you see above, is just a small indication of what's below.

Just floating on my back...

Now rolling over

Fins for the memories...

And because I can never get enough of a good thing, I plan on going back in a week or two's time!

Friday, September 26, 2008

Gone creative


Oh dear, short on words - mind far too occupied with next editing process. The last "big" edit was completed on Monday - I think it was Monday... where does the time go... So goal directed and utterly absorbed. Then I started the read through of the manuscript to pick up typos and such like. Ah, but cannot leave well enough alone, so I find I'm deleting more words, adding others in, pruning here, applying a little root grow elsewhere. It's got to come to an end, or like WH Auden, I'll still be editing long after the novel's published. How's that for confidence, eh - the bold assumption that this story will find a publisher. Oh yes, let's hear it for positive visualisation and affirmation!

But here I sit, in the middle of the morning, still in my jimjams, hair tousled, eyes focussed though perhaps a bit wild, totally away with the vampires, scribbling and then scribbling some more. Just had a new idea, another level of tension that might be added to the plot. Ah, but will it serve a purpose, perhaps, but only if the book turns into a series. Hmm, okay, so I'll put the idea aside for now - in the present context it will add nothing. But it's something to be kept in mind. Who knows... She dreams of the three, or four, or five book deal...

All right, so here's the deal - the bottom line is you're really not going to get anything sensible out of me today - so instead I'll share with you something from my playtime in the digital darkroom when I was taking a break the other day. What day? Don't know, days have been merging into a stream of words flowing together as I hurry towards my dream.

As you'll see from the images, I really am in a less than "real" genre at present...




Thursday, September 25, 2008

Powerful autumn in Sky Watch Friday

We need power to survive the coming winter.


PS Please visit Sky Watch Friday's own site for more.

Sky Watch Friday # 26



Elveharpen - River Harp

If you want to read more and listen to the music, click here Living Lenses

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Reflections from an autumn

Autumn in Norway is not only many colours and clear air. It is often also completely quiet fjords and a totally clear sky, giving rise to very special photographic opportunities. These are from a stroll today.


Bees in the pink

I thought we'd stick with the spring theme, even though after one day of Sister Spring being bright and gay, Old Man Winter fought back with a vengeance. Once more it's piddling with rain - and today's supposed to be National BBQ Day - or, as we call it here, "braai" (pronounced as in "spry"). It's chilly, the garden is sodden and there are an assortment of very damp critters pootling about the lawn. Yuck. Enough already. I need sunshine!

Still, that said, I took advantage of the sun on Monday and had a fine time snapping the wee beasties below.

Rainbow wings

Head down

Busy Bee

Flower Feasting

I do love bees, I think there's something quite magical about them. And bee-rescuing is a popular past-time in our house. They inevitably end up in the swimming pool, so it's out with the honey, lots of warm breath on very frail bee bodies (sort of mouth to mouth resuscitation...) and a bit of sunshine - and then it's such a joy when they revive and fly away.

The Massed Pink of the Indian Hawthorne

What I love about the mass flowering shrubs of spring is how they attract bees. If you stand next to them in the morning you have the pleasure of hearing the bees singing. Sigh, so good for the soul, that.

Bee in pink

Yep, much better focusing on nature than the nuttiness of markets, politics and similar such shenanigans. At least nature is real, whereas the rest strikes me as being an awful lot of hot air and all smoke and mirrors.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Some summer holiday shots from Norway # Part 12.

Nyksund is a coastal village in Vesterålen, northern Norway (69°N 15°2E). People have been living in Nyksund since before recorded history. Until the late 18th century, the population was scarce, but with the rise of commercial trade, Nyksund became an important centre for hundreds of fishermen coming to exploit the rich fishing fields nearby.

As bigger vessels and road transportation rendered the port obsolete due to its shallow waters and poor road, Nyksund became an isolated outpost with a dwindling population. Finally, measures were made to shut the place down. During the 1970s, the city became a ghost town.

With the turn of the century, after 30 years of erosion, the lights are turned back on in Nyksund. New citizens are finding the old houses worthwhile. In 2003, the main obstacle to new activity in Nyksund is inadequate communications infrastructure; be it roads, wire or postal service. (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)