Meg Cabot and Gossip Girl’s Cecily von Zeigesar at the Gothenburg Book Fair in Sweden (reporter in the middle)

Greetings readers of Stupid Blog Name! I was so excited when Michael and Katherine asked me to be part of this blog because of course I’m a HUGE fan of the Making Out series, and I was always hugely jealous of Animorphs because it was such a genius idea.

I haven’t read Gone yet but I’m insanely jealous of it too because I had an idea I thought was sort of like it and I was worried if I wrote it Michael would think I was copying him, until Michael assured me (when I explained my idea to him) that it was differentish enough (from what Michael told me about the Gone sequels, we’re headed in very different directions—his sound outrageously good, whereas mine are just…well, insane).

Anyway, I’ve been enjoying reading the blog but haven’t been able to contribute much because right now I’m on a book tour to promote the UK releases of some titles of mine (Airhead and Allie Finkle’s Rules for Girls).

Book tours sound super fun to people who’ve never been on one but of course when you’re actually on one they’re almost the most hideous things on earth, possibly not as bad as having your fingers pulled out of their sockets by Jack Bauer on 24, but depending on the time of day when you’re asked, then they’re about even. I think it’s because you spend so much time as a writer just sitting around writing…or staring into space. Or watching Judge Judy.

And then suddenly someone says, “You can’t do any of these things anymore. You have to get up by this certain time and look nice and be here by this time and speak in front of 500 people and then go on television and then go on the radio and then be at this party with all these people you don’t know until midnight and then wake up at six the next morning and then get on a plane and do it all over again in a new city and you can’t go back to your normal life until this date,” and it’s really…well, startling is one word for it.

I went to the State Department website once to see what to do if I’m ever kidnapped in a foreign nation and what it described was a LOT like being on book tour. Check it out for yourself if you don’t believe me.

When I was first starting out as an author I longed to be sent out on book tours. I longed to be put up in fancy hotels and be waited on hand and foot, to have intellectual chats with reporters about my books.

And yet somehow this never transpired. The fancy hotels do, occasionally, but I rarely get to spend more than a few hours in them, always sleeping, and the reporters and I almost never have time for tea. They’re too busy running off to get their next scoop and I’m too busy running out to get to the airport.

I used to be disappointed when I’d have a book out and there’d be no tour set up to promote it. Now when I have a book out and I find out there’s no tour I’m super relieved.

I realize it’s fantastic when you’re publisher even gives you a book tour. Most authors don’t get one , unless they pay for it themselves. I’ll admit, without a book tour it’s very difficult to crack the bestseller lists these days unless you’re a Big Name Author.

But there must be an easier way to sell books!

Anyway, I have to go to bed now. Not that I have any pajamas to wear or a toothbrush because my suitcase didn’t make it here to South Africa from Sweden. Maybe it will catch up to me tomorrow, before I leave for Hong Kong.

Who knows?

More later.

Meg