Hi SBN (What a great acronym! With an acronym like that we’ll rival CNN or China’s CCTV in no time!). We need everyone involved to go around saying, “I SBN” we’ll make pin badges and everything . . .

I work in marketing and publicity for Egmont UK (there’s an Egmont US now too). We’re the UK publishers of Gone, and were invited to blog by Michael- Thanks!

I’ve just come back from the Bath Festival of Children’s Literature where we had a number of authors. Basically I’m the person that has to tell people like Meg Cabot (see her post below) to get off their couch and go and promote their work!

I understand what she’s saying, one of the authors we dragged along kept complaining that she could have been at home finishing her next book instead of promoting her last one. But I was unrepentant and kept her chained to the signing desk for 2 long hours, without water. I’m hoping to get some electrodes together for my next tour  - that’ll keep them in line.

Actually the real benefit of touring is that the kids get really excited about seeing authors talk. One child who was listening to Andy Stanton talk laughed so much he threw up and had to be removed – awesome. Another group watched enthralled as Jackie Morris painted an alternative book cover live in front of them.

Moments like that make festivals and tours really special places to be.

Not quite two weeks from our first post.  We just passed 1,000 hits.  

So far we’ve had eight contributing bloggers.  Thanks to all.  More bloggers are on the way.  (Think cavalry, but wearing bathrobes.)  We hope soon to have several new posts per day, every day.  

The tweaking of the site will continue until we have it running just the way we like it.  We’re starting to put ads up on the right side-bar for our contributors.  We’re playing around with the blogroll.  And soon we’ll start actually promoting the site with Google ads, and by reaching out to other blogs, and by sending out bulletins on Facebook and MySpace.  Readers can already subscribe to Stupid Blog Name on Twitter and RSS.

Our goal is total world domination.  We don’t know why.  We just think it might be fun.

Hi. Michael very kindly invited me to participate in this here blog, and I’m super-psyched. Even though I’m taking a time-out from my own site, YA New York (hopefully a short break rather than a long one), I thought I’d stop in here and introduce myself.

So, my name is Sabrina, I’m a Leo, and I like long walks on the beach. Actually, I really do like long walks on the beach, especially early in the morning.

But mostly I like reading (and attempting to write) teen lit. Here’s the problem I’ve encountered, though: In one day, I can go through three books. Seriously. Three. And then, by the time the pub date rolls around, I’ve read about sixty billion other books, and I can’t remember what happened in, for example, Losers by Matthue Roth. (Which is a really great read, and I got to do an interview with Matthue, and it’ll be posted on the site on Oct. 1 if I can remember what the book was about. Zombies? Werewolves? A Russian kid in Philadelphia? I think it’s probably the last one.)

Now, a smart, organized person would write up reviews immediately after reading each book. And then she’d put them all in a queue, to be automagically posted on the release date. But such a person would also probably do her laundry on a semi-regular basis, before the only thing left in her closet is the fancy dress she bought for black tie weddings. Alas, I am not such a person.

Which means that I need Justine Larbalestier to give me an organization fairy. Or an intern slave who will do all the organizing for me. How does one get intern slaves, anyway? Suggestions, anyone?

Hi, we have a minor glitch with comments. You have to click the headline (for example, “Glitch #1) to make or see comments. The tech support brain trust is working on it.

We love comments and encourage same. They will be “moderated” so there can be a delay before they appear.

Update: This has been fixed.

The Wife and Me: Having Consumed Wine.

Welcome to Stupid Blog Name.  This is the very first post.

There are a lot of great blogs covering YA and kidlit.  I’ll link to them all once we get this thing completely up and running.  But I see this blog going in a slightly different direction.  I want to bring together contributors from all ends of the business — writers, editors, agents, publicists — on the one hand, and some actual, living, breathing kid writers on the other.

I hope to talk about serious things in an unserious way.  But we’ll balance that off by talking about unserious things in an even less serious way.  Occasionally, when there’s simply no other option, we’ll try and have an intelligent discussion.

We’ve already assembled an amazing list of contributors, all chomping (Champing?  One of the editors will tell me.) at the bit, dying for the chance to work for free and pour their hearts and souls into this blog.   And by chomp/champing I of course mean that they’ve all reluctantly agreed to do it as long as it’s not too hard.

Stupid Blog Name is owned and operated by me, Michael Grant, and my wife and frequent co-author, Katherine (K.A.) Applegate. I’ll contribute every now and then.  Katherine will contribute whenever I cajole her into it.

We also have, in no particular order, author Carol Snow; from Firebrand Literaray, agent MIchael Stearns;  from Simon and also Schuster, editor Mark McVeigh; from Books of Wonder in NYC, bookseller Peter Glassman; from Shrinking Violet, Mary and Robin; from the Book Muncher and remaining anonymous the Book Muncher; from Egmont UK Alistair Spalding; and, if I can ever figure out what I did with her email, the Story Siren; and last but not least, Meg Cabot.

I don’t know, I guess she’s some kind of writer or whatever.

So, some housekeeping:  this isn’t an off-the-rack blog design, The Boy built it.  We may have the occasional glitch.  We’ll have links up in those big blank boxes to the right as soon as the various contributors send me some art.  We will put a blogroll up.  We’ll have a big contributors page, detailing the details of our various contributors.

We expect we’ll kind of suck at the start and get gradually better.

Hang in there with us as we work together to inform, amuse, entertain, um. . . did I already say inform?  Hmmm.  Inform, amuse, entertain . . . Oh, and use our assembled might to dominate the world of YA lit, crush our many (many) enemies and destroy all who would oppose us.  Yeah, that was it.