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Magnificent Monday

March 2, 2015 by Shellie 5 Comments

Hey Everyone!

The main update this week is Ally is going to be in Texas this Saturday!

March 7, 2015
Irving, TX
North Texas Teen Book Festival

If you are in the area go see Ally and a TON of other authors for FREE!!!!

Also, if you haven’t responded to the poll from last week please do so. Ally and I love reading your comments and she loves getting to know all of you better!

Have a good week!

xoxo,

Shellie

Filed Under: Shellie, Tours and events, Uncategorized Tagged With: Magnificent Monday

Magnificent President’s Day!

February 16, 2015 by Shellie 7 Comments

Hi Everyone!

I hope everyone here in the U.S. is enjoying their day off! I am watching cartoons with the kids and baking some cinnamon rolls and enjoying seeing the small dusting of snow we got. It is the perfect day to stay inside and read a book or re-read your favorite Ally Carter book!

And how about a FREE Ally Short Story?!?! Just click HERE and head over to Amazon for the FREE download.

Want to see Ally in person? Here are next month’s tour stops:

March 7, 2015
Irving, TX
North Texas Teen Book Festival

 

March 14-15
Tucson, AZ
Tucson Festival of Books

I hope everyone has a great week!

xoxo,

Shellie

 

Filed Under: Embassy Row, Shellie, Tours and events Tagged With: Magnificent Monday

Magnificent Monday

February 2, 2015 by Shellie 16 Comments

Hi All!

Ally is still on tour this week! If you are in the area go see her here:

February 3
Memphis, TN 
6:00 pm
Booksellers at Laurelwood/Memphis
387 Perkins Extd

 

February 5
Chattanooga, TN 
6:00 pm
Barnes & Noble Hamilton Place
2100 Hamilton Place Blvd

And you can always call one of the locations where Ally has been and order a signed copy!

I am going to give it some more time before I start doing contest regarding All Fall Down to give everyone a chance to read the book! But keep checking back for some fun contest and prizes. Speaking of contest…What is your favorite blog contest that we do? Word scramble, find this quote, etc.

Every one in the cold stay warm and those in warm weather enjoy it and be thankful!

xoxo,

Shellie

Filed Under: Embassy Row, Shellie, Tours and events Tagged With: Magnificent Monday

Magnificent Monday & Ally is on Tour!

January 26, 2015 by Shellie 6 Comments

 

Hi All!

First things first, Ally has added one more stop on her tour this week!!!

January 29
Winnetka, IL
4:30 pm
Event at The Book Stall
811 Elm Street
**Joint event with Elizabeth Eulberg (Lonely Hearts Club & We Can Work It Out)

If you are anywhere near this venue please go and see her and get those books signed! For all of Ally’s tour dates check HERE!

 

The other big news was Ally did a question and answer session on her Tumblr this past weekend.

There were some great questions! For all of you that missed it here are the Questions and Answers!

Question: Just finished All Fall Down and now I want more! But I do have a question is this going to be a trilogy or a series?

Answer:

Right now there are three books under contract, so I think it will be a three book series (trilogy, though I have recently come to hate the term for a variety of reasons I won’t go into.)

However, I always let the books decide these things in the end. So if I need more books to properly tell the story, then I will absolutely go to my publisher and beg for them to let me do more.

But if I had to bet right now, I’d put my money on three books. (With book 2 coming out in about a year.)

Question:Hi ally is the release date for all fall down all over the world the same? Like for example *cough* Ireland?

Answer:

No. With the exception of a few MEGA releases (ex: Harry Potter), there is no such thing as a universal release date. And even then, I highly doubt the seventh Harry Potter came out all over the world on the same day.

Why? Because all publishing is local. I don’t have “A Publisher”. I literally have twenty or thirty. Each country—or “territory”—has different publishers that operate there. And, as authors, we often sell to each of those publishers independently. So they all set their own schedules, do their own translations, make their own covers, organize their own distribution and marketing, etc. etc.

I believe that Ireland will be distributed by my UK publisher, Orchard Books UK. I know that release date is online somewhere but I don’t know it off the top of my head (it is in a week or so).

Question: Hi! I was one of the lucky fans who got an advance copy of Embassy Row (for being the first Ally Ambassadors signed up). Are there any differences between this copy and the one released this week? I also want to say that I LOVED IT. Thank you!

Answer:

Good question. And the answer is no, but probably yes.

You see, ARCs are printed very early. Which means that the author is probably going to make at least one more proofreading pass after the ARCs go to press. In fact, we use the file the ARCs are printed from (the “galley” file) for our last read.

So, in some cases, the ARCs and the finals books are virtually identical except for, perhaps, a few typos we hopefully caught before the final printing. In other cases, however—especially if the production process was really rushed for some reason—the author might make more significant changes at the galley stage. That is NEVER ideal. But it does happen sometimes.

In the case of ALL FALL DOWN I imagine that unless you sat the ARC and the finished book side-by-side you wouldn’t notice any difference.

Question: Hi Ally, I ordered AFD signed, but the one I received wasn’t signed, and the store wont send me a new one. Is there any way I can send you the book to get it signed?

Answer:

First, I’m sorry you are going through this!

I have heard that this has been a problem with a lot of the preorders from one retailer. My publisher has been made aware of the situation, and we’re working to get it resolved.

Step one should probably be contacting the store/retailer in question and asking to exchange your book for a signed one. If (as in the case with this post) that doesn’t resolve the issue, stay tuned. Again, my publisher is trying to get this straightened out.

And, again, I’m sincerely sorry.

Question: 7 years is a long time to have an idea in your head. When you were actually writing the story, did you ever come to a point when you felt like you were just over thinking things?? And if so, how did you get past it??

Answer:

You’re right. It was a VERY long time!

Over the course of those seven years the idea shifted and changed—first a little; and then a lot.

Initially, I saw it as being sort of a YA 24 (the spy show that was popular at the time.) I thought it would take place almost in real time. Because my least favorite part of writing is often the transitions between scenes, I thought it would be a fun/interesting challenge to write a book that was almost one big scene!

But over time that idea became less and less appealing to me. I started to focus more and more on the world.

One of the really important days in the development of this idea came back in 2012. I was on tour for (I think) Gallagher Girls 5, OUT OF SIGHT OUT OF TIME. I had the pleasure of touring with Rachel Hawkins (HEX HALL), and we were spending the day in Washington, D.C.

At one point, we needed to kill a little time, so I asked the woman who was escorting us for the day if DC had an “embassy row”.

Technically, they don’t—there are embassies spread out all over the area. But there is one street that has more embassies than usual, so she offered to take us there.

It was incredible—a long, half-moon-shaped street lined with massive old houses and buildings. Very cool. Very lovely. But at the end of the street sat an old, vacant building. It was in disrepair, and it was obvious that it had been abandoned for a long time. It was nothing like the other buildings on the street

Then our escort pointed to that building and said, “That’s the country of Iran.”

Literally. The. Country. Of. Iran.

Since the US hasn’t had diplomatic relations with Iran since the 70s the building has been abandoned all that time. But it is still, technically, Iranian soil.

I told Rachel all about the idea of Embassy Row, and she loved it and was incredibly supportive. That’s probably the day that ER went from being “an idea for a book” to “a book I will write someday.”

Question: How do you pronounce Adria? Is it AY-dria or AH-dria? It’s just a small debate my sister and I got in. Thank you. I had the opportunity to read an ARC ( absolutely loved it) and am now waiting for the finished book 😀

Answer:

I say it with a long A. Like Amy.

Question: I absolutely love your GG and Heist books! I can’t wait to read your latest editions, as I am sure that it will be just was wonderful as the others. So for my question: How different was it to write for Embassy Row, than it was to write for GG or even Heist. Also, will you ever write more Heist Society books in the future?

Answer:

The biggest difference for Embassy Row was that it had been a really long time since I”d had to create a new world. For the past several years I hadn’t had to answer questions like “What is this character’s name?” and “Who are her best friends?”

But while that was one of the biggest challenges, it was also one of the more fun aspects as well. It was a totally clean slate. And that was very liberating in a way.

Now … Heist Society. I would dearly love to write more Heist books. In fact, I’ve always thought I might write twenty or thirty heist books! It has that wonderful episodic structure that allows for a truly open-ended series. So, yes. I’d love to do more, and sincerely plan to do so at some point in the future.

Question: Hi. I loved AFD as much as I loved all your books.We know GG and HS are in the same universe because of the crossover (which I need more of) but does All Fall Down take place in the same world? May we get another, 3 way, cross over? 

Answer:

Yes. I think Embassy Row probably exists in the same world as Gallagher and Heist Society. In fact, you may notice a little throw-away-line/Easter egg about how Grace’s grandfather’s claim to fame was that he negotiated the Treaty of Caspia which is, of course, pivotal to the plot of GG6, United We Spy!

As to the question of crossovers, I suppose it is possible, but probably unlikely at this point. (My film attorney is already about to strangle me for having one crossover property. He’s surely kill me if I had three because it makes contracts much, much more difficult.)

Question:Hi! When are you next doing a tour in the UK?

Answer:

I’d dearly love to come to the UK! I was able to do a tour there several years ago, and it was amazing. Hopefully, I’ll have the opportunity to come back in the near future!

Question: So, I may be jumping the gun here. Just a little bit. But considering that it is January 21st, and that was plenty of time for me to eagerly devour the first book of the series…I have to ask. When can we see more of Grace? This novel had me on the edge of my seat for hours. I loved every bit of it! Do you know yet how many books will be in the series, and when we can expect to read part two? I’m going through some serious Adria withdrawal right now. 🙂 

Answer:

Thank you! I, personally, really love and feel for Grace. It makes me happy to hear that there are people out there who are rooting for her as hard as I am.

As for future books… There are currently THREE Embassy Row books under contract. I’m gonna try to get all the answers in there, but if that’s not possible I’m not above begging Scholastic to let me do a fourth.

I believe the plan is for book 2 to be in stores about this time next year!

That’s it for today! Have a great week! And go see Ally if you can!

xoxo,

Shellie

Filed Under: Embassy Row, Frequently Asked Questions, Shellie, Tours and events Tagged With: Magnificent Monday

All Fall Down is HERE!

January 20, 2015 by Ally Carter 12 Comments

Hi Everyone!

Today is the day!!! All Fall Down is now available!!

And what is better than getting Ally’s new book? Getting a signed copy and meeting Ally of course!!!!

Here are you chances to see Ally in person starting with TONIGHT!!!

Here is the updated tour schedule so far:

January 20
Tulsa, Oklahoma
7:00 pm
Barnes & Noble Woodland Plaza
8620 E 71st Street

 

January 27
Oconomowoc, WI (btwn Milwakee & Madison)
6:30 pm
Books & Company
1039 Summit Ave
**Joint event with Elizabeth Eulberg, author of Lonely Hearts Club & We Can Work It Out

 

January 28
Glendale, WI (Milwakee area)
6:30 pm
Event at North Shore Library (sponsored by Boswell Books)
6800 N. Port Washington Road
**Joint event with Elizabeth Eulberg (Lonely Hearts Club & We Can Work It Out) and Liz Czukas (Top 10 Clues You’re Clueless)

 

January 30
Naperville, IL (Chicago area)
6:30 pm
Anderson’s Bookshop
123 West Jefferson Ave.
*Joint event with Elizabeth Eulberg (Lonely Hearts Club & We Can Work It Out)
**Purchase may be required. Check with Anderson’s regarding their store policies.

 

February 3
Memphis, TN 
6:00 pm
Booksellers at Laurelwood/Memphis
387 Perkins Extd

 

 

February 5
Chattanooga, TN 
6:00 pm
Barnes & Noble Hamilton Place
2100 Hamilton Place Blvd

 

 

March 7, 2015
Irving, TX
North Texas Teen Book Festival

 

March 14-15
Tucson, AZ
Tucson Festival of Books

 

April 11
Houston, TX
Teen Book Con

 

Of course we will be adding dates to this list so please keep checking back!

Ally not going to be in your area? No problem, we will be having lots of fun giveaways in the next few months here on the blog.

Ally & Shellie

Filed Under: Books, Embassy Row, Tours and events

All Fall Down tour info & more!

January 7, 2015 by Ally Carter 12 Comments

Hey everybody! Ally here with so many exciting things!!!!

First, you guys know that the first Embassy Row book, ALL FALL DOWN, will be in stores in the US and Canada in just under two weeks, right?

January 20th is the official release date. (At one point the release date was January 27th, but it got moved up, so if you see the 27th somewhere, please note that it has changed.)

I’m SO EXCITED to have the book be out there for all of you to read. I sincerely hope you’re able to give Grace a shot, because–as much as I love Kat and Cammie–Grace might be my favorite. She is just a lot more…raw…than any character I’ve ever written. She’s also in a lot more pain. Constant pain. Unrelenting, overwhelming pain. And, for Grace, just getting up in the morning is a challenge. She needs our love, in other words.

And there are a lot of things going on to help welcome Grace into the world.

 

1. AUTOGRAPHED COPIES AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER!

In October I signed thousands of “tip-in” sheets which will be bound into the finished copies of some books. If you’d like one of those books, you’re in luck! You can now order them from the following retailers:

Barnes & Noble 

Target

An Independent Bookseller (want to know where you can find an indie? Check right here.)

There will also be signed copies in their own special display at many indie bookstores, so even if you don’t pre-order one you can still pick up up (or call and order one over the phone) after the 20th.

 

2. UPCOMING TOUR AND EVENTS!

This is still a preliminary list (we have a few more events in the works, but they aren’t 100% confirmed yet, so I will have to share those details with you in a few days.)

But in the meantime I wanted to share the details of a few of the events that we have scheduled to welcome ALL FALL DOWN into the world.

 

January 20
Tulsa, Oklahoma
7:00 pm
Barnes & Noble Woodland Plaza
8620 E 71st Street

 

January 27
Oconomowoc, WI (btwn Milwakee & Madison)
6:30 pm
Books & Company
1039 Summit Ave
**Joint event with Elizabeth Eulberg, author of Lonely Hearts Club & We Can Work It Out

 

January 28
Glendale, WI (Milwakee area)
6:30 pm
Event at North Shore Library (sponsored by Boswell Books)
6800 N. Port Washington Road
**Joint event with Elizabeth Eulberg (Lonely Hearts Club & We Can Work It Out) and Liz Czukas (Top 10 Clues You’re Clueless)

 

January 30
Naperville, IL (Chicago area)
6:30 pm
Anderson’s Bookshop
123 West Jefferson Ave.
*Joint event with Elizabeth Eulberg (Lonely Hearts Club & We Can Work It Out)
**Purchase may be required. Check with Anderson’s regarding their store policies.

*More February events to be announced shortly.

 

March 7
Irving, TX (Dallas-Ft. Worth area)
North Texas Teen Book Festival

 

March 14
Tucson, AZ
Tucson Festival of Books

 

As always, please check the websites of the host stores to see what their signing policies are. (Some stores will allow you to bring books from home; some will not.)

And I look forward to hopefully seeing some of you very soon!

Ally

 

 

Filed Under: Embassy Row, Tours and events

Magnificent New Year!!!

January 5, 2015 by Shellie 7 Comments

Happy New Year Everyone!

We have such a fun-filled year ahead of us here at Ally Carter! I am so excited about all the fun things we get to share with all of you!

First and most importantly will be the release of All Fall Down: An Embassy Row novel on January 20!!! Hello, that is just 15 days away!!!

And as Ally stated in the previous post you can preorder a SIGNED copy!

Here are the details:

INDIE BOOKSTORES
First, most independent bookstores will be getting a supply and will even have a special display at book release time!

So . . . call, email, or pop into an independent bookstore and reserve your copy now or pick one up release week.

Want to know where your closest indie bookstore is? Use this link to look one up. (And just note that even if you don’t have an indie nearby, I’ve never met one who wasn’t willing to take an order over the phone, let you pay with a credit card, and then ship you a book right to your house!)

 

BARNES & NOBLE
Barnes & Noble will also be getting a big supply, and you can preorder one of those right here. Note that that is a SPECIAL link.

If you have pre-ordered your book from BN before now, then I’m sorry to say that book likely will not be signed. I sincerely hope it will be possible for you to cancel or swap your pre-order for one from this link.

You see, BN will be classifying SIGNED copies and UNSIGNED copies separately. (If you go to BN.com you’ll see they have two different product pages.)

SO YOU MUST SPECIFICALLY ORDER A SIGNED COPY.

How do you order a signed copy from Barnes & Noble?

WITH THIS LINK.

 

TARGET
There will also be a supply of signed copies available from Target! (Yay! Who doesn’t love going to Target?)

To order a signed copy of the book from Target, use this link.

Will some signed copies be in Target stores? Quite possibly. But the only way to guarantee you get a signed copy is to pre-order it from Target (or BN or you local Indie) now.

Want to meet Ally in person and get all your Ally Carter books signed? Here are the Tour/Conference dates so far:

North Texas Teen Book Festival
Irving, TX
March 7, 2015

Tucson Festival of Books
Tucson, AZ
March 14-15, 2015

We will be adding more dates as they become available so keep checking back!

And of course we will have some super awesome Giveaways here on the blog because I love giving you guys stuff!

I really wish all of you the BEST for this upcoming new year and am super excited for all the fun we are going to have here on the blog!

Anything that you are excited about for the upcoming year? Any resolutions you are going to try?

xoxo,

Shellie

Filed Under: Embassy Row, Shellie, Tours and events Tagged With: Magnificent Monday

San Antonio, baby!

July 22, 2014 by Ally Carter 7 Comments

Hi everybody!

I should be packing.

No. Seriously. I leave tomorrow, and I have no idea what I should wear or take. And shoes! The shoe question is always a BIG one!

Where am I going?

Well, regular blog readers will hopefully remember that I am attending the Romance Writers of America Annual Convention in San Antonio.

If you live in the San Antonio area, please try to come by for the first night of the conference!

The Literary Autographing is free and open to the public. It takes place Wednesday, July 23 at the Marriott Rivercenter Hotel. Click here for complete information.

Some things you need to know:

1. This is not your average book signing.

There will be hundreds of authors all in one room. Also, the proceeds all go to charity (which I think is really cool).

2. Because of #1, you will not be allowed to bring in your books from home. I will, however, have bookplates (little fancy stickers) which I will happily sign and then you can place them in your books.

3. We will have a few books for sale. It will not be all of my books, and it will be a limited number. (Because the books are donated so that 100% of the proceeds can go to charity.)

 

I know this isn’t what many of you are used to, but it is a GREAT event. I hope that you’ll come and walk around and meet some other really great authors (there are literally hundreds scheduled to attend). And I hope that we can all celebrate books and literacy at one of my favorite events of the year!

-Ally

 

 

Filed Under: Tours and events

NEW ORLEANS!

May 13, 2014 by Ally Carter 15 Comments

Hi everybody!

Ally here.

Sorry I haven’t posted in a while. I actually have a couple of pretty good reasons for that.

First, I have just completed copyedits for EMBASSY ROW! What does that mean? Well, it means going through the entire manuscript (about 300 pages) with a fine tooth comb to make sure of things like “should fine tooth be two words? Or one word? Or one hyphenated word? IS IT FINE-TOOTH? OR FINE-TOOTHED? Someone please help me!!!!!

That is what copyedits are. And they are now over!

Now, I will still do one more pass before Embassy Row is printed. This pass is what is known as a Galley Edit, and for it the book will be all typeset and official looking with its book-y font and chapter breaks and any sort of graphics there might be…. All that fun stuff.

But for now, at least, my work on Embassy Row is finished.

The second reason that I have been quiet is because about a month ago I had to have some surgery. It wasn’t a big deal, and I’m not going to talk about it in detail. Just know that I was a little off my game for a few weeks, but I’m chugging back and doing really great. Hopefully I’ll be back at 100% before too long.

Now . . . for the important news:

I’M GOING TO NEW ORLEANS THIS WEEK.

Yes, that’s right. If you live in, near, or around New Orleans, LA, then I would HIGHLY recommend you talk to your parents or guardians or librarians or teachers or SOMEONE and sweet-talk them into bringing you to the RT Booklovers’ Convention Teen Day THIS SATURDAY.

Yes. Saturday, May 17th.

All events are at the Marriott Hotel on Canal Street.

You have two options for taking part.

1. There is a Giant Book Signing with over 700 authors. (Here are the YA peeps) 

Admission to the giant book signing is $5 (I think) but you get in free with a library card!

So you can come, walk up and down the aisles filled with authors. Browse. Talk. Get stuff signed. And then take off when you’re finished.

Or, you can opt for #2.

2. Take part in RT Teen Day!

Teen Day registration is just $30 for a teen and a chaperone. (I’m told you can register on-site, but you might want to call ahead just to make sure they aren’t full up.)

It gets you into the giant book fair PLUS you get to attend a number of sessions with some of your favorite authors as well as a Teen Day Party where some awesome goodie bags will be given out on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Read all about it in this flier.

I am not touring this year. And I’ve NEVER toured through Louisiana. So I’m incredibly excited to be taking part in this event, and I sincerely hope that a lot of you will be able to join us there!

Hugs,

Ally

 

 

 

Filed Under: Embassy Row, Tours and events

United We Spy Chapter 2

September 10, 2013 by Ally Carter 42 Comments

Hey Everyone!

A little something to brighten your day!

United We Spy Chapter Two is now up and ready for you to read! Enjoy! (Just scroll down. It is (understandably) beneath chapter one.)

And don’t forget Ally goes on tour next week! Find all the details Here!

 

xoxo,

Shellie

Filed Under: Excerpts, Gallagher Girls 6, Tours and events Tagged With: Excerpts

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