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