Hey everybody! I hope you all had a great summer. I’m sorry I don’t update more, but it’s crazy how busy you can be without really having anything to update about. I decided to do an end of the summer recap like I did last year—just the books and music and movies I enjoyed most. I love to share good stuff.

You can read her recommendations at StephenieMeyer.com.

As usual, there’s lots of good stuff there- looks like I’ll be making a stop at I-tunes and Amazon today. And because Stephenie turned me into the Blue October wanna-be-groupie that I am I just had to quote this little part of her summer wrap up-

And then I got to go see Blue October again. I love their shows. You can’t really know Blue October until you see them live. It’s an amazing experience.

Truer words have never been typed… if you get a chance to see them do not let it pass you by!

USA Today is reporting that The Twilight Saga has beat the Harry Potter series on the Best-Selling list. 

Stephenie Meyer’s four-book Twilight series has sunk its fangs into USA TODAY’s Best-Selling Books list — with no signs of letting go. Meyer’s domination of the list for the past 12 months has smashed records that until now had belonged to J.K. Rowling.

Breaking Dawn, the fourth book in the teen-vampire romance series, entered the list at No. 1 on Aug. 2, 2008. Its sales and those of Twilight, New Moon and Eclipse, the first three books, have remained staggering.

This week, Meyer’s novels are Nos. 4, 5, 6 and 7 on USA TODAY’s list.

Rowling, overall, has sold more books than Meyer — her seven-book series about boy wizard Harry Potter has 143 million copies in print in the USA, while Meyer has sold 40 million copies of her four books. But Rowling can’t match Meyer’s control of the list.

Read the entire article, which discusses sales trends and stats, here.

MTV’s Hollywood Crush Blog has the scoop on the Breaking Dawn Special Edition that will be available August 4th. 

The book includes a replica of the handwritten lyrics for Blue October’s “My Never” — a song that screams “Twilight” — and a “Breaking Dawn” Concert Series DVD…. the special edition book also comes with a full-color Edward and Bella poster.

You can read the entire article here.  You can pre-order the Breaking Dawn Special Edition here. 

Excuse me while I have a fangirly moment- squeeeee!!!!!!!  I can’t wait to have the Breaking Dawn Concert DVD to watch!! 

This is such a great story.  It amazes me where Twilight fans pop up. The band Meese apparently are big Twilight Saga fans.  They had the opportunity to meet Stephenie Meyer at their concert the other night.  Nathan blogged about the experience-

Hi guys, Nathan here. Now for something that you probably didn’t know about Ben and me. We’re into Twilight. Like IN TO it. It started when we were visiting our record label almost a year ago and they had a bunch of copies of the book laying around and I needed something to read on the airplane on the way back to Denver. Anyways – it was one of those obsessed-at-first-page type scenarios where I didn’t put the book down for two days and two nights until it was completely absorbed by my eyes and my brain. If you’d of told me earlier in my life that I’d be reading vampire love story saga I’d call you crazy, but sometimes life throws you curveballs…

So I finished ‘Eclipse’ (the third book) about a week ago before a show with Copeland in Cali. I bought ‘Breaking Dawn’ (the last one) at the airport in San Francisco before I flew home to Denver to play a show. Yadda yadda we’re playing our first show with The Fray in Phoenix two nights ago and I had been reading the in the dressing room and got to page 120 or something like that when all of a sudden some says in passing really nonchalant “Yeah, the Twilight author, Stephenie Meyer is gonna be here tonight”. Then I had this split second indecision of “Should I try to play it cool and act like I meet super famous genius writers all the time? OR should I flip out and tell her what a big fan I am and get my picture taken with her?”. I think it’s pretty obvious which one I picked. Stephenie was AWESOME. We got to hang out and chatted for a while! If it wasn’t for the fact that we had to go on stage to play, I probably would’ve tried to talk to her all night.

I personally had never heard of Meese before this story popped up in my google alerts but I’ve spent some time over at their site this evening and I’m really impressed.  I’m definitely going to be making a trip to I-tunes shortly.  Check out their latest video- 

EW.com is reporting that a Twilight Graphic Novel is in the works-

For those of you who can’t get enough Edward and Bella, EW can announce — exclusively — that Yen Press will be publishing Twilight in graphic-novel form. Though Korean artist Young Kim is creating the art, Meyer herself is deeply immersed in the project, reviewing every panel.

Take a close look at the biology-class sketch we’ve obtained (that’s an empty dialogue bubble between their heads, if you’re wondering). What’s interesting to me is that it doesn’t look simply like an artist’s rendering of Kristen Stewart and Rob Pattinson. In fact, the characters seem to be an amalgam of Meyer’s literary imagination and the actors’ actual looks. The description of Edward from biology class: “His dazzling face was friendly; open, a slight smile on his flawless lips. But his eyes were cautious.” And Bella: “I was ivory-skinned …. I had always been slender, but soft somehow, obviously not an athlete…” To me, this graphic-novel Bella seems much closer to me to Meyer’s book than to Stewart’s sultry portrayal. The Edward shown is closer to Pattinson, but not a real duplicate; there’s something very winning in the sketch that I don’t see in Pattinson’s all-too-perfect tousled bronze locks and piercing eyes.

What do you think? If you’d like to see more before weighing in, pick up a copy of EW magazine, which will hit newsstands on Friday, July 17 — it contains finished illustrations of Edward, Bella, and Jacob.

Seth just posted the following at Stephenie Meyer’s official site-

Exciting news:
Click here to read about a very cool new project that Yen Press is working on: Twilight: The Graphic Novel. The newest issue of Entertainment Weekly (hitting newsstands on Friday) will feature three exclusive illustrations from the book. More information about the book, including the publication date, will be coming. This is the first announcement of the book, so it is still not available for pre-order, but I will post a link as soon as it goes on sale.

 

Bright ‘Twilight’: Vampires won’t let go. Just as they did in the first quarter, Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight novels continued to dominate USA TODAY’s Best-Selling Books list in the second quarter — selling in the same order as they did in the first three months of the year.

Congratulations Stephenie!!!!

A quick fyi: I am taking down my bloated myspace page. It was a lot of fun while it lasted, and I really miss the early days when I could hang out with people online. Many of you are hilarious and insightful, and I wish it was easier for me to talk to everyone the way I used to.

With the myspace no longer in existence, I can now clearly state that—beside than this website—there is no other outlet where I communicate with people online. I do not have a facebook page, and I have never had one. I don’t do twitter. So if you’re communicating with someone online that you think is me, it’s not.

Stephenie has softened the blow of her MySpace page’s demise with a book recommendation-

Hope you all are having a great summer so far! If you’re looking for some beach reading, you might try Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson and the Olympians series if you haven’t already. My son finally finished book five yesterday so I could read it today. It was a fantastic end to a fantastic series. I tip my hat to you, Mr. Riordan!

XO
Steph

Thank you, everybody who voted at the MTV Movie Awards! It was awesome to see Twilight get so much love. Congratulations to Catherine and Rob and Kristen and all of the cast and everyone at Summit and everybody on the crew! You all did an amazing job and you deserve your popcorn!

Twilight fans are the best!

XOXO
Steph

P.S. You got to see a little taste of New Moon tonight, but I promise you this: when it comes to New Moon, you haven’t seen anything yet! Can November please come faster?

Stephenie Meyer and Breaking Dawn have both won Children’s Choice Awards- Stephenie for Author of the Year and Breaking Dawn for Book of the Year.  Read all the details at TheTwilightSaga.com

 Congratulations Stephenie!!!

If you don’t want to watch the entire interview (gasp! say it isn’t so!!!) the part where Justin talks about Stephenie is from 4:50 to approx 5:50. 

EW.com is reporting that Little Brown will publishing several new Twilight Saga editions and journals this fall.

According to a press release from the publisher, the Breaking Dawn Special Edition, on stands Aug. 4, will include a DVD of the Breaking Dawnconcert series and interviews with Meyer. Those who pick up the hardcover book can also expect a poster and reproduction of handwritten lyrics for “My Never,” by Blue October’s Justin Furstenfeld. The Twilight Journals (pictured), out Oct. 13, are packaged in a tin and include “decorative quotes” from each book. For those hoping to buy books tied into New Moon, Little, Brown will release New Moon: The Complete Illustrated Movie Companion on Oct. 6 and New Moon trade and mass-market paperback tie-ins in September and November, respectively. They will also publish a New Moon Collector’s Edition on Oct. 6.

EDITED- We just received this press release from Elizabeth, Stephenie’s Publicist, that has much more detail on what the new editions will contain-

Little, Brown AND COMPANY

ANNOUNCES FALL 2009 TWILIGHT SAGA PUBLISHING PROGRAM,

INCLUDING TIE-INS FOR THE HIGHLY-ANTICIPATED NEW MOON MOVIE

 BREAKING DAWN SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES ALSO REVEALED,

INCLUDING EXCLUSIVE CONCERT DVD 

May 7, 2009 (New York, NY) – Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, a division of Hachette Book Group, announced today its Twilight Saga publishing program for Fall 2009.  In addition to the movie tie-in program for the highly-anticipated New Moon movie, Little, Brown will be publishing a limited special edition of Breaking Dawn, the last book in the Twilight Saga, as well as journals featuring the iconic cover artwork from the Twilight Saga.

The Breaking Dawn Special Edition will feature an exclusive DVD of the Breaking Dawn Concert Series, including a performance by Blue October’s Justin Furstenfeld and conversation between Stephenie Meyer and Furstenfeld.  This hardcover edition will also include a reproduction of the personal, handwritten lyrics for “My Never” from Furstenfeld and a full-color Bella and Edward poster.  Little, Brown will be doing a one-time only printing of one million copies for the Breaking Dawn Special Edition. (August 4, 2009; $24.99)  The trade paperback edition of Eclipse, the third book in the series, will also be released. (August 4, 2009; $12.99)

The Twilight Journals set includes four gorgeous journals packaged in a collectible keepsake tin, inspired by Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn. Each journal features the beautiful and instantly-recognizable Twilight Saga cover art and is fully-designed throughout with images and decorative quotes from each of the books, as well as some of the classic works of literature that inspired them. (October 13, 2009; $24.99)

New Moon Collector’s Edition is a deluxe edition of the worldwide bestseller, housed in a slipcase and includes a ribbon bookmark, cloth cover and newly-designed, two-color chapter openers. (October 6, 2009; $30.00)

The New Moon movie tie-in program includes:

New Moon: The Complete Illustrated Movie Companion – a follow-up to the #1 New York Times bestselling Twilight companion, this lavishly illustrated paperback will give readers an exclusive behind-the-scene guide to the making of the movie, including full-color photos of the cast, locations, and sets, and much more. (October 6, 2009; $18.99)

New Moon Trade Paperback Tie-in Edition – this movie tie-in edition will include a collectible full-color, fold-out movie poster.  (Sept 15, 2009; $10.99)

New Moon Mass Market Tie-in Edition – available for the first time in a mass market paperback edition, featuring movie art on the cover.  (November 2009; $7.99)

In less than four years, Stephenie Meyer has become a worldwide publishing phenomenon.  The Twilight Saga’s translation rights have been sold in 43 countries and over 53 million copies have been sold worldwide.  The last book in the Twilight Saga, Breaking Dawn, sold 1.3 million copies in its first day on-sale, breaking publisher records.

Little, Brown Books for Young Readers is a division of Hachette Book Group, a leading trade publisher based in New York and a division of Hachette Livre, the second largest publisher in the world. Hachette Book Group’s product lines include adult, illustrated, religious, children’s and audio books under the Little, Brown and Company, Little Brown Books for Young Readers, Grand Central Publishing, FaithWords, Center Street, Orbit, Yen Press and Hachette Book Group Digital Media imprints.  For more information, visit www.hbgusa.com.

Do you know where you were one year ago today? I do. I was in Provo, Utah lined up outside the Borders. I had spent the entire night on the sidewalk so that we could tickets to the The Host book signing. It was cold and uncomfortable but we had a blast and it was so worth it! Not only did I make some great friends that night but I also got to buy The Host that morning. The Host is my favorite Stephenie Meyer novel and I love it and its characters more and more each time I read it.

Thank you Stephenie for The Host- for Ian (*sigh*), Wanderer, Melanie, Jamie, Jared and the crew, for the lessons I learned from it and for allowing me to fall in love with a human again

Breaking Dawn has been nominated for Teen Choice Book Of The Year and Stephenie Meyer has been nominated for Favorite Author.  You can vote here.

The Project Book Babe auction is still going strong. Currently they have an audio copy of New Moon that has been autographed by Stepehenie Meyer up for auction.

April 21, 2009

There are a lot of things I should be doing updates on—for example, how awesome and successful the Book Babe event was, and how cool it was to meet all the other authors and hang out with them a little bit, and how much I appreciated all the tremendous support from the fans—but instead of commenting on happy things (which I admit I should have done a week ago; I was waiting for things to slow down for a day, silly me!), I’m commenting on ridiculous internet rumors so that my publicist’s day will be just a little bit better.

I am not being sued. No one has contacted me or my publisher to inform either of us that I’m being sued. I never had a roommate named Heidi. There is no professor in the BYU English department named Dr. Peter Benton (though there is a character on ER by that name). And most of all, I began writing Twilight exactly the way I’ve told people in countless interviews and events for the past six years: I had a cool dream, I wrote it down, writing it down was really fun, so I kept writing until I had a whole book.

The sad thing about this silly situation is that so many legitimate news outlets reported it without doing any research at all to determine if there was any truth to the story. And at least two of these facts are really, really easy to confirm. Particularly, the one about the BYU professor. A simple on-line search can give you that information. Also, a quick call to my publisher would have cleared up the whole lawsuit story. (Kudos to the fansites who did their due diligence and debunked this rumor days ago.)

I guess the moral of the story is that—big surprise—you can’t believe everything you read on the internet. Seems like it’s April Fool’s Day every day on-line. So no worries, the filming of New Moon continues uninterrupted. And, to end this on a bright note, the filming of New Moon continues to be awesome. It’s all so beautiful! Chris Weitz is brilliant. Kristen, Rob, and Taylor are beyond words. I have gotten choked up more than once on set due to their amazing performances. I can’t wait to see it all put together!

Steph

In other Project Book Babe news- their auction is still going strong.  Currently they have a box set of The Twilight Saga autographed by Stephenie Meyer.  

 For you Mortal Instruments fans Cassandra Clare is auctioning off the naming of a character in a future book.

Check out all their amazing auction items here.

Australia’s Courier Mail has an interview with Stephenie Meyer.

Meyer, now 35, took three months to write the first book, Twilight. Somehow she managed to keep the fact that she was writing a 130,000-word novel from her accountant husband, Christian (known as Pancho).

“I didn’t tell him what I was doing,” Meyer says. “So he was mystified. And a little irritated that I was hogging the computer all the time. I had as hard a time telling him I was writing a story about vampires as Edward did telling Bella he was one,” she laughs.

Read the entire article here.

Twilight Saga Prom Bag autographed by Stephenie Meyer- This bag premiered at Book Expo America in Los Angeles, California in May of 2008 in preparation for the release of Breaking Dawn.  It is signed by author Stephenie Meyer in silver sharpie.

 The Twilight Saga Box Set Collection autographed by Stephenie Meyer- Autographed by Stephenie Meyer: Each book in the collection and the box is signed. Four hardcovers: Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn.

Twilight Audiobook autographed by Stephenie Meyer- Audio version of Twilight autographed by Stephenie Meyer

Project Book Babe also has many other items up for auction donated by various authors (including a Shannon Hale book that needs to be mine!) Check out all the items they have available here. 

They have also posted a link to a ton of pictures from the event on April 4th- check them out HERE.

Shannon Hale, who was the emcee at Saturday’s Project Book Babe event, has posted a write up of the event with a bunch of pictures on her blog.  Check it out here.

(ps- if you’re looking for something good to read I would recommend any of Shannon’s books!  They are fabulous!!!)

Breaking Dawn has been awarded the Galaxy British Book Award for WHSmith Children’s Book of the Year.   With so much focus on the movies it’s wonderful to see the books receive some well deserved recognition (even if we think it’s more than a children’s book )

Congratulations Stephenie!!!!