Author: Diane Zahler

I'm the author of THE THIRTEENTH PRINCESS, A TRUE PRINCESS, PRINCESS OF THE WILD SWANS, and SLEEPING BEAUTY'S DAUGHTERS, all published by HarperCollins Children's Books, and BAKER'S MAGIC (Capstone, 2016) and THE MARVELWOOD MAGICIANS (Boyds Mills, 2017).

The Best Part

As anyone who’s been published or wants to be published or has worked in publishing or has known someone who works in publishing knows, the business has its upPublishing-images and downs. Publishing houses open and close, spawn new imprints, get swallowed up by giant multinational corporations. Keeping track of who owns the rights to what is nearly impossible. You might as well just assume it’s Rupert Murdoch and be done with it.

 

Editors come and go. You may find an editor who’s an exact fit for you as a writer — but a year later, she’s off to a better job at a new house.  You torment yourself with indecision: Do you follow her? Leave the publisher who has snatched ringoyou from obscurity, promoted your books? Or stay and try your luck with the unknown editor who is a decade or two younger than you are, who may have been surprised to learn that Ringo Starr had a gig before he was Station Manager on Thomas the Tank Engine?

 

 

Sales are unpredictable. What you thought was your best work is barely a bsales charlip on BookScan. You flagellate yourself: Why didn’t I fly to (name the smallest airport you can think of) so I could visit their local bookstores and promote my book? Why did I print bookmarks instead of flyers? Why didn’t I force absolutely everyone I know even slightly to write a positive review on sales and review sites?

 

Reviews…well,Publication1 I don’t even have to go there. But I will. The self-flagellation continues: Why didn’t I include that car chase, that zombie/vampire/sexy angel, that fascinating plot twist in the book? Why did I put that cardboard character, that zombie/vampire/sexy angel, that inexplicable plot twist in the book? WHY, WHY, WHY DID I EVER READ THAT REVIEW?

 

 

But the one thing that I can always count on for pure delight is readers’ responses. Those emails and, on rare occasions, actual handwritten notes from kids who have read and loved my books. There is nothing to criticize, nothing to second-guess. everything to love about them.

 

Is there a movie of the thirteenth princess? And if not why is there no movie?

 

My favorite book you wrote is “A True Princess.” Will you be writing anymore new books? When I grow up, I want to be an author too. I have already written some stories but they are not published yet. Do you have any advice to write good stories?

 

I love your books and hope to read The Princess of the Wild Swans which I know will be great. P.s I really love the covers of the books they are really beautiful.

 

Please write more books. I just finished Sleeping Beauty’s Daughters, all your books are so wonderful I always want to read more!

 

And the one that I go back to any time publishers, editors, or reviews really get to me:

 

I absolutely love your books. I hated reading before I read your books.

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What could be better than that?

The Last Giveaway. Maybe.

It turns out you can do a Goodreads Giveaway for a couple of months after a book is published — so I am! This time, of course, it’s for a hardcover copy of Sleeping Beauty’s Daughters. And I’ll sign it, too. So click on the widget below and sign up. Good luck!

 

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Sleeping Beauty's Daughters by Diane Zahler

Sleeping Beauty’s Daughters

by Diane Zahler

Giveaway ends October 18, 2013.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

 

Books of Wonder(ful)

The Books of Wonder Great Middle-Grade Reads event was so much fun! Joining me at the table were three other great middle-grade authors:

 

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Dan Poblocki, presenting his really scary new book, The Haunting of Gabriel Ashe. And Morgan Keyes, with the second book in her fascinating Darkbeast series. And, all the way from Australia, Catherine Jinks, presenting How to Catch a Bogle, set in Victorian England.

 

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Jennifer Dee (@rifflemg) live-tweeted the event — a first for me! — and my HarperCollins editor, Andrea Martin, stopped by.

 

And as always, owner Peter Glassman and the enthusiastic and well-prepared bookstore staff were the perfect 100_6880hosts. They made us feel just a little bit like rock stars — a pretty amazing feat, considering the real life of children’s book writers…

Sleeping Beauty’s Daughters Leaves the Nest

Not everyone is fortunate enough to have a bookstore as wonderful as Oblong Books and Records ne100_6833arby, nor a bookstore owner like Suzanna Hermans, who offered to host a launch party for Sleeping Beauty’s Daughters.

 

Nor an agent as fabulous as Jennifer Laughran, who came up with the idea for the party,

 

dessertmade the glorious cake pops,

 

 

 

 

 

and created quill pens as giveaways for book buyers. (If you want to know why quill pens…you’ll just have to read the book.)100_6836

 

 

 

 

 

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Lucky me — it was an incredible way to send my book out into the world!

Book Birthday!

Happy Book Birthday to Sleeping Beauty’s Daughters!

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Today the book is available in  your local bookstores and libraries — or if it isn’t, let your bookseller or librarian know you’d like to read it! You can also order it yourself; just click on the cover.

I’m doing a blog tour for the book. The schedule is here. Check out the reviews, guest posts, and giveaways!

 

oblong

And if you’re in the Hudson Valley area, or you’d like an excuse to visit: Oblong Books and Records in Rhinebeck, NY, is hosting a book launch on Saturday, August 31st, at 6 p.m. There will be cake and cookies, giveaways and prizes. You can pre-order signed copies here.

 

Last butcover not least, Princess of the Wild Swans is now available in paperback! Click on the cover to order.

Sleeping Beauty’s Daughters Blog Tour

airport1Ah, the book tour! All those plane flights, the delays and  missed connections, the pat-downs and X-rays, the packing and unpacking, the unfamiliar cities and lumpy hotel beds, the tricky interviewers and unflattering lighting….

 

Oh, wait. I’m going on a BLOG tour.

 

 

All those wonderful blogs! The charming and well-informed bloggers! The fast Internet connections and easy uploads! And no plane flights at all.

 

Here is where I’ll be, and when:

 

◊Tuesday, August 27: There’s a Book 

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◊Wednesday, August 28: Bookalicious

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◊Thursday, August 29: Manga Maniac Café

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   ◊Friday, August 30: Icey Books

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◊Saturday, August 31: GreenBeanTeenQueen

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 ◊Sunday, September 1: Mundie Moms MundieMomsHeader1

 

 

 

So please, stop by and visit. Read reviews and guest posts, enter giveaways, and leave your comments!

There Were Never Such Devoted Sisters

#31: Whatever it is ….my sister did it! – Anonymous

#30: To know a sister is to know a paradox. — Patricia Foster

#29: Between sisters, often, the child’s cry never dies down.  “Never leave me,” it says; “do not abandon me.”  — Louise Bernikow

#28: Lord, confound this surly sister, blight her brow with blotch and blister/cramp her larynx, lung and liver, in her guts a galling give her. — J. M. Synge

#27: How can an intelligent woman with any delicacy so humiliate a sister? — Leo Tolstoy
(Anna Karenina)

#26: Bless you, my darling, and remember you are always in the heart – oh tucked so close there is no chance of escape – of your sister.  — Katherine Mansfield

#25: Sister, dear sister, come home … — Jessamyn West

#24: For there is no friend like a sister/in calm or stormy weather/to cheer one on the tedious way/to fetch one if one goes astray/to lift one if one totters down/to strengthen whilst one stands. — Christina G. Rossetti

#23: Help one another, is part of the religion of sisterhood.  — Louisa May Alcott

#22: A sister can be seen as someone who is both ourselves and very much not ourselves – a special kind of double. — Toni Morrison

#21: Sisterly love is, of all sentiments, the most abstract.  Nature does not grant it any functions.  — Ugo Betti

#20: Be kind to thy sister. Not many may know the depths of true sisterly love. — Margaret Courtney

#19: There can be no situation in life in which the conversation of my dear sister will not administer some comfort to me.  — Mary Montagu

#18: The mildest, drowsiest sister has been known to turn tiger if her sibling is in trouble.  — Clara Ortega

#17: I would like more sisters, that the taking out of one, might not leave such stillness.  — Emily Dickinson

#16: Sisters is probably the most competitive relationship within the family, but once the sisters are grown, it becomes the strongest relationship. — Margaret Mead 

#15: We acquire friends and we make enemies, but our sisters come with the territory. — Evelyn Loeb

#14: We must stem the tide of malice, and pour into the wounded bosoms of each other, the balm of sisterly consolation. — Jane Austen

#13: Never let an angry sister comb your hair. – Patricia McCann

#12: My sister! My sweet sister! If a name dearer and purer were, it should be thine. — Lord Byron

#11: I had known, from the time when I could speak, that my sister, in her capricious and violent coercion, was unjust to me.  — Charles Dickens (Great Expectations)

#10: It’s a great comfort to have an artistic sister. — Louisa May Alcott

#9: Never praise a sister to a sister; in hope of your compliments reaching the proper ears.  — Rudyard Kipling

#8: With a sister, one can never fear that success will go to one’s head.  — Charlotte Gray

#7: Is solace anywhere more comforting than in the arms of sisters? — Alice Walker

#6: Two scorpions living in the same hole will get along better than two sisters in the  same house. — Arabian Proverb

#5: You know full well as I do the value of sisters’ affections: There is nothing like it in this  world.  — Charlotte Bronte

#4: A ministering angel shall my sister be. — William Shakespeare (Laertes)

#3: Of two sisters one is always the watcher, one the dancer. — Louise Gluck

#2: Big sisters are the crab grass in the lawn of life. — Charles Schultz (or Linus)

#1: Lord help the mister who comes between me and my sister… — Irving Berlin (White Christmas)220px-Smithsnowred

 

Are you a sister? Do you have a sister? Have you ever longed for a sister — or longed to lock your sister in a closet so she would leave you in peace?

 

Sleeping Beauty’s Daughters is, among other things, a story about sisters. That’s always a complex relsisters2ationship, as you know if you answered Yes to any of the questions above. And since it’s one month until the book’s publication, I’ve decided to hold a contest dedicated to sisters. It will go like this:

 

 

♦Each day until August 27th, I’ll psisters3ost a quotation about sisters.

♦To be entered in the contest, you can post your own sister quote, or simply write a comment on this post.

♦On the 27th, I’ll pick a random winner for a SIGNED HARDCOVER copy of Sleeping Beauty’s Daughters!

 

(One caveat: I’ve only found about 20 good quotes so far. So if I like one of yours, I get to use it!)

Goodreads Giveaway

My lovely publicist, Olivia deLeon, has just sent me a big box of ARCs of Sleeping Beauty’s Daughters — and you are the beneficiary! By which I mean, you can enter a contest on Goodreads to win one of two ARCs of the book.

Just go here:

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Sleeping Beauty's Daughters by Diane Zahler

Sleeping Beauty’s Daughters

by Diane Zahler

Giveaway ends July 26, 2013.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

 

And good luck!

For That Someone Special (Maybe You?)

oblongMy wonderful local bookstore, Oblong Books, is hosting a book launch party for Sleeping Beauty’s Daughters, about which I’ll write far more as the date (August 31) approaches. But if you can’t make it to the launch, you can still get a signed book — Oblong is accepting pre-orders for signed copies of all my books!

♦If you’d like to pre-order a signed copy of Sleeping Beauty’s Daughters, click here.

♦If you’d like to pre-order a signed copy of the paperback edition of Princess of the Wild Swans, click here.

♦If you’d like to pre-order a signed copy of the paperback edition of A True Princess, click here.

♦If you’d like to pre-order a signed copy of the paperback edition of The Thirteenth Princess, click here.

Thank you, Oblong!