Face Time with Kody Keplinger!
Hello Everyone!
Today was a super awesome day!
I found out last week through one of my favorite authors, that this super awesome website called Shindig was hosting an event...an event like no other...it was seriously like a virtual book signing!!
And guess who the author was???
Okay, so no it wasn't Meg Cabot ;(.
However, it was someone equally awesome!!!
...
KODY KEPLINGER!!!
Yes, me...The Romance Bookie...got to talk and have a video conversation with one of my absolute favorite authors!!
Since starting The Romance Bookie back in December of 2010, I've talked about Kody Keplinger quite a few times here.
I became OBSESSED with her first novel, The DUFF, when I read it in January of 2011, and was counting down the days to Shut Out, and then shared my absolute wonderful news, here, that I had won an ARC of Kody's latest book A Midsummer's Nightmare!
(BTW if you haven't read one of Kody's books...then WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR????) (STOP reading right now, and go to either Barnes and Noble.com or Amazon, or get in your car and head to your nearest book store and BUY IT!!!) :)
ANYWAY, so yes I got to talk to Kody today!
It was super fun, and the first time I've been a part of a video chat where the author could actually see it's viewers as well!
This event was "ticketed", which actually meant it was free but you had to RSVP, because there were only a limited number of spots. But about, I would say, roughly ten or so viewers were present, and from 3:00-4:00, here in on West Coast, or 6:00-7:00 p.m., there on the East Coast, all of us got to ask our questions to Kody.
It's a bit tough to explain, but I'm going to try anyway.
So what Shindig has going, is that the keynote speaker (aka Kody, in this case) is featured as the biggest video screen, while all the viewers are in the background as little icons, where we can see them move too, if they had their webcam on, or if they didn't then we just saw one of those generic little black silhouette pictures. Then there were these two side buttons...one said "Raise Hand", which is when you were put up as a bigger video screen with Kody, to ask your question; and then the other said "Ask a Question", which was where you could just type out your question and Kody would read and answer it when she got to it.
Because the event was fairly small all of our questions got answered which was really great!
I had a few of mine, ones I had prepared before the event:
My first question was asked through the "Raise Hand" feature, which had video chatting with Kody, and it actually won me A SIGNED FINISHED COPY OF "A MIDSUMMER'S NIGHTMARE"!!!! Which I am SOOOO excited to add to my finished copy Kody Keplinger collection!!!
The question was:
The Romance Bookie: I know you always make playlists with your books, would you say you were inspired from listening to the songs first, or thought of the songs after you had already written down information about the character/story, etc.?
Kody pretty much responded (this is NOT quoted!!! I suck at quoting, when listening to someone talk!) that it's a bit of both. Some of her books have parts that were inspired by a certain song before being written and some had the opposite happen. It really depended.
My second question I asked through the "Ask a Question" button, and it was:
TRB: What's next? Can you tell us a little more about Goldfish? (Goldfish is Kody's fourth novel, which will be coming out next year!! If you want more information about it then go HERE!)
Kody said unfortunately she couldn't tell us a lot about it, because she's currently in the editing phase and a lot of changes are still happening, but what she did say is that it's about a girl who attempted to commit suicide three year prior to the story and how her family and her are dealing with it.
Compared to Kody's previous three releases, if you've read them, you can pretty much tell right off the bet that this will be a MUCH darker story, and Kody said it's a LOT different from what she's written previously.
My third question was also through the "Ask a Question" button again (keep in mind, I PROMISE I tried not to hog the question times!! But I would try to write a question every time she said she had none at the moment!!)
It was:
TRB: What do you see yourself in 10 years? Still writing or doing something else?
Kody said that no matter if she is still getting paid for writing, she would never stop! It's just a part of her life (I thought that was a great answer!). As for aside from writing, she says she's not sure if she'll be still living in New York City, she's thinking possibly trying out California (YAY!! Come visit, Kody!!!) or just traveling a bit, which is something she's always loved!
My last question I asked her was through the "Raise Hand" feature again, and this one was actually inspired by a previous question from another viewer where Kody mentioned that all of her books, aside from her latest A Midsummer's Nightmare was inspired by one specific song, so my question was...
TRB: What were those songs?
Kody said:
The DUFF was inspired by The Veronicas's (a super awesome girl band!!) song I Can't Stay Away
If you haven't listened to it, here it is:
LOVE that song!!
Then Shut Out was inspired by Lady Gaga's Bad Romance! I don't if I've mentioned this before, but I'm a HUGE Lady Gaga fan!!
Even though I'm sure almost everyone has already heard this song, here it is anyway again! :)
The music video I believe is pretty weird (but then again pretty much every Gaga video is pretty out there! It's her music I love, not a huge fan of her videos though...
And then for next year's release, Goldfish, the song is Jack's Mannequin's Made for Each Other Part 2 (btw, I know I keep saying this, but if you haven't heard Jack's Mannequin then seriously check them out! They have some awesome music!!)
Here's the song:
Some great music right??! I actually know and love all of these songs, so that was pretty awesome!!
I wrote down some of Kody's answer from the other viewer's questions, because they were really great.
For instance one viewer asked for Tips on writing, and Kody had three very important ones:
Don't be afraid of rejection!
Take your time!
And Enjoy what you write!
Great answers I thought!
And the last question I wrote the answer down for, was "Is there any sort of advice that she wished she could have had before getting into the publishing industry?"
And to that Kody answered that a friend of hers told her this, "Writing is an art, publishing is a business." In a way it's very true, yet very sad at the same time I believe. But an awesome way of describing it!!
The overall audience video chat ended at 4, but here's the SUPER AWESOME PART!!! Kody stuck around afterwards, and had private video chats with us!!
Okay, I got even luckier because in the end everyone left except me and one other super nice viewer!! Unfortunately that viewer had leave a little afterwards because she had to take care of her six month old, so then Kody and I just talked!
It was super fun! We discussed New York, author events, books, Pretty Little Liars!! (Seriously! I'm a little obsessed with that TV show, and reading #9 right now!)
Kody and I talked for about another 45 minutes just talking about random things! It was so much fun, and so awesome!
Kody, who will be turning 21 on the 8th of August, told me she's going to Vegas in November (she was hoping to go for her 21st, but that unfortunately didn't work out), for an author event! I told her how I had gone this month for my 21st, and she said "Happy Birthday" which was pretty awesome.
Oh and what I also forgot to mention, is that Kody remembered me, because I've been emailing her on and off this past year and a half talking to her about her books and stuff. And she said she was excited to have finally met me! It was super fun!!
So that was my share of the month, I believe. Unless something just as cool happens again in the next couple of weeks, which I doubt! I'm going to go eat some dinner, and get off of my high from this super fun day!
A HUGE thank you to Kody, for doing the chat! It was a ton of fun!! And I can't wait to get my SIGNED finished copy of A Midsummer's Nightmare!!! :)
Today was a super awesome day!
I found out last week through one of my favorite authors, that this super awesome website called Shindig was hosting an event...an event like no other...it was seriously like a virtual book signing!!
And guess who the author was???
Okay, so no it wasn't Meg Cabot ;(.
However, it was someone equally awesome!!!
...
KODY KEPLINGER!!!
Yes, me...The Romance Bookie...got to talk and have a video conversation with one of my absolute favorite authors!!
Since starting The Romance Bookie back in December of 2010, I've talked about Kody Keplinger quite a few times here.
I became OBSESSED with her first novel, The DUFF, when I read it in January of 2011, and was counting down the days to Shut Out, and then shared my absolute wonderful news, here, that I had won an ARC of Kody's latest book A Midsummer's Nightmare!
(BTW if you haven't read one of Kody's books...then WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR????) (STOP reading right now, and go to either Barnes and Noble.com or Amazon, or get in your car and head to your nearest book store and BUY IT!!!) :)
ANYWAY, so yes I got to talk to Kody today!
It was super fun, and the first time I've been a part of a video chat where the author could actually see it's viewers as well!
This event was "ticketed", which actually meant it was free but you had to RSVP, because there were only a limited number of spots. But about, I would say, roughly ten or so viewers were present, and from 3:00-4:00, here in on West Coast, or 6:00-7:00 p.m., there on the East Coast, all of us got to ask our questions to Kody.
It's a bit tough to explain, but I'm going to try anyway.
So what Shindig has going, is that the keynote speaker (aka Kody, in this case) is featured as the biggest video screen, while all the viewers are in the background as little icons, where we can see them move too, if they had their webcam on, or if they didn't then we just saw one of those generic little black silhouette pictures. Then there were these two side buttons...one said "Raise Hand", which is when you were put up as a bigger video screen with Kody, to ask your question; and then the other said "Ask a Question", which was where you could just type out your question and Kody would read and answer it when she got to it.
Because the event was fairly small all of our questions got answered which was really great!
I had a few of mine, ones I had prepared before the event:
My first question was asked through the "Raise Hand" feature, which had video chatting with Kody, and it actually won me A SIGNED FINISHED COPY OF "A MIDSUMMER'S NIGHTMARE"!!!! Which I am SOOOO excited to add to my finished copy Kody Keplinger collection!!!
The question was:
The Romance Bookie: I know you always make playlists with your books, would you say you were inspired from listening to the songs first, or thought of the songs after you had already written down information about the character/story, etc.?
Kody pretty much responded (this is NOT quoted!!! I suck at quoting, when listening to someone talk!) that it's a bit of both. Some of her books have parts that were inspired by a certain song before being written and some had the opposite happen. It really depended.
My second question I asked through the "Ask a Question" button, and it was:
TRB: What's next? Can you tell us a little more about Goldfish? (Goldfish is Kody's fourth novel, which will be coming out next year!! If you want more information about it then go HERE!)
Kody said unfortunately she couldn't tell us a lot about it, because she's currently in the editing phase and a lot of changes are still happening, but what she did say is that it's about a girl who attempted to commit suicide three year prior to the story and how her family and her are dealing with it.
Compared to Kody's previous three releases, if you've read them, you can pretty much tell right off the bet that this will be a MUCH darker story, and Kody said it's a LOT different from what she's written previously.
My third question was also through the "Ask a Question" button again (keep in mind, I PROMISE I tried not to hog the question times!! But I would try to write a question every time she said she had none at the moment!!)
It was:
TRB: What do you see yourself in 10 years? Still writing or doing something else?
Kody said that no matter if she is still getting paid for writing, she would never stop! It's just a part of her life (I thought that was a great answer!). As for aside from writing, she says she's not sure if she'll be still living in New York City, she's thinking possibly trying out California (YAY!! Come visit, Kody!!!) or just traveling a bit, which is something she's always loved!
My last question I asked her was through the "Raise Hand" feature again, and this one was actually inspired by a previous question from another viewer where Kody mentioned that all of her books, aside from her latest A Midsummer's Nightmare was inspired by one specific song, so my question was...
TRB: What were those songs?
Kody said:
The DUFF was inspired by The Veronicas's (a super awesome girl band!!) song I Can't Stay Away
If you haven't listened to it, here it is:
Then Shut Out was inspired by Lady Gaga's Bad Romance! I don't if I've mentioned this before, but I'm a HUGE Lady Gaga fan!!
Even though I'm sure almost everyone has already heard this song, here it is anyway again! :)
Here's the song:
Some great music right??! I actually know and love all of these songs, so that was pretty awesome!!
I wrote down some of Kody's answer from the other viewer's questions, because they were really great.
For instance one viewer asked for Tips on writing, and Kody had three very important ones:
Don't be afraid of rejection!
Take your time!
And Enjoy what you write!
Great answers I thought!
And the last question I wrote the answer down for, was "Is there any sort of advice that she wished she could have had before getting into the publishing industry?"
And to that Kody answered that a friend of hers told her this, "Writing is an art, publishing is a business." In a way it's very true, yet very sad at the same time I believe. But an awesome way of describing it!!
The overall audience video chat ended at 4, but here's the SUPER AWESOME PART!!! Kody stuck around afterwards, and had private video chats with us!!
Okay, I got even luckier because in the end everyone left except me and one other super nice viewer!! Unfortunately that viewer had leave a little afterwards because she had to take care of her six month old, so then Kody and I just talked!
It was super fun! We discussed New York, author events, books, Pretty Little Liars!! (Seriously! I'm a little obsessed with that TV show, and reading #9 right now!)
Kody and I talked for about another 45 minutes just talking about random things! It was so much fun, and so awesome!
Kody, who will be turning 21 on the 8th of August, told me she's going to Vegas in November (she was hoping to go for her 21st, but that unfortunately didn't work out), for an author event! I told her how I had gone this month for my 21st, and she said "Happy Birthday" which was pretty awesome.
Oh and what I also forgot to mention, is that Kody remembered me, because I've been emailing her on and off this past year and a half talking to her about her books and stuff. And she said she was excited to have finally met me! It was super fun!!
So that was my share of the month, I believe. Unless something just as cool happens again in the next couple of weeks, which I doubt! I'm going to go eat some dinner, and get off of my high from this super fun day!
A HUGE thank you to Kody, for doing the chat! It was a ton of fun!! And I can't wait to get my SIGNED finished copy of A Midsummer's Nightmare!!! :)
The Romance Bookie :)
PS: If you're interested in reading my review of Kody's previous three novels, you can find those here:
and A Midsummer's Nightmare! :)
The chat was great. I was going to stick around but my computer froze and I could't get back in. :( It was great to chat with you and Kody though.
ReplyDeleteOh I'm so sorry! I hate it when that happens!
DeleteIt was great talking to you too! It's always exciting getting to meet fellow bloggers and book lovers! Especially if you find common books! :)