Stuart Gibbs

Quick quiz:  What is the largest animal you can encounter on land in the United States?

No, it’s not a grizzly bear.

No, not a moose, either.

It’s the northern elephant seal.

If you’ve never seen an elephant seal before, I highly recommend it.  It’s one of the most bizarre, improbable creatures on earth.  Just check this guy out:

Honestly, these guys look like they ought to be in the bar scene in Star Wars.

There’s only one catch: They’re only on land about three months a year.  The rest of the time, they’re swimming in the ocean.

Yes, that’s right, they swim for nine months straight.

When they are on land, however, they’re not hard to find.  They tend to go to the same beaches every year.  The females give birth and nurse their young.  The males fight for dominance and then breed.  It all happens from December to March, with the most action coming between Martin Luther King Day and Valentine’s Day.

The largest breeding colony in the US is just north of San Simeon, California.  They are right off the Pacific Coast Highway.  It’s about a 30 second walk from your car.  As you can see, you have a relatively good chance of seeing a few thousand:

I hung out there for two hours last weekend.  I saw plenty of newborn pups, like this one, who was less than a day old:

And I got to see some good dominance battles as well:

There aren’t many other places in America where you can see so many large mammals in one place at one time.  So, if you ever have the chance, go see this amazing spectacle.

Even if you’re not into pelagic megafauna, the scenery’s pretty awesome.

Sad news from the LA Zoo today.  Jabba the Hippo was euthanized yesterday at the age of 28.

Although I go on about how dangerous hippos can be in ‘Belly Up,’ they’re not all as awful as Henry.  Jabba was, from what I can tell, rather mild-mannered as hippos go.  I never heard of him attacking anyone, and while he certainly sullied his pool with poo a lot, he never blasted anyone with it, Henry-style.  (In the picture above, he’s begging for food from one of his keepers, like a 4,000 pound labrador retriever.)

Since Jabba was the closest hippo to my house, I spent a good amount of time watching him while writing ‘Belly Up.’  I didn’t base Henry on him, but it was always interesting to observe people’s reactions — especially children — when they watched him.  Have you ever seen a child see a hippo for the first time?  It’s quite incredible.

This photo of Jabba adorned my blog page for a long time:

Now, for the first time in at least 28 years, there is no hippo at the LA Zoo.  (Although there are still quite a few animatronic ones at Disneyland.)  Such a shame.

Jabba, we’ll miss you.

I have just been informed that Belly Up is a final nominee for the Mark Twain Readers Award.

My competition to actually win this is pretty stiff, but that’s praise in itself.  It’s nice to be included with such a great bunch of books.

Frankly, it’s nice to have my book associated with anything with the words “Mark Twain” in it.

In addition to that honor, though, it’s always nice to have praise like this:

Review from A Random Hodgepodge of Bookishness

Or this:

Review from DogEared Book Blog

Or this:

Review from Teen Ink

For the legions of you who follow this blog (6.5 million at last count), you know that I’m a little obsessed with tracking my sales.  Well, this year, for the first time, I was able to pay particularly close attention to the trending of my books over the holidays, and I noticed something that was pretty interesting.  (Although, in retrospect, it should have been obvious.)

Up until Christmas Day, my books were selling a bit better than usual.  This makes sense, because a lot of people are out there looking for books, and what better gift is there for a middle grade kid than a book, right?  So then, of course, sales dipped a bit right after the holiday, because no one needed to buy presents any more.

But that was only for actual, physical books.  E-books had the exact opposite trend.  They didn’t sell all that well before the holidays.  (Because, let’s face it, an e-book makes a rather lousy gift.  Yes, it’s a book, but it’s very hard to wrap.)  But then, on Christmas Day, sales went through the roof.  For Belly Up, Christmas was actually my best e-book selling day ever.  And sales of e-books have stayed pretty high ever since.

So what happened?  Obviously, a bunch of kids got e-readers for Christmas.

This is actually a pretty clever deal for all the e-reader makers.  And a rather good indicator that their master plan — sell e-readers at a loss and then make the money back in selling product — is working.  People give the e-reader as a gift — and then the first thing the recipient has to do is spend more money to buy the actual books.  (Because, let’s face it, an e-reader without any books on it is just a really expensive paperweight.)

I have no idea how many e-readers were sold this holiday season, but given the trend, I’m guessing it was a lot.

Just thought you’d like to know.

First off, there’s a new trailer for Belly Up on YouTube.  I believe that makes 1,473 overall, though I may have overestimated this a bit.  Keep them coming!

I’ve been meeting the kids at a lot of elementary schools lately, but my most recent had a little twist.  I’d been asked to come meet the kids at Grand View Elementary in Manhattan Beach, CA… only, when I got there, it turned out they hadn’t told the kids I was coming.  It was going to be a surprise.  So I stood behind a curtain off-stage while the parents announced that I was there.  This was cute, although I have to admit there were a few moments when it was a little nerve-wracking.  There was always the chance that they’d say: ‘The author is here!’ and all the kids would groan in disappointment.  Luckily, that didn’t happen and, as usual, the kids were really engaged and asked some great questions.

It’s good to know that, after being out for almost two years now, Belly Up is being discovered by more and more people.  Here’s a nice new review from a really great site called Reading Junky’s Reading Roost.

And, of course, it’s always nice to get a good review for the Last Musketeer as well.  (In fact, I’ll happily accept nice reviews for anything I do.)  Here’s a nice review for Last Musketeer on epinions.

If you’ve read Belly Up (or even seen the cover) you know I have a soft spot for hippos.  Yes, they’re dangerous and can be quite unsanitary, but they’re absolutely fascinating.  Until recently, however, I’d never had the chance to see a baby hippo up close.  I’d only seen them in the wild through binoculars, and then, it was just the tops of their heads.  (They tend to spend most of their time under water.)

These shots are taken at the San Diego Zoo, which has one of the finest hippo exhibits in the world.  (I modeled Hippo River at FunJungle after it — although, to be fair, Disney’s Wild Animal Kingdom also has a fine exhibit.  And I understand that the Toledo Zoo had the first underwater hippo viewing in the country, but I’ve never been to Toledo.)

Anyhow, here’s the little hippo.  Well, not so little anymore.  He’s almost a year old.  But still, adorable, right?  (By the way, the cute kid in the red hat is my son.)

OK, really I said it couldn’t be done.  I fully believed that there was no way I could actually write an entire book before Thanksgiving.  (See my ‘Insane Deadline’ post from a month ago.)  And yet, I did it.

Well, I wrote a first draft.  But still, that’s 200 pages long.

I realize that, by sharing this, I might not exactly be making a strong case that the book in question (book three of the Last Musketeer series) is quality work.  However…

1) Work will continue on it over the next few months.

2) Part of the reason I wrote it so quickly was that I was swept up in the excitement of telling the story.

Book Three, I assure you, will be quite the action/adventure spectacular, with prison breaks, hidden tombs, army battles and plenty of swashbuckling.  (You all know how much I love swashbuckling.)  It should be out in a mere 14 months or so.

In the meantime, to tide you over, there’s book one.  Check out this great review of The Last Musketeer from epinions.

I’d like to thank all the fine folks at the Manhattan Beach Barnes & Noble for having me down to their store twice last week, both times to raise money for local schools.  The events were great fun, and I have to give big props to the store for the fine promotion they did.  I mean, look at this:

And then check out this fine book arrangement:

Take a lesson, other bookstores.  That’s how you promote an author.

I have just been informed that Belly Up has been selected for the 2012 Lone Star Reading List by the Texas Library Association.

As you all know, after being selected as a Dorothy Canfield Fisher finalist in the great state of Vermont, I have made it my mission to be selected on a library reading list in a much larger state.  (By which I mean no offense to Vermont.  Really, VT, you’re a lovely state.  Size doesn’t usually matter — unless you’re talking about book sale potential.)  Well, Texas is significantly larger than Vermont.  I know this for a fact, because when I was a kid, I lived there, and on road trips, it would take a day just to get out of Texas.  Meanwhile, you can cross Vermont in less than an hour.  And that’s on a bike.

I’m guessing that, perhaps, setting Belly Up in Texas had something to do with its selection.  Although this is what the committe chair had to say:  ‘We think it is an excellent book for middle school students and are delighted to put this hilarious, clever book into the hands of our readers!’

So thank you, Texas!  And as for you other 48 states, pay attention.  You’re starting to look pretty uncool without Belly Up on your state reading lists.

I will be at the Barnes & Noble in Manhattan Beach twice next week.  I will be there on Tuesday night, November 15 at 6pm to support the Loyola Village School, and then again on Friday night, November 18 — also at 6pm — to support the Lennox Schools Holiday Book Drive.  I understand that on Friday, authors Leon Legothetis and Gladys Barbieri will also be there.

The Manhattan Beach B&N is at 1800 Rosecrans Avenue.  There’s plenty of places to eat nearby — and a very nice REI.  You can get signed books and ice axes in one convenient location!  The perfect place to start your holiday shopping.