Welcome to the first day of The Agency: A Spy in the House blog tour! My first stop, organized by Traveling to Teens (T2T), is at Bookworming in the 21st Century, where Kristen reviews Spy and interviews me. Kristen says she was “entranced” by Spy, and says it “draws you in so well you wish it would go on forever”. I’m delighted to hear it. Thank you, Kristen!
I’m absolutely delighted to invite you to the official launch party for The Agency: A Spy in the House!
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
7.30 pm
61 Yonge St
Portsmouth Village
Kingston, Ontario
.
hosted by
Novel Idea Bookstore
and me!
Please RSVP if you can. For a map to the venue, click here.
It’s 6 weeks before the official North American release of A Spy in the House and I feel giddy, celebratory, and rather nervous. What to do then, but give away swag? Please join me in celebrating my North American debut – enter the contest, and encourage your friends to do the same!
The first-prize winner will receive a Candlewick Press ARC of A Spy in the House (featuring the cover at left) and one of these custom-made, not-for-sale-anywhere Agency t-shirts.
Don't worry; it doesn't say "Trainee Spy" on the back.
Second- and third-prize winners will each get a copy of the UK edition of Spy
It looks like this.
To enter, email me the answer to this question: What’s your favourite first line? Give me the sentence, author’s name, and the book title.
But that’s not all. You may enter a second time by announcing this contest on your blog, Twitter, or Facebook account and emailing me a link to your announcement. Please use some form of the following wording: Win an ARC of Y S Lee’s A SPY IN THE HOUSE, the first novel in the Agency series! Enter at http://yslee.com/2010/01/the-first-lines-contest/.
I’ll announce the randomly selected winners on Thursday 18 February. Good luck, everyone. I can’t wait to read your entries.
I’m taking a break from writing FAQs (they’ll be back next week) because I have 2 things to say today. The first is:
OMG! OMG! LOOK! AT! THIS!
Walker Books have completely redesigned the covers for The Agency. I can now share with you the new artwork for the second book in the trilogy, THE BODY AT THE TOWER, which will be published in the UK next year.
The Body at the Tower (Walker Books, September 2010)
I can’t decide what I like best: the period-perfect font? The way the Houses of Parliament are backlit to just the right degree of spooky/familiar? The “aged” effect around the edges? Maybe it’s just the sum total. In any case, I’m thrilled to bits (as if that wasn’t quite obvious.) And the designer, Patrick Insole (who did the cover for SPY, too), kept the old logo in the bottom right hand corner – YAY!
My second announcement today is that my friend Sarah is a genius. Specifically, she’s a paranoid-yet-deeply-rational genius who’s created a website that displays the contents of her brain in a terrifying yet witty manner. She is The Catastrophizer and I suggest you study with her forthwith.
The short, annoying answer is, “from my head”. While that’s true, I realize it’s neither helpful nor illuminating, so I’ll try to be a bit more specific.
If you and I were to go to the same film/lecture/bare-knuckle boxing match, we’d notice different details. Then we’d interpret and prioritize our experiences in different ways. So everything I’ve ever written comes from some experience of mine – something I read or saw or overheard. But it all gets processed in the back of my brain and spewed out later as something quite transformed. As the novelist Frances Trollope said, “Of course I draw from life – but I always pulp my acquaintances before serving them up. You would never recognize a pig in a sausage.”
mmm... sausages*
To get even more specific:
When I answered this question in a high-school presentation, the follow-up question was, well, how is that different from plagiarism? Great question! Plagiarism is stealing specific ideas and/or language from others, and presenting them as your own. In these examples, I’ve been inspired by specific things but used them as jumping-off points for my own ideas. I would never claim to be the originator of those first, inspirational anecdotes, facts or articles. And, obviously, I describe my own ideas in my own words.
All this brings us to a cliche that’s completely true: there are no new ideas. Other people have written about the Great Stink, women’s detective agencies (though I didn’t read Dorothy L. Sayers until after I’d written the first draft of SPY) and orphaned sailor’s daughters. So if there’s a bottom line, it’s this:
*The butcher’s diagram comes from Zazzle, where you can buy it as a postcard.
Last week, I had the honour of going to Candlewick Press’s Canadian sales conference at Random House of Canada’s Mississauga office. This involved:
- coming up with an Author Outfit that was not pyjamas with a pilled sweater on top
- getting the bus (oh, the glamour!) to the airport strip (and architectural beauty!)
- avoiding arrest outside Terminal 3 (I was early, so paced up and down outside inhaling diesel fumes and second-hand smoke, looking pretty tense)
Things turned fantastic once I arrived at the Random House offices (Candlewick books are distributed by RHC in Canada), and not because of me. The Candlewick team of Elise Supovitz, Jeanne Emanuel and John Mendelson were utterly charming, and seemed to specialize in putting nervous outsiders at ease. We had lunch (pizza and profiteroles – an alliterative menu!) with the Random House sales team, headed by Linda Chisholm and Duncan Shields. I met a lot of people, many of whom I didn’t get a chance to really talk to (but some of whom I did – hello Jennifer, and Lahring, and Tan, and Robin!). I also met “my” publicist, Nicola Makoway, and bombarded her with questions. Ahem.
Everybody was so energetic and enthusiastic and clearly passionate about books. I learned a bit about different sales territories (there’s one dedicated to Toronto indie bookstores alone; by contrast, another person handles national accounts for Wal-Mart and Shoppers Drug Mart) and a bit of terminology (“inside sales” – someone who works within the office, instead of on the road) – lots of things I hadn’t really thought about until that lunch meeting. I also learned about a very cool-sounding social-networking site for Canadian teen readers, Bookurious; I’m not allowed in, as an adult, but it looks great. And I shook hands with a man who’s shaken Anne Perry’s hand. What does that MEAN, oh cosmos?
After lunch, I talked to the assembled group (including some on conference call) about the story behind The Agency and how I came to be a writer. It was a strange, surreal, yet hyper-real ten minutes in time. It was so peculiar to do something deeply familiar – address a group of people – but in a completely new context (conference room of a publishing house). I wish I could play it back accurately in my head, but it was all a blur of politely nodding heads and me wondering, after the fact, did I talk way too fast? I mean, there’s a reason one of my undergrad classes nicknamed me “the Auctioneer”…
And then, suddenly, it was over. I was the privileged outsider who went downtown to meet up with a dear friend, while everyone else was still hard at work. I walked along Queen St, thinking, “I’m an author. All those people think I’m an author.”
And I’m not sure I believe it myself.
I literally did cartwheels when Deb Wayshak, my editor at Candlewick (she’s a novelist, too – prolific and critically acclaimed and thus, y’know, not intimidating AT ALL) told me they’d commissioned a photo shoot for the US edition of SPY. While I love the elegant, glowing UK cover, I was so curious to see how other people imagined Mary Quinn. The final cover is not quite ready for the world but its designer, Caroline Lawrence, took some behind-the-scenes snapshots of the cover shoot so that we could all participate, too.
Have you recovered yet? I haven’t. Remember, you have just under 3 weeks left to enter to win a copy of SPY.
Welcome to my new website! Here, I’ll keep you updated on all things Agency while trying not to abuse the exclamation point (difficult). There’s fresh new content if you care to poke around, and a couple of old favourites . I’ll be updating the site weekly from now on, usually on Thursdays.
I’m thrilled to announce that the Candlewick Press edition of A SPY IN THE HOUSE will go on sale in North America on March 9, 2010. The fabulous team at Candlewick designed a gorgeous, atmospheric new cover – and they even commissioned a photo shoot! I have some behind-the-scenes shots from the shoot and will share those with you in the coming weeks. Oh, and it’s hard not to shout this last part: the American edition is a hardcover – oh, yes it is. You can pre-order now from Amazon (US; Canada).
THE BODY AT THE TOWER, the second book in The Agency trilogy, will be published by Walker Books in April 2010. This time, Mary’s investigating a suspicious death at the Houses of Parliament. She’s disguised as a 12-year-old boy. And James is back from India… I had such a tough time writing and re-writing and re-bloody-writing this book, but my earliest readers (spouse, editors, agent) have been really enthusiastic. I hope you are, too.
Finally, to celebrate my lovely new website and upcoming North American book launch, I’m holding a CONTEST! It’s open to anyone in the world with a blog, Twitter, or Facebook account. First prize is a crisp, lovely, new-book-smelling copy of the British edition of A Spy in the House (its dramatic cover is there on the left); there are also 2 B&W stickers featuring the terrific Agency logo for 2nd and 3rd place winners.
Ready to enter? Here’s what you do:
1. Announce the following via your blog, Twitter or Facebook account:
Countdown to The Agency! There are almost 6 months ’til the US launch of A SPY IN THE HOUSE. Win a copy now at www.yslee.com.
2. Email me (ying@yslee.com) on or before November 1 with the link to your announcement AND the answer to this question:
What was the last book that really lingered in your mind – haunted you, if you will? Give author name, title, and description of the haunting element, please.
Once again, there are 2 steps to enter the contest:
- Spread the word about this contest at your blog, on Twitter, or on Facebook (or all three). Remember to link to this website.
- Email me by November 1 with the answer to the “haunted” question AND a link to your contest announcement (friend me on Fb if you do it there).
On November 5 (Guy Fawkes Day – ha!), I’ll announce the randomly selected winner and post everyone’s answers. (For privacy reasons, I’ll post answers with first names only, unless you request otherwise. If you’d rather I didn’t post your answer at all, tell me in your email.)
If you win and already own a copy of Spy, you can name a friend and I’ll send out the book as a gift from you. Or you can choose the very sexy Spanish edition from Ediciones Versatil, instead – it’s a stunner, and not for sale outside Spain.
Good luck! (I tried that without the exclamation point; it can’t be done.)
THE AGENCY: A SPY IN THE HOUSE is on sale now in the UK, with a full North American debut in spring 2010. Canadian availability will be patchy until then, but you can try Amazon or the Book Depository.
It went sale in Australia and New Zealand on June 1! You can link here to my Southern Hemisphere publisher, Walker Books Australia.
La Agencia
The Spanish edition was published on June 2. Isn’t the cover gorgeous? And my publisher, Ediciones Versatil, made a bookmark for you! Click here for the PDF.
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