Kaleb Nation | Official Website

Official website for Kaleb Nation: producer, TV personality, entrepreneur, and author of Harken and the Bran Hambric series.

Bran Hambric To Be Published In Russia

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bran-hambric-line-logoI just received news this morning from my wonderful foreign rights agents that the Russian translation for BRAN HAMBRIC: THE FARFIELD CURSE has been sold to Eksmo, one of the largest publishing houses in Russia. Eksmo is well known for many authors, but especially for being the first Russian publishers of the ARTEMIS FOWL series.

Of course, I am wildly thrilled at this news. I hadn’t expected any foreign interest in Bran Hambric until the book was out and selling in the United States. But as with most happenings surrounding this book, I was delightfully surprised to see things unfold even better than I had thought. In fact, it was so unexpected, that the first I heard about the deal was this morning in an email! It was quite a wonderful thing to wake up to.

Seeing the books that Eksmo has put out so far (Artemis Fowl being one of my all-time favorite series) I have great confidence in this deal. I don’t know their release date for the book or what the cover will look like yet — I’ll keep my site updated with anything I get on that, because I can’t wait to see how Bran Hambric looks in Russian!

eksmoAlso, it is worth noting that once one country picks up foreign rights, it is quite common for many other countries to start reporting back from reviewing the advance copies they picked up at the London Book Fair. So for those of you who are eagerly awaiting Bran Hambric in your countries, I am more confident than ever before that we will soon get some good news for others around the world!

More Great Stuff From BranFans!

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branfansNow that I’ve finally slithered out of bed (after recuperating from jetlag thanks to hitting both US coasts in the same week!) I’ve been delightfully surprised to discover a whole wave of great new stuff from the BranFans! It has been a thrill seeing all the wonderful people already involved in the Bran Hambric fandom — with still just under 100 days left before the full book is even out!

For starters, check out this song from the wonderfully talented Adrienne Frailey, who wrote it as a tribute to Bran Hambric and recently recorded it between studio sessions for her upcoming album:

Not only that, but a ton of BranFans have been using music from the soundtrack in their own YouTube video creations! Here is one by HideTheMushrooms on YouTube that uses my song The Box In The Bookstore (which you can download for free) to make a music video interpretation of the song (I like how since no one has read up to the actual box-in-the-bookstore scene in the preview chapters, the video makers invented their own ending 😀 ):

I’ve been using Google recently to help keep up with the Bran buzz, and I’ve spotted a whole assortment of really cool startup fansites for the book: like the BranHambricLexicon.com, BranHambricFansite, BranHambricByKN, TeamBranFans on YouTube (complete with another original song by Ethan, inspired by The Farfield Curse!), and a couple Bran Hambric and Kaleb Nation fan pages on Facebook. I’m amazed at how much all of these sites (and any I might have missed!) are doing to help spread the word about Bran Hambric!

And as for all the music: I’m so happy that there are already so many songs inspired by the book, when all anyone has read so far is the preview chapters! If you missed it, the Twilight-inspired band Bella Rocks! also has a song called “Emry’s Farewell” based on the prologue of the book. As an author, who created these characters and names and places, it feels wonderful seeing others find creative ways to take on my world.

A lot of the art that is used in these videos and websites is available for free from BranFans.com, including special computer wallpapers, buttons and widgets. Plus, at BranHambricMusic.com, you can now download four of the songs from the Bran Hambric soundtrack (and listen to nearly all of the others!). Kudos to all the great people for using their talents to make all this cool stuff 😀

FOR THE COMMENTS: What do you think of all the great Bran Hambric music and sites that are appearing?

My First Book Signing At Book Expo America 2009 [Video]

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Book Expo America 2009 was a BLAST! It is quite an amazing thing to go into an airplane-hangar-sized conference hall, and be surrounded by others from your own world of writing and publishing. I met countless authors and got a stack of books (including an advance copy of Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins, a signed copy of the Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, and loads more).

My book signing for The Farfield Curse started at 11:00 AM, and there was already a short line formed. Once the time hit, people began to come from everywhere, and the signing didn’t really stop! There were so many people, we actually ran out of books, so that by the time the signing was over I simply couldn’t sign any more because there were none left to hand out. Hopefully this is a good sign for how it will do in stores 😀

I was interviewed for Borders Media by the one and only Pel from the Twilight Lexicon. It was a bit odd since it was my first film interview, and I had never been in a studio set up like it. There were five cameras, all set up at different angles, and they wired me up with a microphone and had lighting hanging all around. I also had to get film makeup put on — a first for me, and a bit itchy (it had to be explained to me that you actually have to wash it off afterward, ha ha). After BEA we headed over to Books Of Wonder, where I saw Tiger Beat play. Tiger Beat is a rock band entirely made of YA authors, with my editor Daniel Ehrenhaft on lead guitar and Libba Bray doing vocals. YES they were very good.

Even more exciting was the nearly-half-page article about me, TwilightGuy.com and my Twitter/Youtube stuff in Publishers Weekly. As with the opening of pre-orders and the signing of Brandon Dorman, publishers generally tell their authors nothing until after we’ve read about it in the papers: I learned via the article that Bran Hambric will have front-of-store placement at Borders bookstore and a 75,000 copy first printing! There are no extra zeroes in that number. It was easily 4 times what I was expecting!

Here are some photos from the event (special thanks to my friend Becka for taking them!)

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ARC’s For Bran Hambric: The Farfield Curse!

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As you can see, the Advance Reader Copies of BRAN HAMBRIC: THE FARFIELD CURSE have finally arrived! Here’s video of me opening the box from my publishers and going a bit nutty when I hold my book for the first time 😀

This moment was truly one of the biggest in my life: getting to hold this book was somewhat symbolic of six years of work on this story and the characters. Of course I’m thrilled to finally be able to see it in print: and very soon, it will be in bookstores all across the country (in hardcover, of course!).

These ARCs and those my publisher still have will now be sent out to key media people and reviewers who will help to promote the book before it comes out. There will also be many ARCs available at Book Expo America coming up at the end of next week, where I will have my first book signing! I’ll make sure there’s plenty of video of that for those of you who can’t make it 😀

If you’d like, you can download the first five chapters of the book completely free at BranHambric.com, as well as pre-order it from nearly any bookstore!

D. J. MacHale: “The Farfield Curse brims with mystery, magic and fun.”

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DJ MacHale

DJ MacHale

As we get closer to the 9-9-09 release of BRAN HAMBRIC: THE FARFIELD CURSE, news surrounding the book just seems to keep getting bigger! Already with two wonderful blurbs from authors Kim Harrison and Kaza Kingsley, we now have one more to add: this time, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Pendragon series, D. J. MacHale!

The Farfield Curse brims with mystery, magic and fun. Kaleb Nation’s wry sense of humor kept me smiling, even while the mystical sparks flew. Get ready for lots of surprises and watch out for gnomes!

D. J. MacHale, Author of The Pendragon Series

D. J. , who not only wrote the enormously popular Pendragon series, is also a well-known television director, who happened to have worked on the show pilot for Ghostwriter, which was my absolute favorite growing up. Who would have thought that he would eventually write a blurb for my own novel?

You can find out more about D. J. MacHale’s books at his website, and more about The Farfield Curse at www.BranHambric.com (where you can read the first four chapters for free). And a huge thank-you to D. J. MacHale for the wonderful review!

Five Questions For Famous People [Video]

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Just a fun vlog I did today. I really do wonder if people actually send checks through the mail with those six zero’s 😀

Subscribe to my YouTube channel to keep up with all my videos.

Nicoleface And The Relay For Life

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At the Twilight premiere

My friend, who everyone knows as Nicoleface in the TwilightGuy chat, is doing a relay in honor of her mother who is battling cancer. She is one of the mods for my chatroom and my BlogTV shows, and she has a goal of $100. She is heading out for the relay today, and I think it would be wonderful if the Twitter and blog world helped her beat that goal!

I know we can get her past $100 by this evening. She’s at $50 now, which means we only need 25 people to donate $2 each for her to reach the goal, or 10 people to donate $5. If you would like to donate to her wonderful cause, please head on over to this page.

Oh, and one person who donates any amount and leaves a comment below (don’t post you donation amount or address) will get the first signed Bran Hambric postcard ever printed. If you didn’t already have enough incentive, there’s something for you 😀

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These things are ginormous. It's nearly the size of a book jacket.

Kim Harrison and Kaza Kingsley Are BranFans

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The first blurbs for BRAN HAMBRIC: THE FARFIELD CURSE have finally arrived! Blurbs, for those not familiar with the book business, are those prized and coveted reviews from Very Important People, especially reviewers and famous authors, that a writer receives about his or her book. These usually appear on the back of the book jacket.

Being a writer who has had a seemingly endless supply of good luck and an eternally wonderful agent and publisher, my first blurbs come straight from the bestsellers: KIM HARRISON and KAZA KINGSLEY.

kim-harrisonKim Harrison, bestselling author of The Hollows Series (with Dead Witch Walking), co-contributor to Stephenie Meyer and others on Prom Nights From Hell, and whose upcoming book Once Dead, Twice Shy is currently in my reading pile of ARCs, wrote:

Innocence gives way to danger as Bran pieces together his deadly past before his legacy can rise up to kill him in turn. With characters both silly and serious, Kaleb Nation has crafted a world vastly different from our own where magic sits next to cell phones, and gnomes really do travel. Reminiscent of Harry Potter, Bran Hambric: The Farfield Curse is everything a young adult read should be.

Kim Harrison
Author of Once Dead, Twice Shy

kaza-kingsleyKaza Kingsley, bestselling author of the Erec Rex series (with Erec Rex: The Dragon’s Eye) whose latest book Erec Rex: The Search For Truth comes out in a mere 49 days, wrote:

Whimsy, magic, and suspense collide together in this breathtaking tale. The Farfield Curse is a story you’ll want to pick up, but not put down!

Kaza Kingsley
Author of the Bestselling Erec Rex series

I couldn’t be happier with our first blurbs and reviews of the book! They will soon be up on the pre-orders page and on the Bran Hambric site as well. There will be many more of these to come before the release on 9-9-09 (and perhaps a few… surprise… blurb-ers in the next month or so 😀 ). I’ll be posting them as they come in!

Also, funny how my first two blurbs came in from authors whose names also begin with the letter K. Coincidence? Or FATE.

Astara [Music]

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I wrote this song back in January but for some reason, the original version didn’t seem to work. I knew there was a song in it, and I knew the song was for Astara, but for some reason, I just couldn’t get it to sound right. It took me a full four months of on-and-off rewriting the pieces, but I think the final song is worth all the time it took.

Download this song for free

As it says in the video, Astara entered into the book as a recycled character from an older story I wrote when I was 12. She was one of those characters I couldn’t let go, so I put her in The Farfield Curse, and it was as if she had been meant for it all the time. For those who were hoping for just a little bit about Astara, here’s the very first part of the book where Bran meets her:

[spoiler effect=”slide” show=”Click here to show”]

Bran pressed back, expecting the person to see him in an instant and shout. The sudden lamplight, though dim, was nearly blinding, so he had to blink to see who had opened the door.
He could just barely make out what she looked like in the soft light behind her: she seemed to be around his age, dressed in ragged, dark clothes. Her hair was a few inches past her shoulders, dark blond and brown, and on her right arm was a thick strip of black cloth, wrapped around her wrist. Bran blinked again as her eyes swept the room, unable to speak because he was sure she would shout for the shopkeeper at any moment.
But something was not right. Her eyes swept straight across him, as if he wasn’t even there, down to the two books he had left dropped on the floor. She didn’t move from the doorway, staring at them curiously, and then to the box that Bran had left crooked.

[/spoiler]

You don’t really meet Astara in the preview chapters of the book, so it is probably cruel for me to say that she is one of my favorite characters when the majority of you will have to wait until September 9 (only 123 days as of now!) to find out who she even is 😀 . But hopefully her song will help reveal some clues about her.

Question For The Comments: What do you think of the new song?