Oz

Australia, eh? Lovely country, full of weirdoes...

I'm sitting in my hotel room in... where am I? Melbourne? Adelaide? Wherever. Anyway, here I sit, tapping away at my laptop, about to go to bed and I figured I'd drop by and say hi.

So, y'know... hi.

The tour continues to go well. In fact, it's going great. Brilliantly. The response has been incredible, with so much energy and enthusiasm at each event. Signing queues have been massive, which is slightly less cool, because I just don't have the time to chat to each person as much as I'd like to, or even sign all of their books in some cases. Next time I'm over I'm going to INSIST that more time is left for signing. Some of these Minions-with-funny-accents go through an awful lot to get to me- some have been driving for 7 hours, some have even FLOWN in... The least I can do is have a chat and sign whatever they have. Sometimes that's just not possible, but I try my best.

I've met so many people from this Blog and the Forums and the Facebook pages (and the old Bebo page! Which I must reactivate... maybe... The Bebo page was DAUNTING because of the amount of comments and emails I'd have to answer every time I logged in... Every time I opened the Bebo page I'd spend HOURS there... no such thing as a quick dip in and out...)

Where was I? Oh yes, meeting a load of people I've only seen online. That's pretty cool, to be honest. I had no idea, for example, that Nixion or Calamity were Australian (well, maybe I did have an idea once, but I'd totally forgotten it). It's always so weird when I meet people and realise I know them from somewhere online- it's like we're old friends, and yet we've never met...

Another nice thing about being on tour is the amount of hyperventilating teenage girls who arrive in front of me. I swear, if Teenage Me ever found out what Adult Me is confronted with every day on tour, he'd be so insanely jealous... You're all hysterically funny and quite, quite odd.

When I get home I'll post pictures of some of the cool stuff I've been given (really, you'll have to see them to understand the coolness of some of your fellow Minions), but suffice it to say that I'm really glad I only packed half a suitcase worth of stuff- because I'll be going home with a LOT more than I came with.


Right then, just a few things before I go... According to the Facebook page, some stores in the UK and Ireland have already released KOTW. Naughty,  naughty stores. On its OFFICIAL release date I'll put up a special Spoiler blog where you can discuss it here openly, but until then, please keep doing what you're doing and don't spoil it for the others. I'm very grateful to you all for the restraint you've shown so far.


Because of the fact that some schools are back early, some of the Irish times have been changed.

Thursday 30^th August

Public Signing: Easons, Whitewater Shopping Centre, Newbridge, TIME CHANGE FROM 12 noon to 2PM start.

Friday 31^st August

Public Signing: Dubray Books, Market Cross Shopping Centre, Kilkenny, TIME CHANGE FROM 2PM TO 4PM start.

And one last thing- the competition winners from, ahem, last year. Yes yes, it's taken me ages to send you your books, but now you're also going to get a signed KOTW too, so, like, yay...! But I need you to send your names and addresses to us again, because SOME of you, hilariously, decided not to include your real name the last time, and instead insisted that the books be sent to your online taken name... which would have confused the nice people who deliver the parcels. Also, I know that at least one of you have changed addresses since winning, so we're gonna need an update.

So, send your real name, and your real address (and also your online name so I'll know who you are) to this email:

kids.marketing@harpercollins.co.uk.

It's the only email address they could find that wasn't being used for anything else... Sorry...

EDIT:

Here's the list of winners, in case you've forgotten.

Miss Arianna Dark

Skulduggeryaddict

Octaboona

Asteria Wing

The BookNommer

Necros

Andrew

Silke Gronau

Lauren Longbottom

Mar-Chu

Valkyrie V

Kallista
Thalia