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It's time for my semi-monthly ego check!

country_gal from Decatur, Georgia, was prepared to be bored by Something Rotten, but was won over by Horatio's sarcasm.

Something Rotten also makes the Bookworms Carnival of delights at A Bibliophile's Bookshelf, thanks to this glowing review at Barney's Book Blog.

The North Carolina Literary Festival (of which I am a part) is getting some press.

KL Knight at Knight Reader thinks Something Wicked has a great hook to get kids interested in Macbeth.

And Sarah over at The Reading Zone has a really terrific post about perfect games, The Brooklyn Nine, and building schema.

Thanks everyone! Your affiliate checks will be mailed when you reach $100.

Just a couple of ego checks today:

East Hampton Public Library makes The Brooklyn Nine a Cool Pick for Hot Summer Days...

And Jess at Barney's Book Blog (no, not that Barney) thinks Something Rotten is one of the best young adult novels she's read in a long time.

Thanks, guys!

Something Rotten is one of ten titles nominated for the North Carolina School Library Media Association Young Adult Book Award for 2009-2010! Students from across the state will read Rotten along with the other nominated books next school year, and then in March or April of 2010 they'll vote on their favorite. Last year's winner was Eclipse by Stephanie Meyer. At least she's not among the nominees this year! But the competition is just as tough:

Hrm. Tough competition indeed. Well, at least it's an honor to be nominated! Thanks to all the NC school librarians who've been so supportive of me and my books.

It's time for my regular vanity check from the internets:





















Something Wicked is a SIBA award nominee.

Professor Nana's been reading more books based on Hamlet.

LJ at 75 o'clock is looking forward to the next Horatio Wilkes mystery.

Mr. Muldowney's class can choose to read Something Rotten for their 9th grade book project, but they have to discuss symbolism and irony in the book by April 21st.

School Library Journal featured Samurai Shortstop in a recent article on books for kids set in the days of the samurai.

Devaney Doak & Garrett Booksellers in Farmington, Maine, thinks The Brooklyn Nine would make a great classroom book.

Susan Harkins at BookPleasures.com thinks Something Wicked is a treasure.

And Linda Sue Park, author of the Newbery Award-winning A Single Shard, writes about both The Brooklyn Nine and Something Rotten on her Amazon blog!

In this installment, I travel to my hometown of Knoxville, Tennessee, to take part in the Knoxville Public Library Teen ShakesFest. Includes sword-fighting, harp-playing, and an octopus.

Just a quick note to let my East Tennesee peeps know that I'm going to be in town tomorrow for the Knoxville Public Library's "ShakesFest," a celebration of Shakespeare, YA lit, and prancing about with swords.

The event is from 1-4 p.m. at the East Tennessee History Center downtown on Gay Street, and admission is free.

Members of the Tennessee Stage Company's Shakespeare on the Square troupe will be performing scenes from Hamlet, and I'll be reading my take on the same scenes from Something Rotten before selling and signing books. Then, there will be fencing.

Hope to see you there!

Editor Liz sends me this report from a field rep: Something Rotten and Something Wicked are in good company on the staff recommended shelf at Book People Bookstore in Austin, Texas! (I love the plaid on the shelf talker, by the way...)

Thanks, Book People! Give me a holler--I'd love to come visit.

Something Rotten is now officially out in a $6.99 paperback edition from Puffin/Sleuth! If you've been waiting for months while the library copy was on hold (ha) you now have an inexpensive alternative... Read the rest of this post

Today is December 1st (!), and so officially ends the free Something Rotten promotion on Scribd. I broke down the numbers for editor Liz and the marketing folks at Penguin, but I wanted to blog about them here for anyone curious about the promotion's impact.

For the roughly month and a half period Something Rotten was available to read on both my web site and on Scribd, the promo page on my web site with the embedded Scribd reader received 4,404 total hits, with 3,732 unique visitors, 3,164 first time visitors, and 568 returning visitors. October saw the most visitors, particularly in the first two weeks of the promotion. Week one saw 2,287 hits to the promo page on my web site, and week two had 731 hits. October was clearly helped by an online blitz that included promotions on my web site, blog, e-newsletter, and plugs from many friendly bloggers. (My sincere thanks to everyone who helped me spread the word!)


During the month and a half of the online promotion, the promo page on my web site averaged 551 visitors a week, 396 of whom were classified as "first time visitors" by my stat service. The two screen grabs here are from Statcounter, the free online service I use to track hits to my web pages. Both are breakdowns of the hits to the Rotten promo page on my web site (one monthly numbers, one weekly numbers), and both can be viewed larger by clicking on them.

By way of comparison, my index page, the home page of www.alangratz.com, received 356 page loads in pre-promotion September, with an average of 12 hits per day, while the month of October (and the beginning of the Rotten promo) saw my home page visits more than double to 733, with an average of 24 hits per day. November, the last month of the promotion, had 513 page loads, with an average of 17 hits per day. While I'm not privy to sales numbers for Rotten or Something Wicked, I can at least say that the month and a half of the promotion significantly increased exposure for me and my books.

As for the Something Rotten Scribd page itself, it recorded 465 views. Best I can tell, reading the book through the interface embedded on my web site--as well as clicking through to the larger version--did NOT count toward those numbers. To record a hit on Scribd, a visitor had to visit the Scribd home page for Something Rotten itself. During its time on Scribd, Rotten received two "likes" and 6 "favorites," and was classified as "hot" by Scribd and cross-promoted on the Scribd "hot list."

All in all, I rate the online promotion as a success. Anecdotally, I have had a few people tell me they read the entire book online. How many actually read through to the end, rather than just clicking through, is impossible to know. But again, I think the exposure alone was worth the promotion. Many thanks to all the people who helped make the Rotten promotion happen, helped spread the word, and especially to all those who read Rotten online!

Oh, and if you haven't seen the free promotion, I'm leaving the links to it up until the book is actually taken down off Scribd.

Team Bonzai member Tennessee Tanuki and fellow storysmith Jordan Sonnenblick both wrote to alert me that Something Rotten appears in this year's Best American Non-Required Reading! Library Journal says, "This great volume highlights the very best of this year's fiction, nonfiction, alternative comics, screenplays, blogs, and more. Compiled by Dave Eggers and students of his San Francisco writing center, it is thoroughly entertaining and thought-provoking reading."

There's no long excerpt from Something Rotten featured, but it is included on one of the many "Best" lists in the "Best American Front Section" of the book: "Best American Last Sentences of Books of 2007." Right there between William Gibson and David Hajdu, is this entry:

ALAN GRATZ, Something Rotten
"You never do get used to the smell."

Today I want to tell you a little bit about Alan Gratz, the author of Something Wicked:

Alan Gratz is the author of the historical young adult novel Samurai Shortstop (Dial 2006), which was named one of the American Library Association's 2007 Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults. His second book, a young adult murder mystery based on "Hamlet" called Something Rotten (Dial 2007), was named an ALA 2008 Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Readers, and a sequel based on "Macbeth, " Something Wicked (Dial 2008), is on sale now. He is also the author of the forthcoming novels The Brooklyn Nine (Dial 2009), and Nemo (Knopf TBA). A former bookseller, librarian, eighth grade English teacher, and TV and radio scriptwriter, Alan is now a full time novelist for young readers. He lives with his wife and daughter in Penland, North Carolina.


If you would like to read one of Alan's books you can of course go to a bookshop or the library to get a copy. You can also go to his website where there is a complete copy of his book Something Rotten for you to read. There are also reader's guides for both Something Rotten and Something Wicked. These guides will really enhance your reading experience of both books.

Please visit the other blogs that are participating in this tour:

the 160acrewoods, A Christian Worldview of Fiction, All About Children’s Books, Becky’s Book Reviews, Book Review Maniac, Cafe of Dreams, Dolce Bellezza, Hyperbole, KidzBookBuzz.com, Looking Glass Reviews, Maggie Reads, Never Jam Today, Reading is My

Something Rotten hasn't gone away just yet. Here's a good review of the audio book from School Library Journal:

The smell of the paper mill in Denmark, Tennessee, is Somtehing Rotten because the plant is dumping cancer-causing waste into the Copenhagen River. Teen detective Horatio Wilkes accompanies his best friend, Hamilton Prince, scion of the mill-owning family, home for summer vacation. The two are trying to answer questions surrounding Hamilton's father's death. Both boys suspect Prince's Uncle Claude, who quickly married the grieving widow. When they view a video left by the dead man, the investigation intensifies. With changes in names and events, Alan Gratz has mined Shakespeare's Hamlet for characters and situations in this mystery that also has a bit of romance. For example, Olivia, Hamilton's estranged girlfriend, crusades to clean up the pollution, but becomes very ill after drinking river water to publicize her cause. There's also a play within the novel, and two inept flunkies named Roscoe Grant and Gilbert Stern. While Horatio uncovers clues that point to Claude as the killer, his quick thinking also saves hard-drinking Hamilton from an untimely death. Erik Davies narrates as Horatio with cool prep school sophistication nicely balanced with droll humor. Fun to listen to as a whodunit, the novel also offers an ecology lesson and is an intriguing way to study the elements of the Elizabethan original. A worthwhile additional purchase for school and public libraries.

School Library Journal (Audio Book Review)

I wouldn't be so vain as to have my name set up as a Google Alert, now would I? Of course not. I just--ahem--happened to stumble across these blogs while I was surfing the web for educational content. Yes. That's it...

My Horatio Wilkes novels are one of three mystery series recommended by BookKids.

Have Books Will Travel is enjoying Something Rotten.

Merry Genre Go Round Reviews agrees with my mother that Something Wicked is fun, but doesn't need all those bad words in it.

And On Books and Birds says Something Rotten is one of fifteen books nominated this year for the Missouri Association of School Librarians' Gateway Readers Award.

Thanks everyone!

I visited Salem Middle School in Apex, North Carolina, last week, and in addition to talking to all the students about Samurai Shortstop and Something Rotten, I got to spend time with the Salem Middle guys read group. I did a podcast interview with them, which they've posted on their blog. Check it out - they asked great questions!

I just learned last week that Something Rotten is a finalist in the 2008 SIBA Book Awards. SIBA is the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance--meaning independent bookstores all over the southeast. Each year they name the "best of Southern literature," and this year Something Rotten (which is set in East Tennessee) is among the finalists in the Children's category:

CHILDREN

1. Aurora County All Stars by Deborah Wiles (Harcourt)
2. Br'er Rabbit Captured by Jean Cassels (Walker)
3. Chicken Dance by Jacques Couvillon (Bloomsbury)
4. Deep in the Swamp by Donna Bateman (Charlesbridge)
5. Louisiana's Song by Kerry Madden (Viking)
6. Something Rotten by Alan Gratz (Dial Books)

Today, more from the "Look what photos I finally pulled off my camera phone" department: ALA 2007 in Washington, D.C.

A fuzzy shot of the Penguin booth, where Something Rotten got a feature spot on the canvas sign at the back.

A less-fuzzy shot of my cover on the banner.

D.C.'s upscale/touristy Chinatown district, very close to the convention center.

That's my knuckle in the foreground of that one. Dang cell phones are so small.

Best inexplicable, gratuitous grab for ALA convention-goer dollars: "Do you like books? We have 300 beers, 30 on tap!!!"

Yesterday wasn't all about Project Runway around here. I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Pat Grant and Elisabeth Grant-Gibson of The Book Report, a weekly podcast sponsored by Windows: A Bookshop in Monroe, Louisiana. We talked a lot about Samurai Shortstop, Something Rotten, and a bit about my next book, Something Wicked. You can go directly to the archived interview here. My interview follows their chat with Meg Cabot. Meg Cabot, for cripe's sake! Talk about following the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show . . .

I usually take interviews like this in stride, but besides having to follow Meg Cabot I was a little anxious about this one. I've listened to Pat and Elisabeth's podcasts before, and they always ask great, thought-provoking questions. I was worried I wouldn't sound half as smart in my answers!

Turns out they did ask great, thought-provoking questions (as usual). You'll just have to tune in to see how well I handled them.

Thanks Elisabeth, thanks Pat! I had a great time.

For a little while today, I was very excited. For a little while today, I thought Something Rotten, my contemporary mystery based on Hamlet, might be a BookSense Bestseller. BookSense is a national marketing campaign put together by a large group of independent booksellers, and each week they collect the sales figures from their member stores and put together a bestseller list to rival the ones printed by The New York Times and USA Today.

So at the very bottom of today's Shelf Awareness, a self-styled e-zine of "daily enlightenment for the book trade," they had recommendations "from last week's BookSense bestseller lists, available at BookSense.com." The only entry under "For Teen Readers"? Something Rotten. But if they took the recommendation from the bestseller list . . . was Something Rotten a bestseller? That would be BIG news.

I scoured the Booksense web site, but all I could find were last week's bestseller lists. Could Rotten be on the new one? I e-mailed editor Liz, asking if she had heard anything, then got back to work. Liz was able to solve the mystery: Something Rotten was not, alas, a bestseller. The good news: it was featured as the sole recommended book beyond the children's bestsellers this week. Check it out:

There I am down in the corner. (Click the image to see it larger.)

So today I am almost a bestseller. On the same page, at least. :-)

It's been a good couple of weeks for Something Rotten and Samurai Shortstop here at Gratz Industries. First, the mail brought copies of the Rotten audio, produced by Listening Library. It's a fun listen, as we found when we put it in for a drive down to Asheville recently. Jo even enjoyed it; I turned it off after the first chapter, thinking she wouldn't really be following it, and she asked to keep listening to see who killed Hamilton's daddy! Later she fell asleep, which I won't take too personally.

The same day I got a package from editor Liz--advance copies of the Samurai Shortstop paperback due out this February! They kept the same great cover, but the spine is black, which I think looks great.


And this week, both books won national acclaim from YALSA, the Young Adult Library Services Association! First, the Samurai Shortstop audio (also by Listening Library) was named to the 2008 YALSA "Selected Audiobooks for Young Adults" list. The same day, Something Rotten was named to the 2008 YALSA Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers list!

Thanks once again to the librarians of America for showing me and my books the love. Right back at you!