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Dynamite Entertainment has established a new partnership with Humble Bundle. The two collaborators will offer a deal called the “Best-Selling Authors Bundle.”

Customers can choose between the publisher or a non-profit as the recipient of their money. They will have three charity options: the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, Doctors Without Borders (a.k.a. Médecins Sans Frontières), and the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Here’s more from the press release: “The ‘pay what you want’ model offers readers the chance to unlock over 120 comics, and over 3,500 pages of content. This will give graphic lit fans access to: Charlaine Harris’ Grave Sight Part 1 by Charlaine Harris, The Shadow Vol 1: Fire of Creation by Garth Ennis and Aaron Campbell, Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thomson: Hopcross Jilly by Patricia Briggs, The Complete Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, Leah Moore, and John Reppion, Sherlock Holmes: Year One by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Scott Beatty, The Spider Vol. 1: Terror of the Zombie Queen by David Liss and Francesco Francavilla, and Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Echoes by Tom Clancy. As the bundle progresses, there will be a running average.”

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At Powell's, our book buyers select all the new books in our vast inventory. If we need a book recommendation, we turn to our team of resident experts. Need a gift idea for a fan of vampire novels? Looking for a guide that will best demonstrate how to knit argyle socks? Need a book for [...]

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Today Penguin USA released its year-end report, counting a $156 million operating profit for the year.

The publisher also gave readers a peek at Thomas Pynchon‘s upcoming novel, Bleeding Edge. Publication is set for September 17th. Here’s more from Penguin Press: “it is 2001 in Silicon Alley, New York City, in the lull between the collapse of the dot-com boom and the terrible events of September 11.”

In addition, Elizabeth Gilbert will also publish a novel in October, “infusing her inimitable voice into a story of love, adventure, and discovery.” In May, Charlaine Harris will end her Sookie Stackhouse series with Dead Ever After. (Via Sarah Weinman)

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Even though author Charlaine Harris will be ending the Southern Vampire novels, True Blood fans need not fret. Publisher IDW and HBO have announced that they will be adapting True Blood for an ongoing comic book series.

HBO show creator Alan Ball gave this statement in the release: “With this new ongoing series, Truebies will be able to find a new comic in stores every month. We’ll also have even more room to create in-depth drama and further explore the world of Bon Temps.”

The first issue of the new series is slated for release in spring 2012. So far, IDW has published three True Blood series: All Together Now, Tainted Love and The French Quarter.

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Charlaine Harris has landed a book deal with Penguin Group (USA)’s Ace Books imprint for her new graphic novel trilogy, Cemetery Girl. The first book will be released in 2013.

Comic artist Don Kramer will illustrate. As we previously noted, this project is a collaboration between Harris and writer Christopher Golden

Harris had this statement in the release: “I’d had the bones of the plot for Cemetery Girl in my head for a year when Chris suggested I re-imagine it as a graphic novel. Suddenly, the project made a lot more sense. Since Chris has more experience in the graphic novel field than I do, we agreed to team up for my first-ever collaboration. This is an exciting venture for both of us.”

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Authors Janet Evanovich and Kathryn Stockett have each sold more than a million Kindle books, joining what Amazon has termed the “Kindle Million Club.”

The authors join the likes of Stieg Larsson, James Patterson, Nora Roberts, Charlaine Harris, Lee Child, Suzanne Collins, Michael Connelly and John Locke, who have also passed the million mark in sales of their eBooks in the Kindle Store. According to the release, Stockett is the first debut novelist to reach this milestone.

Evanovich’s latest novel Smokin’ Seventeen has spent more than 100 days on the Kindle Best Seller list. Stockett’s novel, The Help, has been No. 1 on The New York Times Best Seller list and was just adapted into a film.

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Paranormal novelist Charlaine Harris will be closing the coffin on her Southern Vampire series. Harris told PopcornBiz that she intends to end Sookie Stackhouse‘s story on book thirteen.

Harris explained: “I think it’ll be total closure. I don’t go back to things once I’ve finished them. That’s kind of what I do. I don’t want to write Sookie after I get stale. Yeah, I’ll miss them, I’m sure, because I have lived with them for quite a long time – 12 years now. And it did take two years to sell the first book. But I think writers like to do different things. At least this writer does.”

With two more books to go and HBO’s True Blood series, fans don’t have to say goodbye to Sookie just yet.

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Tuesday night I hopped on the Harley (on the back--I'm not that cool) and rode into Manhattan with my husband for the release and book signing of DEAD RECKONING, book 11 in the Southern Vampire Mysteries (True Blood) by Charlaine Harris. I will admit, I was a little bit starstruck. Most of the pictures that my husband took, I'm making crazy faces, or squealing like the fangirl that I am. So I'll just share these ones with you.

I took my smaller camera, which takes kind of crappy pictures, because I went on the bike and my big camera is...big.

That is me on the right in the tan sweater.

Charlaine Harris was the author who got me back in to reading. The minute I picked up DEAD UNTIL DARK, I was hooked in the world she'd created, and totally in love with her characters. Because of this, I started writing. I even named my protagonist in my current WIP after Charlaine. Her books are for adults, and I write YA, but I didn't chose YA. It chose me, I suppose (in fact this is the ONLY adult series I read, ha!). There are so many great YA authors who have inspired me, but when I look back, Charlaine and Sookie were what made me realize I was a writer. My favorite quote from this signing was from Harris: "Writers are born, not made." She didn't mean that you're born a great writer, you do have to write and learn how to write well. 

Charlaine answered questions for about thirty minutes and then for the next two hours or so she signed books. She is a signing machine. By the time she got to me, about an hour into signing, her signature was still perfect. During the Q & A fans asked the general questions about her writing process, which now consists of a lot of the business side and not as much writing as she'd like to do, how much coffee she drinks (three cups in the morning), and how she feels about the differences Alan Ball made between the books and the show (she thinks he's fantastic, and she wishes she had thought of Jessica).

The thing I found most interesting was that, despite the fact she'd written mysteries for years before she wrote the first Sookie Stackhouse novel, it took two years for her agent to sell it. Mainly because nobody knew where to put it on a shelf. When she wrote the book, she thought it would be fun to have a mystery series that involved the supernatural, melding mystery and urban fantasy together. Then she thought if she threw in a juicy sex scene for Sookie, she could get the romance readers too. And when the question "Where do we shelve this?" came up, Harris said "everywhere". A logical answer, for sure!

It was an amazing opportunity for me to be able to meet her. Her Sookie novels have inspired me in so many ways. I do believe it is important for writers to read and gather inspiration from "the masters" of literature, especially in your chosen genre, and not only the current super hits (Sookie, Twilight, Harry Potter, etc), but the thing that inspires me most about Charlaine Harris's Sookie novels, is just how much I love them. How immersed in that world I become when I sit down to read. That is what I want to do to readers. That is what is so inspiring. And that is how I knew I was a writer.

 Have you had the chance to meet some o

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Oscar-nominated actress Julianne Moore, Emmy-nominated comedian Mindy Kaling, and journalist Jim Lehrer will host breakfast events at this year’s Book Expo America.

Moore, author of picture book Freckleface Strawberry, will preside over the children’s writers’ breakfast. Kaling (a writer at The Office)  and Lehrer (author of both fiction and nonfiction) will host two adult writers’ breakfasts.

Here’s more from the press release: “The other speakers who will be joining the hosts for these popular events include Sarah Dessen, Roger Ebert, Anne Enright, Jefferey Eugenides, Charlaine Harris, Kevin Henkes, Diane Keaton, Erik Larson, and Brian Selznick.  In addition, Katherine Paterson, who is the current Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, will be saying a few words at the Children’s Breakfast on behalf of the Children’s Book Council.”

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I’ve known since Charlaine back in the day: pre-True Blood, pre-Sookie Stackhouse, when she just a mid-list mystery writer like the rest of us. She has even ridden in my car! [I will let you sit in the same spot for a mere $20.]

Anyway, in case you missed it, the New York Times Magazine had a fun interview with her that asked questions like: “As a married woman with three children who lives in small-town Arkansas, how did you get so interested in bisexual vampires?” She even offered advice that applies to all types of writers.

You can read the interview here.

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I met Charlaine Harris in 2000, when she was better known for two mystery series that attracted a small group of fans - but no wide-spread success.

Last week, I saw the NY Times list for May 24. And who was sitting at number one? Charlaine. As the New York Times reports, "It was a first for Ms. Harris, who has published 26 novels in nearly three decades and sold the original book in the Sookie series, “Dead Until Dark,” for just $5,000 nine years ago."

She told me that she went in a different direction because she felt her career was hanging in the midlist doldrums. To give her creative brain an electric shock, she decided to write something quite different so she wouldn't have to follow the same rules. She threw in everything she'd ever wanted to write: vampires, werewolves, fight scenes, very quick action, and some explicit sex. Though the book (DEAD UNTIL DARK) was initially hard to the sell to publishers, it has paid off for her - in spades.

There's a lesson in here someplace for all us writers. Write what you love.

Read more about Charlaine's success here.

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