It seems like Salt Lake City didn’t get enough Comic Con back in September, so they’re hosting something called the FanXperience. Which means I get to go again. I’m kind of excited because the Doctor’s most loyal and best (not up for debate) companion will be there. As well as that scoundrel and knave of Bespin, Lando Calrissian. If you happen to be there, I’ll be on a couple panels talking about writing and making VFX for movies. I even get to do a solo performance. Here’s the schedule: Thursday 3pm: Putting the Movie in Your Head on Paper (this one’s all me). Thursday 6pm: Young Adult and Middle Grade Fiction: Its Appeal to All Ages Friday 6pm: The Power of Imagination: Writing for Kids and Kids at Heart in Today’s Market Friday 8pm: The Hero’s Shadow: Writing Great Villains Saturday 1pm: Writing Children’s Books Saturday 3pm: VFX & Animation: An Inside Look at the Magic of Avatar, X-Men, Pacific Rim, Ender’s Game, & More Saturday 5pm: Writing Fantasy for Young Adults & Middle Grade Audiences So come say HI. Come heckle me. Or ask some questions that we’ll prearrange smart answers to. I’ll post lots of pics to Instagram (@adamglendonsidwell) and Facebook. Either way, I think this is going to be fun.

I’m riding high right now. Just a few hours ago, my Kickstarter campaign for a book I’ve been working on called FETCH funded 101%. The goal was $22,000, and we got it! Thanks to so many backers (you guys are so great!) who believed in my project, FETCH is going to come to life! Here’s why this is a very good thing: printing books and illustrating books is expensive, and basically Kickstarter gives you a platform for people to pre-order your book before you ever make it. In many ways, this is a publisher’s dream. Publishers fret and agonize and cast perfectly awesome books out the window for a single (yet very important) reason: they think it won’t sell. That’s why they’re so wary to take on debut authors. They have no numbers to show how that author’s work will perform. So what if you had a bunch of pre-orders all ready to go before you even made the book? It would give you the confidence to move forward with the project. Not to mention the capital. Fetch will actually cost more than $22,000 to make. But that seemed like a reasonable goal to hit, and, since Kickstarter is all-or-nothing, setting it higher would increase the risk of coming up with $0. You have to have written the book though. That you can do for free, and it gives your backers confidence in you when you have things to show them. With Kickstarter you’re making a promise. “Hey, if you pre-order this book,…

Well guys, I’ve got some good news. I get to appear on a few Salt Lake City Comic Con panels this week. Get to be on writing panels with James Dashner (Maze Runner), Brandon Mull (Fablehaven) and Aaron Johnston (Earth Unaware, Ender Series, writing w Orson Scott Card). Don’t worry, Chewbacca, Batman and Captain Kirk are all going to be there (the real ones!). Oh, and Darth Vader, Superman, and probably some scientists and Pullitzer Prize Winners. Here’s my schedule. I’d love to see you there: Thursday, September 5 5:00 – 5:50 p.m. The Art of Creating Visual Effects in Motion Pictures (Adam Sidwell, Clark Schaffer, Rob Au, Tom Durham, Curtis Hickman, Vincent J. Roth) Friday, September 6 2:00 – 2:50 pm Writing Effective Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction: A Conversation on the Craft (Adam Sidwell, David Farland, Heather Ostler, Chad Morris, James Dashner, Brandon Mull, Robison Wells, Jenni James) 6:00 – 6:50 pm Young Adult & Middle Grade Fantasy: Keeping it Real (Tracy Hickman, Laura Hickman, James Dashner, Adam Sidwell, Frank Cole, Lisa Mangum, Rebecca Moesta) Saturday, September 7 4:00 – 4:50 pm Self-Publishing vs. Small Press vs. Big Publishers: Which is Best? (Tracy Hickman, Howard Tayler, Adam Sidwell, Michaelbrent Collings, Nathan Shumate, Rhiannon Paille) 6:00 – 6:50 pm Plot-Driven vs. Character-Driven to Writing What You Know vs. Research to Outlining vs. Discovery Writing to Keeping a Writing Schedule vs. Tapping into Creative Energy: What’s an Aspiring Author to do? (Adam Sidwell, Frank Cole, Brad Torgerson, Chad Morris, Lisa Mangum, Aaron Johnston,…

So, thanks to all of you awesome supporters, we’ve come a very long way since last week. It hasn’t even been a week yet, but here’s where we are at (this cool widget keeps us updated on the progress): The first week or so, it was mostly people I knew who backed the project, now, slowly, names of all sorts of people are showing up on the backer list. This I think is the key: moving out beyond my circle of friends and Evertaster fans into something larger. That’s when momentum gets rolling and the Kickstarter community starts to take more notice — when they see their friends backing projects, it makes someone say “Oh, what’s this?” So I just want to say THANK YOU to everyone who has backed so far. If you’d like to share the project, you can go here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/adamsidwell/fetch-an-illustrated-book And below the video you can click “<>Embed” to put the widget on your blog, or click the facebook or twitter icon. Thanks everyone for all your support! We’re going to make this happen!

I love being able to use Kickstarter to create Fetch. Making this illustrated book has been a dream project of mine for some time now. I’ve been scheming at it, building it in my head and turning the story this way and that. I was blown away by Edwin’s first finished pages. Now it’s finally happening. When you release a book, there’s kind of a scary feeling like… “What if nobody reads it?” Well, with Kickstarter, we’re able to find out who wants to read the book before we put down the considerable work, time and expense of getting the illustrations finished and the print run done. It’s basically like if we were all in the same room and I asked for a show of hands “Who wants to a copy of the book?” and then when we get enough hands going up, we print it. The cool thing though is that Kickstarter is not so much asking for donations as it is taking pre-orders. Basically, if you sign up for the $19 reward, you get the book! $25 gets you an autographed copy. And then there are even cooler rewards like getting a big 18 X 24 print of one of the pages of the book, signed by the artist Edwin Rhemrev. That way it’s a fair exchange instead of me just asking for help. With the way Kickstarter works, the earlier everyone backs the project, the more momentum it gains, and so the better it will do. We’re quite…

I’ve launched a Kickstarter campaign for my first picture book, FETCH. It’s the story of where dogs come from. If you aren’t familiar with Kickstarter, here’s how it works: you “back” a project for a certain $ amount, and in return, you get some really cool rewards. If we get the full funding amount, we go through with the project and make the book. If we don’t, then the book doesn’t get made and nobody gets charged for their pledge. So the key is that everyone works together to share the project with their friends on Facebook, Twitter, email, etc so that we can hit the goal. Think of it more like this — if we get enough book pre-orders, we’ll make the book. What’s cool about Kickstarter is the rewards. It’s less like a donation and more like you get the chance to pre-order the book or other items. I’ve listed some really valuable rewards on the page, like this: For $10 you can get a digital pdf of the book. For $19 you can get the book (that’s the retail price of the book + shipping). For $63 a print from one of the pages signed by the artist, Edwin Rhemrev. Some of the higher end rewards are: We do a google chat session together Your name printed in the book Your dog painted into the book. I fly you to Los Angeles and for a helicopter ride and we hang out. Come see what this book and the rewards are all…

I’m getting really excited about this picture book project. I’ve mentioned it on Facebook or Twitter in vague tones in the last few weeks. I’ve even leaked some pics. If we get enough interest, we’ll make it happen. But I’ll need your help. Anyone who’s interested in checking out the Kickstarter project before it goes live and seeing a sneak peak of the book message me here: https://www.evertaster.com/contact/ Your feedback is appreciated! Especially when it comes to the rewards. Basically, if we get as few as 1000 people to pre-order the book, we’ll print it. I’ll post here once the project is ready on Kickstarter to accept donations. There are going to be some really cool rewards for taking part!

Author Signings in June: I know many readers like to get personalized copies. Here are the places that you can come shoot the breeze with me and get signed books in June: Friday, June 7, Costco Alhambra, CA 12-3pm Saturday, June 8, Costco Tustin (2700 Park Ave), CA 12-3pm Wednesday, June 12, Costco Lehi, UT 11am-2pm Wednesday, June 12, Costco Spanish Fork, UT 3-6pm Thursday, June 13, Costco Salt Lake City, UT 11am-2pm Thursday, June 13, Costco Bountiful, UT 3-6pm Tuesday, June 18th, Batesville Intermediate School virtual visit, 2pm, Batesville, Indiana Thursday, June 20, Costco Rancho Cucomunga, CA 12-3pm Friday, June 21, Costco Gilbert, AZ 11-2pm Saturday, June 22, Costco Mesa, AZ 12-3pm Tuesday, June 25, Costco Hawthorne, CA 11-2pm If you want to keep updated on signings go like the facebook page. I hope to see you there! School or Library Visits for the Fall: If you’d like me to make a school visit to your child’s school (they are a walloping good time, with videos, costumes and fun) please email publicity@evertaster.com with the contact information for your school principal or librarian. I’m booking next year fast! Enjoy your summer!

Drawn by Seth Hippen, hip animator for Ice Age, Surf’s Up and more, he’s turned his brush to this masterpiece. I went to school with Seth at BYU, where we were one of the first classes to study animation. He was one of the best artists in the class, and his work just keeps getting better. Beauty, isn’t it? The Buttersmiths’ Gold makes its debut May 2nd. To join the Launch Party fun in a few weeks when The Buttersmiths’ Gold is released, join the Online Launch Lunch Party on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/379287372186684/ Or sign up for my newsletter: Subscribe to our newsletter You can read more about what the Buttersmiths’ Gold is about here: http://www.iamareader.com/2013/04/book-spotlight-the-buttersmiths-gold-by-adam-sidwell.html http://liftyouup.blogspot.com/2013/04/blog-post-for-buttersmiths-gold.html

Hello everybody. Many of you readers have been asking about the next Evertaster book, while I secretly sit in my castle writing, rubbing my hands with sinister delight, planning and scheming as to how I might just write the story, then bury it underground forever so know one knows what happens next but me! Mwahhahahhaahhahhajustkiddinghahaaha. Throw down the drawbridge! Come inside! Have some Medieval mutton! (watch out for that rat). Now would be a good as time as any to explain my plans for the Evertaster series. Look below: Basically, there are going to be 3 main books, Evertaster #1 (secretly titled Course of Legends), Evertaster #2 The Delicious City, and Evertaster #3 The Final Season. I know I’m not making this up, because it says as much in the back pages of Evertaster #1, right before the About the Author page. If you have super keen eyes, you might even have noticed references to those books in The Master Pastry Chef’s library in chapter 3. (If you want to check right now, I’ll keep this blog post warm while you’re gone.) The main story line is plotted out, and I’ve even begun writing the Delicious City. I hope to have that to press this fall. In the meantime though, since that’s a long time to wait, I had to write a story about these guys: Remember Torbjorn and Storfjell and joggling the bovines? Well, those two Buttersmiths have a story to tell you. Guster and the Johnsonvilles aren’t…