Stephenie Meyer: In USA Today, Why Bree

stephenieMeyerHeadshot2Q: Bree only appears in a couple pages of Eclipse. What was it about the character that made you want to explore her story further?

A: In the beginning, I wasn’t fascinated specifically by Bree — it was the newborns in general. While I was writing Eclipse, there was a lot going on behind the scenes, of course, things Bella didn’t know about. Because I was focused on Bella, I couldn’t delve too deeply into the newborns’ story, however, there was always in my mind a general idea of what they were up to. I had to think about that while I was pacing the plot: Bella is at this point, the newborns are doing this. To keep it all straight, eventually I made a calendar of the months of May and June — which is all Eclipse deals with — and wrote down on each square what was going on with Bella that day and what was happening in Seattle. So the story of the newborns was always a big part of the story of Eclipse. And it made me kind of sad that there was no way to express any of that in the book.

Bree is the only newborn mentioned by name in Eclipse, the only newborn who has contact with the Cullens (aside from being killed by them), and the only newborn who encounters the Volturi in the clearing. She lives the longest, so she is the narrator who can tell the full story. She was a natural choice to chronicle the story of the newborns. Once I started writing from her perspective, she really came alive. So much so that, as the inevitable end got closer, it was really depressing going ahead. It was harder for me to kill Bree than any other fiction character I’ve ever killed, even though I was killing her for the second time. (Before Bree, the saddest was Walter in The Host.)

See the rest in USA Today.

New Jodelle Ferland interview

Just days before The Second Short Life of Bree tanner hits bookshelves, Dream Magazine has a new interview with Jodelle Ferland. She talks about her co-stars and the thrill of being cast in Eclipse. Read the whole interview here.

Q: Have you read the TWILIGHT SAGA books before you found out about ECLIPSE?

A: I think I was just finishing the BREAKING DAWN book when I got called for the Bree audition. I loved the series, it was absolutely fantastic. I’m a total bookworm, and I just can’t put a book down once I start reading it. Especially a good book. So I didn’t get much sleep while I was reading the TWILIGHT series. I can honestly read until 5 o’clock in the morning if I’m really into the book. Probably later, if I wasn’t afraid that I’d fall asleep while eating breakfast.

Contest for UK Twilight Fans

BreeTannerAccording to the Waterstone’s site:

“To celebrate the launch of Stephenie Meyer’s new Twilight saga novella, The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner, we want to find the nation’s most enthusiastic, fun fan to represent the Twilight generation when the first copies of the book arrive at Europe’s largest bookshop, Waterstone’s Piccadilly.

Twilight fans love to talk about the books, the characters, the romance, the mystery and everything else contained in the four books of the Twilight saga: Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn. But how would you sum up what’s contained in those hundreds of pages for someone who’s never read the books? In a minute. On camera.

We want to see you reduce the entire Twilight saga to just 60 seconds of inspired enthusiasm, passion and imagination. The rules are simple – simply film yourself explaining the entire Twilight saga in 60 seconds or less, post your film on YouTube – with the tagline “My Twilight in 60 secs” – and add the link to our Facebook page: facebook.com/waterstones, so we can judge the best.

Use your camera, your mobile phone, your camcorder – whatever you like.

We’ll choose one winner (UK only) to be our ‘spokesfan’ on Friday 4th June. The lucky winner will also be able to bring along up to 2 friends (plus a responsible adult if under 18), stay in a top London hotel, get loads of Twilight saga goodies, plus £500 spending money and have the first copies of The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner delivered to their hotel room door at the official publication time of 5.05am on Saturday 5th June.”

See the Waterstone’s site for full regulations.

TY to Juxabook on Twitter

Q & A For Bree Tanner Audiobook

BreeTannerThis just in from the folks at Random House who are producing the Short Second Life of Bree Tanner audiobook:

” I wanted to let you know that we are in fact producing an audiobook version of THE SHORT SECOND LIFE OF BREE TANNER, to go on sale June 5 along with the book, and of course we’re very excited!

Emma Galvin is narrating, she’s a young Broadway actress (currently starring in Our Town) and she did an incredible job.  We’re actually going to be shooting some video with her here at our offices next week, and would like to offer your readers a chance to submit their questions for Emma to us via Twitter!  All they have to do is send us a tweet at @LLAudiobooks including the hashtag #breetanner with the question they’d like to ask Emma about her experience recording the BREE TANNER audiobook.

Unfortunately, she won’t be able to reveal any plot secrets from the book, but all other topics are fair game.  We’ll be accepting questions for the rest of this week, I’m interested to see what the fans want to know!”

So if you have any questions for Emma, send them via Twitter!

Twilight Sales Finally Reach Inevitable Slow Down

twilight-booksAccording to Lagarder, the parent comply of Hachette & Little Brown, Twilight sales have finally reached a plateau of sorts. According to an article in The Book Seller:

“Lagardère Pubishing saw a 6.5% decline in revenues for the first quarter of 2010, with sales down from €30m to €433m for the period to end-March 2010 after what it described as “the expected erosion in Stephenie Meyer sales”.

Hachette UK said its sales had been “strong” in the first quarter of 2010, with underlying sales across HUK up on 2009 and “considerably ahead of expectation”. This was despite continuing international economic uncertainty, and a fall of 6% in the overall UK market. Hachette UK added that “inevitably, sales of Stephenie Meyer’s backlist have steadied after their phenomenal performance in 2010”.

Business Week is also reporting on the trend.

“Lagardere last year benefitted from the success of Meyer’s vampire-themed “Twilight” novels, published by its Hachette Book Group unit. In 2010 guidance issued in March, the company said its publishing division would see a “return to normal” after brisk sales of “Twilight” books and related products.

Last month, the company fought off a challenge from American activist shareholder Guy Wyser-Pratte, who sought a board seat to force a “strategic review” and changes to a corporate structure that gives Arnaud Lagardere extra powers.”

You can see a bit of the trend on this week’s New York Times Bestseller Lists. The Twilight Graphic novel is in second position in its category(graphic books). The Twilight Saga books are in forth in their category (Children’s series: note there is no YA distinction) behind the House of Night series, Percy Jackson, and Diary of a Whimpy Kid. It should also be noted that The Host paperback edition is in fifth place in its category. So while not gone from the lists, the books do not have their previous stranglehold on the top spots in all categories.

What will really be interesting to watch is how well the Bree Tanner novella performs when it goes on sale June 5th. It will mark the first time any new Twilight specific information has come out in almost two years. How many people will opt for a hardcover version vs. how many people will want the PDF free version.

Another Image of Jodelle Ferland as Bree

Once again, thanks to the folks over at Creation Entertainment, we have another image of Jodelle Ferland as Bree Tanner.  What’s new about this photos is that it looks like an actual still image from the film and not a publicity shot like the last one was.  Sow what do you think?  Do her eyes look more like a newborn vamp in this picture?

First Image of Jodelle Ferland as a Vamp

I was looking at the list of celebrities on tap for the Official Twilight Convention in Vancouver that is coming up on May 14-16 and found that Jodelle Ferland, who hasn’t yet attended a Twilight convention, has been added to the appearance schedule.  But what is even more exciting is that Creation Entertainment is running a photo of Jodelle that we at the Lexicon have never seen before – and trust us when we say that we’ve seen just about everything!  Since Creation Entertainment is running the photo, and given that her eyes are red, we have to assume that this is a publicity shot of Jodelle as Bree.

Stylistically, this shot is very similar to that of the other vampires.   We’re curious, though, as to what Jodelle is wearing around her neck!  We hope that in days to come the full image will be available and we can see her necklace in full.  Perhaps the necklace will have meaning to the character of Bree and is something that will be mentioned in The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner.

Spiffy Bree Tanner Countdown Widget

This was just put up on Stephenie Meyer’s website.

So Now That We Had 8 Hours to Think About It…

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So at 7:00am for Pel and 6:00am for Alphie we were given the news about the news about the release of The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner. Around 4:00ish MTV contacted us and wanted to know what we thought, what fan reaction on the Lexicon was, and our overall opinion of fan reaction was.  So Alphie, Lori, called MTV:

“Joffs felt fans weren’t reading Meyer’s post about the novella closely enough, or they would have seen that Meyer had been working on this story since she first finished writing “Eclipse” many years ago. “The Short Second Life” was written to be included in the “Twilight Saga” companion but had grown too large, and the publisher decided to put it out in conjunction with the film….”I think that that’s where fans are getting upset, because it looks like Stephenie has abandoned writing anything else to write about Bree, and I don’t think that’s what happened at all,” Joffs explained…

Joffs said she empathized with fans dying for a full version of “Midnight Sun,” but she saw the publication of “The Short Second Life”‘ only as a positive. “If this is what it takes — if publishing another novel, another little novella, another side of the story — to get her writing again and to get her back into publication again, I will take it. I’m grateful for anything she puts out there,” Joffs said about Meyer. “I will read whatever she publishes, happily.”

Our friend Amanda Bell, the Twilight Examiner, also was asked for her opinion:

“This is work by this author about this series that we’re all in love with,” Bell explained. “People are going to gravitate towards being totally hyped up about it. It’s going to be a big deal, for sure.”

For Bell, Bree Tanner was a character she had always been interested in. While some fans were confused as to why a character that only appeared for 10 pages in “Eclipse” would be the subject of her own 192-page novella, it made sense to Bell from the beginning.

“While reading the ‘Twilight’ series, you think that the Cullen family has really good perception of people, and so it was interesting to see that they were kind of willing to take [Tanner] under their wing,” Bell said. “There was a reason for that, and I was always curious to know more about her.”

Check out the whole story on MTV.

Update on Foreign Publication of Bree’s Story

BreeTannerFor all the fans in countries other than the US who are anxious about when you might be seeing the book in your own countries and languages.  Here is the information we have been given from Little Brown:

We are still working with our many international partners to confirm on-sale dates and they will all be making announcements shortly.  The June 5th release date will be adhered to by our UK, Australian and New Zealand publishers with many of our foreign language partners such as Spain, Italy, France and Germany to either come out simultaneously or closely behind.