Life After Publishing

It's been a year and a half since I finally finished my first novel, The Prince, and nine months two weeks and four days since I became "famous". Not famous like a movie star (I'm definitely no Angelina Jolie) but if you go to any Middle School and mention the words "Aiden Thomas", "Elementals" or "The Prince", 8.5 girls out of 10 will know exactly what you're talking about. Seriously, "Teen People" did a study on it.

I guess that's what happens when you get published by Hyperion, which is one of the publishing companies owned by Disney. As soon as they published my book, they advertised and talked about it everywhere possible. They were in stores at Disneyland and Disney World, articles were published about me and my novel in every teen magazine known to man and the last little nudge that turned my story into a full-blown sensation was an interview with Miley Cyrus and The Jonas Brothers on the Disney Channel. When asked what their favorite book was (since reading is "education and imagination"), all four went into a highly enthusiatic (and just as highly rehearsed) rant about how "awesome" my book was.

From there my world just exploded. Once Miley Cyrus and The Jonas Brothers think something is cool, then %85 of the world's tween population agree. Vehemently.

That's when I had to get three cell phones. One so that Disney representatives/my publisher could contact me whenever they wanted, one (my old phone) was now emptied of fan voice mails twice a day which usually consisted of high pitched squeals and little girls ranting about whether Orion or Asher were the true hunks of my story, and the last one I did my best to keep secret so that I could still get the twice-a-day phone calls from my parents. Whenever I could escape interviews and meetings, I did my best to still do the regular things in life. Disney Hyperion was already talking about making my novel into a cartoon series on Disney XD and later into a full length movie. Now, my job was to finish up my next 2 to 3 books in the series so they'd have a whole, epic storyline to play with (or exploit).

Before I had been published, I would go to Barnes and Noble by my job and look under the "If You Like Harry Potter, Then You'll Love These Books!" to find a new book for me to read. Now when a go to a book store, there's a whole wall of my novel with a section next to it titled "If You Like The Prince, Then You'll Love These Books!" that includes not only Harry Potter, but also Twilight and 7 or so other series. I still haven't decided what's more utterly offensive to me; the fact that some people consider my work to be anywhere near as great as Harry Potter or that I'm being compared to the likes of Stephanie Meyer. There's already full sized posters of the actors and actresses that will be playing my characters in the upcoming film, all of which are too old to be playing 17 year olds, have too perfect man dimples or sickeningly silky smooth hair. And they're all scheduled to appear at the next ComicCon.

I'm not trying to say that I'm ungrateful for everything Hyperion has accomplished for my little book. I mean, I had been planning on paying off my student loans for the rest of my life, but now they're all taken care of. But sometimes I feel a little uneasy and wonder if all of these young readers really appreciate my story and characters for what they are, or if it's simply because some teen idols said they were cool. I really wanted my story to mean more to kids and for them to connect with my stories on a personal level. I didn't necessarily plan on my readers to change their hair to look like Sasha and Mahti and wear t-shirts that says "Team Orion/Asher/Aidan" (but if you want one, they're by The Prince movie posters).