Bryce and Julie, Sittin' in a Tree...

The Mad Crunch has yielded content! Results! And a request for video clips for the e-book. Video clips? For an e-book? Yeah. But I'm getting ahead of myself, so eeeeeert, back up. First, yes that image on the left is the movie poster. Or the final art for the movie poster, anyway. That gibberish on the bottom is going to have to change, and we know the date's been moved up to August, so I'm sure the "9.17" will, too. But the point is, this is what the poster for the movie will look like, and this will also be the basis for the cover of the movie tie-in edition book. Did Bryce ever get up in the tree with Juli? Uh, no. But the spirit of the image is great, and I like that they made the kids older than they were in the previous art (see blog post from a few weeks ago). I also really like that they used a font so similar to the font on the original book. I think it ties things together nicely. I don't know what that "Heartland Truly Moving Picture Award" is about, but I'd better check it out. Sounds good to me! And, the movie stills for the book came in, too. There will be 8 pages with 2 pictures each in the book, and they're wonderful! So it looks like the deadlines have been met (barely!) and that the book will go to press with a representative cover and a nice set of photographs. Pfew! Which brings us to the e-book. Okay, so I'm not yet a fan of e-books. I like a physical book. E-books also scare me because this is my livelihood (and passion) and I've seen what downloading has done to the music industry. E-book pros and cons are hotly debated and I'm not going to get into it here, but regardless of how I feel about it, there will be an e-book for Flipped, released just prior to the movie. And apparently the new media marketing gurus at Random House asked my editor (Nancy) if we could possibly supply extra "content" for the e-book. Like, maybe a video of me talking about the book-to-movie process. I didn't know they could include video in an e-book. Or that e-books can support songs. And it just so happens that we happen to have 3 complete, professionally recorded songs based on Flipped. Long story short, when I found out Flipped might become a movie, I started writing songs which we hoped would be considered for the movie soundtrack. I know. I know. And I agree--it sounds wacked out crazy, and oh-please, and who-does-she-think-she-is and all of that. Believe me, I get that. But long before books there was music, and there's nothing like hope in your heart to keep you going. So Mark and I recorded these songs, submitted them, and...were told that they liked the songs a lot, but that the movie was going to use songs that were popular in the 50's and 60's. Too bad for us, but at least we gave it our best shot. Nancy knew about the songs, and when she told the e-book team that they existed, apparently they got very excited and wanted to know if we'd allow them to be included in the e-book. Looks like we'll be providing the "soundtrack to the e-book". Now there's something brand new. They also wanted some short video clips of me talking about how the book got turned into a movie, what it was like to visit the location shoot, how I came up with the idea of Flipped, an inside view to recording a song...stuff like that. So this weekend Mark and I did a handful of short videos. I hate the way I look in them, 'cause right now my hair's really short and l look kind of worn [maybe from that 10 miles I ran this morning] and I'm definitely a snarl-lipped, bug-eyed spaz in parts of these videos. Oh, well. That's life. Anyway, my question to you is, if there was something you would want me to discuss regarding Flipped (the movie or the book or, for that matter, the e-book) what would it be? I feel like I've covered all the bases in the video clips, but maybe not! That's all for now. Thanks for caring; thanks for checking in. I appreciate that you do! See you next Sunday, Wendelin