Monthly Archives: November 2009

Hyperion and Disney Book Group released this announcement yesterday:

NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLING AUTHOR MELISSA DE LA CRUZ SIGNS MAJOR MULTIBOOK CONTRACTS WITH HYPERION AND DISNEY BOOK GROUP

November 16, 2009 – Ellen Archer, President and Publisher of Hyperion, and Jeanne Mosure, Senior Vice President, Group Publisher, Disney Book Group, today announced signing best-selling writer Melissa de la Cruz to major multibook contracts with their respective divisions of The Walt Disney Company. Richard Abate of 3Arts Entertainment negotiated both deals. 

The Hyperion deal, for two books in a new adult fantasy series, marks Melissa de la Cruz’s first foray into adult paranormal fiction.  The two novels will follow the lives of the Beauchamp girls, who live in the fictional town of North Hampton, as they struggle to stop an arch nemesis and restore the delicate balance between good and evil. De la Cruz will weave characters from her best-selling Blue Bloods young adult series into the novels. Ellen Archer, President and Publisher of Hyperion, has acquired World rights and Brenda Copeland will edit. The first novel, WITCHES OF EAST END, will be published in Spring 2011.

“Melissa is wonderfully creative and her enthusiasm for this project is infectious,” said Archer. “We are thrilled to be publishing this inventive series and to introduce her books to an adult audience.” 

Disney-Hyperion, an imprint of Disney Book Group, acquired two books in a brand-new series—WOLF PACT—as well as three companion books to de la Cruz’s best-selling BLUE BLOODS series. Wolf Pact will follow the adventures of Bliss Llewellyn, a central character in the Blue Bloods novels, as she goes on a quest to find the legendary Hounds of Hell and convince them to join the Blue Blood vampires in their war against the Silver Bloods. The Wolf Pact series will reinvent the myth of the werewolf in the same way that Blue Bloods breathed new life into the vampire genre. The first book in the series is scheduled to be published in Winter 2011. BLUE BLOODS: KEYS TO THE REPOSITORY, slated for Summer 2010, will contain never-before-published short stories and an encyclopedia to the Blue Bloods world. BLUE BLOODS: BLOODY VALENTINE, a romantic novella, will be published in Winter 2011. BLUE BLOODS: THE GRAPHIC NOVEL will be published in Summer 2011. Jennifer Besser, Executive Editor, Disney Book Group, acquired North American rights for Wolf Pact and World rights for the Blue Bloods books. She will continue to edit de la Cruz. 

“Melissa is an unstoppable talent,” said Mosure. “We’re delighted to be continuing our relationship with her.”

Melissa de la Cruz is the author of the New York Times and USA Today best-selling young adult series Blue Bloods, published by Disney-Hyperion. The Van Alen Legacy, the latest book in the Blue Bloods series, debuted at #3 on the New York Times Children’s Series Best Sellers List, #12 on the USA Today Top 150 Best Seller List, and #4 on the Wall Street Journal Hardcover Fiction List. The Blue Bloods series has sold more than a million copies, is published in over twelve countries, and has appeared on numerous best-seller lists both domestically and abroad. Entertainment Weekly named Schuyler Van Alen from the Blue Bloods series as #9 in their Top 20 Vampires of all time. De la Cruz’s books have been honored by the American Library Association as a Top Ten Quick Pick, the Chicago Public Library’s “Best of the Best,” the New York Public Library’s Books for the Teenage, the TAYSHAS High School Reading List (TX), the Bank Street Children’s Books List, and many statewide reading lists.
Melissa de la Cruz began her writing career as a freelance journalist in New York City. She has worked as a fashion and beauty editor and has written for many publications, including The New York Times, Marie Claire, Harper’s Bazaar, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Allure, The San Francisco Chronicle, McSweeney’s, Teen Vogue, CosmoGirl! and Seventeen. She has also appeared as an expert on fashion, trends, and fame for CNN, E! and FoxNews. De la Cruz is the author of many critically acclaimed and award-winning novels for teens, including the Au Pairs series, the Ashleys series, the Angels on Sunset Boulevard series, and the semi-autobiographical novel Fresh off the Boat. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and daughter.

Hyperion, founded in 1991, publishes general-interest fiction and nonfiction hardcover, trade, and mass-market paperback books for adults, and includes the Voice, Miramax, ABC Daytime Press, and Hyperion eBooks and Audio imprints.  Hyperion is the adult trade book publishing unit of the Disney/ABC-Television Group, which is part of The Walt Disney Company. For further information, please visit http://www.hyperionbooks.com.

Disney-Hyperion Books is an imprint of Disney Book Group (DBG); additional DBG imprints include Disney Editions, Disney-Jump at the Sun Books, and Disney Press. DBG is part of Disney Publishing Worldwide, the world’s largest publisher of children’s books and magazines, with over 250 million children’s books and over 400 million children’s magazines sold each year. Headquartered in White Plains, New York, Disney Publishing Worldwide publishes books and magazines in 85 languages in 75 countries.

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Pretty cool for school huh? I’m so glad the announcement is finally out – have been bursting to share for so long. I’ve been working on all the books since the summer and they are all in various stages of completion. I am so excited about everything, and yes, entering the adult market again. Although I feel like books like Blue Bloods and Wolf Pact and Witches of East End are for all ages really.

So, that’s my story. Just working. But also going to a lot of art lectures and benefits and traveling to New York in December and then Italy for New Year’s. It’s all vacation therapy over here. Retail therapy has not been cutting lately. Although I am kind of loving all the pre-Thanksgiving sales. 😉

xoxo
Mel

Hi all,

I finally have a new office address where you can write me (you know for those class assignments your teachers make you send – which are too fun to read).

Office of Melissa de la Cruz
3940 Laurel Canyon Blvd. #1268
Studio City, CA 91604

You can also send self-addressed stamped envelopes to the above address and we will send you bookplates. Bookplates are stickers with my signature that you can put on your books. And a couple of you have emailed asking if the signed book you bought from Target, Walmart, K-Mart, or the local grocery store, really *IS* my signature. It is! It is! I signed about a thousand books at the Levy warehouse, which ships them to various outlets. So yeah, that’s my autograph! Cool, huh? I had fun doing it and I heard I might have broken the record for fastest-books-signed-in-an-hour. Take that, Dan Brown! Heh!

Just so you know, I don’t actually work in that office, my assistant just picks up the mail there. Not that you all are stalkerish in any way, but just thought I would add that. 🙂

Again, thank you for all your letters offering condolence and sympathy. It is very hard to believe my dad is gone. I go between stunned-staring-out-the-window-in-silent-shock to blubbering to just coping. I cried so much in the past week I bruised my eye. Did you know that can happen? That you can cry so much your eye hurts and turns red? And also sometimes you can cry so much that no tears fall anymore? It’s weird. Anyway. The writing really helps, I feel very focused now. And it helps to talk about it. I don’t think I’ve ever really understood death before—just how brutally final it is and just how terribly short life really is. Even if you die at 100 I think it will still feel short, because life is so wonderful and for it to end seems just too awful for words. Anyway…back to work for me.

xoxo
Mel

My dad passed away a week and a half ago after a six-year battle with cancer. Thank you everyone for all your kind thoughts and emails, especially those who shared their own stories of losing parents to this terrible disease. It has brought me great comfort to know that my readers care so much. Thank you.

I am back to work now, I find working and writing and immersing myself in the world of the Blue Bloods is a huge distraction and very therapeutic. So thank you for reading the books too. I am working on lots of fun stuff like Book Five, Misguided Angel, and the first Wolf Pact book, as well as other projects which I will hopefully be able to share soon.

Have a wonderful week and thank you all for everything.
xoxo
Mel