Lost Hero party simulcast!

Be a part of the largest demigod gathering in history!

The Lost Hero book launch event, 10/12/2010, will be simulcasted live on the internet starting at 7pm Eastern time!

Join me at Camp Half-Blood where I will read from the first book in The Heroes of Olympus series, The Lost Hero. Online viewers will get a chance to ask questions live and I will make a very special announcement that you won’t want to miss.

Registration is free, so sign up today!

Back from New York

The Riordan family took a brief trip to New York over the weekend, which was a nice break for me before diving into my final revisions for Kane Chronicles 2.

While in the city, I got to see the finished copies of The Lost Hero -- very exciting! The book doesn't come out until Oct. 12, but it looks beautiful. I visited the Barnes & Noble distribution center early Friday morning and signed 3000 copies for pre-orders. You can see the palettes above, but it doesn't give you a good impression of just how many books that is! The intrepid staff from Disney helped me get through them, though, and seeing the distribution center was worth the trip. It's the size of a small city, and is buzzing with activity -- forklifts, conveyor belts, box-making machines. I was tempted to order a book on-line just so I could see it come off the assembly line.

After B&N, I headed into the city and signed another 1000 copies for other retailers at Disney headquarters. Yes, my hand was sore! My oldest son Haley got to come with me and get some advice on his own manuscript in progress from my very generous editor Stephanie, then we had a great lunch (Greek food, naturally). Haley is an adventurous eater and had the octopus. Me . . . not so much.

Saturday, I headed out to Adelphi University in Garden City and gave a lecture on reading. The crowd was large and enthusiastic. What a great campus, too! I really enjoyed the experience.

My family had time to visit the Natural History Museum as well, eat some New York pizza, and walk around Central Park. All in all, a wonderful time.

Now back at home, I'm back to writing. Kane 2 will be finished this week and sent to my editor. I love it when I complete a manuscript! No definite title yet -- that's usually the very last thing that I do -- but I'm sure an announcement will be forthcoming soon enough. The book will be published May 2011.

In other Kane Chronicles news, BookPeople will be sponsoring its first House of Life camp, based on the series, next summer! As you may know, BookPeople's Camp Half-Blood is wildly popular and always sells out immediately, so I expect the Kane camp will be every bit as cool. Check out their website!

I hope to see some of you on the road in October. All the tour details for The Lost Hero are now available on my calendar. Until then, happy reading!

Countdown to The Lost Hero!

Today Disney issued a major press release for The Lost Hero, the first volume of my new series Heroes of Olympus, which will be published Oct. 12. The news broke in Publishers Weekly. Among the exciting news, The Lost Hero will have an initial print run of 2.5 million copies, and will be released simultaneously in hardcover, ebook, and audio formats.

The series site is now live! Be sure to visit for a cool video trailer, tour information, downloadable wallpaper, sneak previews, and much more!

The world launch party for The Lost Hero will be Oct. 12 at BookPeople in Austin. If you can't join us in person, don't worry! We will be streaming the event live online, and thousands of demigods will join us virtually for the celebration. You can find more information about how to join us on the series website, and I'll be making an exciting announcement on the webcast as well, so be sure to tune in.

I'm so excited about The Lost Hero! I hope you enjoy the new series as much as I loved writing it, and I think you'll be surprised (pleasantly, I hope) but what's going on in Percy's world.

As always, the only hard part of the book tour is all the places I don't get to go. We only have two weeks, so obviously I can't go everywhere I'd like to. For the Kane Chronicles in May, we concentrated mostly on the eastern half of the country, so for this tour we'll be in the western half of the country. Still, there are a lot of places we won't be able to visit. Nevertheless, I hope you'll join us online for the book launch event, and if you need a signed book, remember almost all the stores that are hosting events will be more than happy to take phone or internet orders in advance and ship the signed books to you after my visit.

And now, back to the world of the Kane Chronicles. I'm just wrapping up work on the second book in the series, due out May 2011, and Carter and Sadie are in quite a dangerous situation!