Tis The Season To Be... Twilight? Bree Tanner Sales Raise $1.5M for The Red Cross

NEW YORK, NY (December 13, 2010) – Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, a division of Hachette Book Group, and Stephenie Meyer have donated 1.5 million dollars to the American Red Cross International Response Fund from their proceeds from The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner: an Eclipse Novella. As previously announced, one dollar for each book sold in the US from the first printing would go to the American Red Cross. The donation was made today by Hachette Book Group CEO David Young and Little, Brown Books for Young Readers Publisher Megan Tingley to The American Red Cross Senior Vice President of International Services David Meltzer.

“I’m so grateful that Little, Brown, the American Red Cross, and my fans made this generous gift possible,” said Stephenie Meyer. “It’s amazing to have the opportunity to help those so greatly in need.”

“We’ve had the incredible great fortune to have one of the biggest publishing phenomenons in recent years along with The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner becoming one of the top selling titles of 2010,” said Hachette Book Group CEO David Young. “Giving back is extremely important to the company, so it is particularly gratifying to be able to share our success with an organization as worthy as The American Red Cross.”

After the devastating earthquake in Haiti on January 12th the International Response Fund (IRF) afforded the American Red Cross the ability to provide immediate funding for food and other urgently needed emergency relief items.

“The generous contribution of Little, Brown to the IRF is essential to the ability of the American Red Cross to provide help and hope for people during their darkest hours,” said David Meltzer of the American Red Cross. “After the devastating Haiti earthquake, which took the lives of more than 230,000 people, the IRF allowed us to quickly purchase, ship and distribute aid. The Red Cross is extremely grateful for the support Little, Brown is providing toward our humanitarian mission.”

In the weeks and months following the Haiti earthquake, the American Red Cross worked with the global Red Cross network and other partners to secure enough food for 1 million people for one month; provide tarpaulins to one of out every three homeless people in Port-au-Prince; and vaccinate almost 1 million children and their parents against common diseases like diphtheria, tetanus, pertusis, measles and rubella. Since the early days of the response, the Red Cross has also provided safe, drinkable water for approximately 250,000 in the capital each day.The International Response Fund allows the American Red Cross to partner with other Red Cross societies immediately following large-scale disasters by providing financial assistance and relief supplies and by deploying trained disaster relief staff. For example, in the last year the IRF has supported the American Red Cross response to the floods in Pakistan, the earthquake in Chile and the aftermath of Hurricane Tomas in the Caribbean to name just a few disasters. The IRF also supports a number of other humanitarian services around the world, including global health programs to combat HIV/AIDS, measles and malaria, disaster preparedness projects, reconnecting families separated by disaster and war, and educating American students about the humanitarian rules in war.

“This kind of donation helps us provide a depth and breadth of services which is hard to match,” said Meltzer. “Last year, the American Red Cross helped 68 million people through programs funded by the International Response Fund.”

Via Twilight Lexicon

- Lorabell

Stephenie's Playlist for Bree Tanner Novella

1. "Yes Please" - Muse
2. "Heads Will Roll" - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
3. "Midnight and I" - White Rabbits
4. "Now We Can See" - The Thermals
5. "Falling In" - Ha Ha Tonka
6. "Rocking Horse" - The Dead Weather
7. "New Noise" - Refused
8. "What If We Could" - Blue October
9. "The Royal We" - Silversun Pickups
10. "Count Me Out" - Meese
11. "Blindness" - Metric
12. "Set the Sails" - Dan Mangan

Via Stephenie's site

- Lorabell

Eclipse Video - Bree Tanner Featurette

Thanks Brookelyn!

- Lorabell

Jodelle Talks Bree for Stephenie's New Book...

Via Twilighters

- Lorabell

Stephenie's Releasing A New Book!

From Stephenie's website:

Surprise!

I have a new book coming out. It's called The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner. Well, it's more of a novella than an actual book—my version of a short story.

Actually, this has been a surprise to me, too. The reason why it's a surprise was that I never intended to publish this story as a stand-alone book. I began this story a long time ago—before Twilight was even released. Back then I was just editing Eclipse, and in the thick of my vampire world. I was thinking a lot about the newborns, imagining their side of the story, and one thing led to another. I started writing from Bree's perspective about those final days, and what it was like to be a newborn.

This story was something that I worked on off and on for a while, just for fun, in between the times I was writing or editing other Twilight novels. Later, when the concept for The Twilight Saga: The Official Guide came up, I thought that might be a good place for Bree. Her story is a nice complement to Eclipse; it explains a lot of the things that Bella never knew. So I dusted it off and finished it up for placement in the Guide.

At the same time, it came in handy for the Eclipse film. Melissa (Rosenberg, the screenwriter) had a ton of questions about what exactly was going on in Seattle, how Victoria managed things, what Riley was like, etc. I let her read what I had then, and later gave the whole thing to the director, David Slade. David asked if Xavier, Bryce, and Jodelle (Riley, Victoria, and Bree) could read it as well, so all the parties involved would end up having a really strong foundation for their characters before the cameras started rolling. I was pleased that this side of the story would make it into the film and was looking forward to including it in the Guide.

(Keeping it confidential: Here is Jodelle next to the bucket of waterlogged ashes that were once the pages of her copy of the Bree manuscript.)

Then I got the news: my "short story" was nearly 200 pages long when typeset. It was too long to fit into the Guide—without ending up with a tome as heavy as the Oxford English Dictionary. My publisher approached me with the idea of releasing the Bree story on its own. One of the major benefits of this plan was that it would be out before the movie, so people would get to know Bree before they saw her in the film. That made sense to me, and we decided to go ahead with it.

There was one thing I asked for: since this story had always been an extra for me, and was meant to be released with the Guide, I wanted to be able to offer it to my fans for free. You all have bought a ton of my books, and I wanted to give you this story as a gift. My publisher was awesome and embraced this idea. We still wanted to also produce a physical book with a cool cover (see below) that you can add to your set if you like, but starting at noon on June 7th until July 5th, it will also be available online at www.breetanner.com.

One other aspect of this release is the plan to give a more important gift to people who really need it. One dollar of each book purchased in the US from the first printing will be donated to the American Red Cross for their relief efforts in Haiti and Chile and other parts of the world where people are in great need. We're going to have an option online as well, so you can choose to make a donation if you want when you read the story online. I hope you will. I think that we can really help a lot of people with this.

I really hope you all enjoy this story. I had a blast writing it. I'm glad that after all this time cooling her heels in my files, Bree finally gets her chance to shine.

Thanks for all the support,

Steph

I am really hoping this isn't an April Fools joke - just sayin!

For more info on the press release see here :)