This Saturday the RHCB Publicity team, alongside editors Annie Eaton, Lauren Buckland and Parul Bavishi – hosted a very successful Blogger’s Brunch.

Bright and early, 17 of the most influential teen and YA bloggers in the UK travelled to the Random House Pimlico office. For a lot of these bloggers it was their fourth time, but we were excited to also welcome a few new faces.

Following a catch-up mingle over coffee/tea and fruit, the RHCB team presented 24 fantastic upcoming 2012 titles. Each title was given a few minutes of explanation; what’s it about and what makes it hot for 2012! Both publicity and editorial are excited about the range of genres and new ideas on this year’s list and the enthusiasm really came across.

 After the presentation we invited our three guest authors to join the bloggers for some more tea and cake. This included; Witchstruck author Victoria Lamb, Turf author John Lucas and Fire City author Bali Rai. Stephanie and Harriet had given up their Friday night to bake some amazing ‘Whoopie Pies’ and cupcakes – inspired by RHCB’s own book Whoopie Pie Fun. Hopefully they inspired the bloggers to give it a go themselves, as we included the cookbook in their goody-bags!

 Also included in their goody bags were a variety of other 2012 preview titles for the Blogger’s to take home and read. These included; Wonder, proofs of Starters and Black Arts and a preview manuscript of Now is the time for Running. There were a few sneak peeks also, such as the fabulous German cover of Starters and a video from Struck author Jennifer Bosworth, made especially for the bloggers which it will be sent to personally!

The day ended well, with lots of chat about books and upcoming genres like dystopia. There was also buzz over new jackets, author blog tours and film-tie-ins.

The feedback was very positive, here are a few of the emails we received:

‘I had an absolutely wonderful time today at the blogger’s brunch! It was lovely meeting you and the RH team, the authors and hearing about all the wonderful books you have out this year.  It’s a very exciting line-up and I’m looking forward to ALL of the books.  Thank you so much for inviting me (and for the yum whoopie pies! and books!) ’                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

Clover from FlutteringButterflies

‘Had a lovely time today, it was such a fun and friendly event. Thanks so much for inviting me.’                                      

Sarah from My Favourite Books  

‘Thanks again for letting me and Hayley Tag along to the blogger brunch it was great! Just wondering if you could send the link to this struck sneak peak? I’m like SO excited to see it! The book sounds amazing!!’                                         

Casey from Dark Readers

The authors also enjoyed themselves.

Victoria Lamb wrote;  ‘What a great day it was on Saturday! I certainly hope the bloggers enjoyed themselves.’

 Bali Rai tweeted; ‘Thanks to the peeps @GetReading_RHCB for a lovely lunch.’

 Everyone really enjoyed the day, and the RHCB team loved chatting with the bloggers, who are so passionate about the books they read. They are anticipating our upcoming books as much as we are! We look forward to reading what they think of the range of titles out this year, and to seeing them at the next Blogger’s Brunch.