Author Archives: Amanda

Hey everyone! Today’s blog comes to you courtesy of The Worldbuilders Team. There’s a lot of cool stuff to share with you, and we’re really excited about it.

Honestly we’re kind of excited in general. Worldbuilders is doing amazingly well this year, and everything we raise is making a big difference. There is so much that Heifer does for the communities they work in. For example…

Over the last 3 years, the average income per person in Hebei province in China has increased from 900 yuan to 10,900 yuan per year (over 1000% increase). When Heifer arrived they helped form Self Help Groups and gifted cows to a number of families while teaching them how to take care of their new livestock (meaning food and basic care as well as veterinary techniques).

These families have seen vast improvements in their lives. They have milk to drink, make into cheese, and sell. These cows will have babies, which can be passed on to other members of the community.

A heifer costs $500, and we’ve already raised enough for more than 630 cows, just between our fundraising page and the Cards Against Humanity donation.

We’re all making a big difference together. Let’s keep rocking.

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Tuckerizations are a fun way for authors to help out with the fundraiser, and for supporters to get a real once-in-a-lifetime perk.

Except it’s not just once-in-a-lifetime. We offer Tuckerizations almost every year, and many authors have offered them this time around, more than any previous year.

What is a Tuckerization, you may ask? Well, it means different things to different people. Historically, it’s called a Tuckerization because Wilson Tucker used so many of his friends’ names as characters in his stories that it became something of an in-joke. Nowadays, it’s the chance to make a cameo appearance in a story. An author will take your name, or maybe your personality, or your physical description, and use it for a character in their story.

Maybe it’s not your name. Maybe it’s a sister’s, or a friend’s, or that kid you spent a lot of time with in kindergarten before he moved away. Maybe you only *start* with your name, but the author changes it a bit to fit in with the culture of the world you’re being put into. If that happens, you collaborate with the author and reach a solution you both like.

Whatever the case, it’s a chance to be a part of something really cool. It’s a chance, in some ways, at literary immortality.

As with the critiques of manuscripts we recently auctioned off, everyone is offering something a little different, so be sure to read carefully.

• Auction: Mary Robinette Kowal will write you into an upcoming piece of fiction, plus send you a signed manuscript before publication!

Hugo-award winning author Mary Robinette Kowal will tuckerize your name into a forthcoming piece of fiction. What does this mean? It means that she will work your name into a story or novel depending on what your name is and which project it seems to fit best into. She’ll also send you a signed manuscript before publication. So it’s like a literary twofer.

If you want this, you should bid on it right here.

• Auction: Bishop O’Connell will name a super-powered character after you.

Here’s what Bishop said when we asked him to describe his auction:

I’m offering to name a character (first and last) in the fourth book in the American Faerie Tale series, The Returned, after the winner. This character will have some decent “screen time” meaning that it won’t just be a barista, and it’s very likely to be a recurring character. Oh, and the character won’t just be some run of the mill mortal, you’ll get powers, and they’ll be awesome!

Powers, you guys. Awesome powers. Bishop O’Connell is the author of the American Faerie Tale series, and a seriously cool guy. If you want your name in his book, bid on the auction here.

• Auction: Become a character in April White‘s novel Cheating Death.

The winning bidder can choose the name and a characteristic of a featured character in the epic conclusion to The Immortal Descendants series. That character will appear in book five, Cheating Death, in which Saira, its time-traveling heroine, confronts the greatest threat history has ever seen – the Immortal, War, himself.

You know you want it. Bid here.

• Auction: Cat Rambo will tuckerize you into either a steampunk, dark fantasy, secondary world fantasy, or sci-fi story, your choice.

This is a really unique opportunity. Here’s what Cat told us about it:

I am offering my first Tuckerization ever in a short story, in your choice of one of the following genres: steampunk, dark fantasy, secondary world fantasy, or near SF.  The short story will appear on my website as part of my Patreon campaign and be somewhere between 1000-5000 words long. You may specify the character’s name and whether or not the character is alive at the end of a story. (I reserve the right to reject names that are inappropriate and ask for another choice.)

So yeah. Not only do you get your name in a story, you get it in whatever KIND of story you want, too–and a say in his/her/its ultimate fate. If that sounds right up your alley, you can bid on it here.

• Auction: Make an appearance in Jeffe Kennedy’s next book, The Edge of the Blade.

Jeffe Kennedy pitched in a chance to be featured as a named character in her award-winning Twelve Kingdoms series! In book 5, The Edge of the Blade, Jepp travels to the Dasnarian Empire where she will meet many new and interesting people (but hopefully won’t have to kill too many of them). Would you like one named after you? You and Jeffe can decide together who it might be. (Your name might have to be tweaked a bit, to fit the world, depending on what it is.)

You can bid on this one right here, and collaborate with Jeffe about who you’re going to be in her world.

• Auction: Be a scholar, diplomat, mountaineer, or something else in Marie Brennan‘s next novel. Also includes copies of two of her novels, Doppelganger and Warrior and Witch.

Bid on the chance to appear in the final book of Marie Brennan’s award-nominated Memoirs of Lady Trent series! One lucky winner will have a side character named after them or the individual of their choice. The identity of the character will depend on the gender and ethnicity of the name chosen; possibilities include a scholar of the mysterious Draconean language, an intrepid mountaineer, a foreign diplomat, and more.

How cool is that? If you want to be a Draconean scholar or the like, you can bid right here.

• Auction: Shawn Speakman will put you into his short story in Unfettered II.

Shawn had a lot of nice things to say about Pat, Worldbuilders, and everyone else who helped put Unfettered out when he was diagnosed with cancer in 2011, and we posted all of his comments in the auction. But here’s the general idea of this specific tuckerization:

Next year, in July 2016, I will publish Unfettered II.  The follow-up anthology to Unfettered has a powerhouse line-up just like its predecessor but this time all monies raised in sales will go to alleviating medical debt for other authors and artists.  In this way, I can pay forward the help I received. But first, for this year’s Worldbuilders, I am offering a tuckerization for my Unfettered II short story, The Shadowed Flames! If you’d like to have your name and physical description written into the story and eventually published in Unfettered II, you have to bid and win this auction!

Want to know what kind of story you are getting yourself into? Here is a link featuring the first draft of the first 1/3 of The Shadowed Flames.

So yeah, it’s a pretty cool opportunity from a wonderful guy. If you want to be in this one, click here to bid.

• Auction: Tim Pratt will name a character, magic spell, whorehouse, or anything of your choice after you!

Tim’s stuff is amazing, as is what he’s actually offering:

A tuckerization in an upcoming urban fantasy novel in my Marla Mason series, to be published in late 2016. I’ll name a character, magical spell, house of ill repute, boat that explodes, or something else equally wonderful after you, or use a name of your choice.

A house of ill repute. You could name a whorehouse after yourself. How do you pass that up?

You don’t. Bid here.

• Auction: Bradley P. Beaulieu will name a character after you, and the more you pay, the more important s/he will be to the series!

Brad always does cool stuff for us, and this year is no exception.

He’s offering one Tuckerization for inclusion in his brand new epic fantasy series, The Song of the Shattered Sands. The character will appear in the second book, With Blood Upon the Sand, and may live beyond those pages.

But it’s more than just that.

Brad is offering to elevate the importance of this character based on how much money it raises. By default, it’s going to be a relatively small role. But if it raises $250, your character will have some importance in the story. Not just showing up, but interacting with the main characters. And Brad will try to adopt some personal details about you into the character.

If it raises $500, he will ensure that the character either dies in a spectacular way or performs some major, selfless, heroic act. You’ll get to tell Brad if you prefer to be a heroic ally or a villain, what ethnicity you’d prefer to be, and so on.

Plus, this is at least a 3 book series (and possibly as much as 6), so you might live on beyond the book this auction is technically for. This is a seriously hefty auction.

If you want to be immortalized in this cool of a way, you can bid here.

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No one held back this year, and for that, we are thankful. It’s easy to forget about the good things in the world a lot of the time, but people like this remind us how much there is to be happy about.

The other cool thing is that a lot of stretch goals got updated yesterday after we were sort of surprised by how fast we reached them, thanks to Cards Against Humanity’s Fantasy Pack. If you want to watch them, you can head over to the Worldbuilders YouTube channel, or just click around on our lovely stretch goal page to your heart’s content.

Thanks for helping us make the world a better place, folks. Happy bidding.