(Click to Embiggen.)

It’s the Finnish translation of The Name of the Wind. Huzzah!

I suppose I might get jaded about this stuff eventually. But the truth is, I still love seeing the new editions of the book. I love trying to figure out how to pronounce the title. I love seeing which map they end up putting in the front. (Usually it’s Nate’s version, but not always.) I love flipping through the book and seeing if I can figure out what’s going on.

And I *love* the versions with new covers. For this one, I’m willing to bet that the artist actually read the book. I can tell because of how the lute looks. The pegbox isn’t cantilevered, and there’s only three pegs on this side (so four on the other side would make seven.) I also like the hood of his cloak.

That’s all for now, T-shirts will be showing up soon. So keep an eye out here if you’re looking to vote on which ones are your favorite…

pat

It was a new experience for me. But despite the fact that I was flattered, I turned all the invitations down saying, “I don’t really write many short stories. Besides, I really have to work on getting my second book out.”

I didn’t meet that first deadline for book two for various reasons. But still, I felt like turning down those offers was the responsible thing to do. I was trying to behave like a grown-up, you see.

In 2008 the paperback came out and I hit the New York Times Bestseller list. Because of that I got even more attention. Offers to write comic books, video games,  and more invitations to anthologies.

Again, I turned them down, saying, “I don’t have much experience writing short stories. Besides, I really need to focus on book two.”

A lot of these offers were for really cool anthologies, mind you. It was hard to turn down the chance to be published alongside some other big-name authors. Still, I felt morally obliged to refuse and focus on book two. I was trying hard to be a professional.

I continued along these lines until early this year when Suvudu held their cage match. They paired up various fantasy characters in head-to-head fights. I was flattered that Kvothe was included, but looking at the brackets, I saw that if Kvothe made it to the second round, he’d have to go up against Aslan.

That’s not an easy fight to win, and I kept thinking about how the scene would play out. How exactly, I wondered, would Kvothe win that fight?

Then the folks at Suvudu asked if I’d like to write up my version of the scene. So I did.

And you know what? It was fun. It was amazingly, delightfully fun. I’d actually forgotten how nice it was to write something just for pure shits and giggles. It didn’t eat up my precious writing time as I’d been fearing. Instead, it reminded me how much fun writing could be.

I thought to myself, “Fuck being a grown-up. I started writing to have fun. Now that I’m published, I should be doing fun things…”

And you know what? As soon as I gave up trying to be all professional and responsible (things that don’t come naturally to me, as a rule) my writing immediately improved. I wrote faster, and better, and I had more fun doing it.

Fast forward to earlier this year. I get an e-mail from John Scalzi. He sends me an e-mail that says (This is a paraphrase, mind you.)

Question: Would you have space on your schedule for a short (about 2K) story? It would be for a short (silly) story collection designed to raise money for the Lupus foundation. Deadline end of July-ish. Story doesn’t necessarily have to be “good” in a classic sense; in fact, it might be better if it’s not.

I think to myself. This sounds fun. It’s for charity. It’s short (I can do 2000 words standing on my head.) And he’s pretty much said it’s okay if my story ends up sucking. He’s practically encouraging me to suck.

So I e-mailed Scalzi back, and our e-mail exchange went roughly like this.

ME: Okay, I’m interested. What are the details?

HIM: Write a story about the events leading up to, and culminating in, the attached picture (which is a rough sketch; final picture to come).

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ME: WTF?

HIM: For the sake of clarity, the person at the top is Wil Wheaton; the person at the bottom is me.

ME: Merciful Buddha…. Can you give me any context? Some framework I can use to cage this madness?

HIM: No. No context. Just write something. No slash. Otherwise, knock yourself out.

So there I am, utterly confusticated and bebothered. This is the first piece of short fiction I’ve agreed to write, and all I can think is, “What the fuck can I possibly write about this?”

This question spins around in my head for a couple days. I think, “Can I write a story about Scalzi and Wheaton playing D&D? Is that too geeky?  A holodeck adventure? Too cheap? Do I dare write the absolutely forbidden, ‘It was all just a dream’ story?”

Then it occurs to me that I’m approaching this from the wrong direction. I shouldn’t be trying to turn this picture into a joke. I shouldn’t try to be cute or gimmicky.

No. The events taking place in this picture are obviously epic. My story needs to be epic. And since it can’t be epic in length, it has to be epic in form….

So that’s how I ended up writing a poetic edda. For those of you who aren’t complete geeks, an edda is an old alliterative poem. Like Beowulf. Or the old Norse legends Tolkien ripped off when he was writing the Lord of the Rings.

Once I knew how to handle the story, I ended up having a ton of fun with it. I even brought in a certain celebrity in a cameo role…

Of course poetic edda aren’t supposed to be written in modern English, so I ended up spending a ridiculous amount of time trying to get the meter right. But you know my motto: if it’s worth writing, it’s worth obsessively revising.

And now, months later, I’m finally able to present you with the finished project:

(Beware, lest the awesome blind you…)

Check it out. I get third billing. How cool is that shit?

You can download the anthology for free, but I’d like to politely ask y’all to keep in mind that we’re trying to raise money for the Lupus foundation. For all intents and purposes, these stories are brought to you by the Lupus Foundation.

That means if you can afford it, donating to the cause would be a terribly kind thing to do. I know you have it in you. Make me proud.

You can download the anthology and revel in its majesty over here.

Share and enjoy,

pat

I haven’t actually held one in my hands yet, but the cover looks pretty cool:

I always like seeing new covers for the book. Especially when the art has obviously been commissioned especially for the book.

Though I’ve only recently become a father, I’ve compared writing a book to having a baby for years. My mom used to refer to it as “her grandbook.” And one of my friends used to ask about it in those terms. We wouldn’t see each other for months, and when we got together and caught up on the news, she’d eventually ask, “And how’s the baby doing…?”

Now that I’ve been a dad for a couple of weeks, I realize that the baby analogy is better than I thought. Before I was mostly referring to the emotional connection you feel to your own book. But now, having dealt with a newborn, I realize that writing a book is not entirely dissimilar to actually raising a child.

You feed it. Change it. Cuddle it. Dress it. Undress it. Change it. Feed it. Change it. Change it. Get it to take a nap. Change it.

And then, at the end of the day, you look at it and realize that it’s pretty useless.

Don’t get me wrong, you love it. You love it like nobody’s business. But unless you’re an idiot, you realize this thing really isn’t good for anything yet. You’re going to have months and months of thankless, repetitive work before it’s capable of going out into the world on its own.

Later, when your book is published, it’s very cool and very scary. That’s when your baby has grown up enough to leave the nest. It’s out there, meeting people all on its own. If you’ve raised it properly, it hopefully makes a good impression. Hopefully it makes friends.

But the foreign editions of the book are… different. It’s still my baby, but it’s not *really* my baby. It’s like someone has cloned my baby and dressed it up in lederhosen and made it smoke a pipe for marketing reasons.

Yeah. The analogy really starts to fall apart after a while, I guess.

What was my point? No point. I don’t always have to have a point, you know….

Wait! I guess I do have a point. It’s that sometimes they make your baby smoke a pipe and you have to shrug it off. You don’t know what sells books in Bangladesh, or Berlin, or Brigadoon. For the most part, you have to trust that the publisher knows what they’re doing. For all you know, those Doonies are loonies for pipes…

But it’s nice when you see the marketing and it appeals to your aesthetic. Like the trailer I posted before. Or this picture that I stumbled onto when I was googling up an image of the cover for this blog.

(Click to Embiggen)

I’m guessing this is a promotional poster. If it is, I wish I had a copy. I like the tagline across the top. “Kvothe: Magician, Musician, Thief, Assassin and… Hero.”

Hell, if I’d have been able to come up with promo copy like that on my own, it wouldn’t have taken me five years to sell the thing.

Later, you hoopy froods….

pat

And, for those of you who give a care, here are the newest editions to The Name of the Wind family.

This cover should look familiar to most of you, as it’s pretty much the same as the UK cover.

Soon, my thumb will be so famous from all these appearances that it will become a celebrity in its own right. I predict it will leave for Hollywood, have a whirlwind affair with Kate Moss, develop a drinking problem, and then eventually come crawling back to Wisconsin. Which is a good thing because I need it to hit the space bar.

Anyway, the Polish version of the book has lovely paper, and a new cover which clearly depicts the scene where Kvothe, um… goes forth. Into… some manner of… um cloudy desert.

I kid. I kid. I know that not ever book gets its own tailor-made cover. By now, when a version of my book comes out with a cover that’s obviously a piece of stock-art, I feel like it’s one of my kids coming up to me and saying. “Guess what happened today? I went out and fought a dragon, and met a guy with a nipple ring, and I rode an elephant, and it was really cool!” I know it’s not the truth, but it’s still my kid, and I can’t be too upset. I’m just glad he’s out there, meeting new people.

The other thing I do is make up little stories that go along with the cover. For this one the story would be:

Kvothe strode through the dread portal, leaning heavily on his staff. A lesser man might have been concerned by the skulls, or been anxious about the unnatural weather that loomed on the near horizon.

But Kvothe was made of sterner stuff than this, and his thoughts dwelled on ponderous matters: “My hat,” he thought to himself. “is certainly pointy. But is it pointy enough to impress the Archduke Isigniglidir?”

This morning he had been so sure, but now, looking at the Archduke’s tower, Kvothe worried. This was obviously a man who was not fond of half-measures where pointy was concerned. Kvothe also wondered if it might also explain why the Archduke’s new wife seemed so dissatisfied in her letter. “The tower.” She had written. “Should have been my first clue.”

Go on, take a stab at it yourself in the comments section. It’s tons of fun.

pat

Though it happened a while back, this German deal was kind of a big deal. The publisher that’s handling it in Germany doesn’t do much fantasy, just a very few authors like Tolkien and Tad Williams. So the fact that they bought my book gave me some much-needed respectability that helped us make some other foreign sales. It also was nice knowing that they take their stuff very seriously, and would do a good job with the translation and publication of the book.

German is the only language other than English that I know anything about. But honestly, I can’t claim to be anything other than illiterate in my second language. I can remember a few phrases, like, “Gleich um die Ecce,” “Wennigsten functionieren die wasserliedung!” and “Ich habe zu vielen affen spielen im meinem obenboden.”

Other than that, I have a bunch of nouns and verbs rattling around in my head, but my ability to string them together grammatically is really non-existent. Combined with my horrible spelling, I’m guessing that what I’ve written up above is barely German at all. And more like that language twins use to speak to each other.

My German non-literacy was really driven home to me when I read the title and thought, “Des. Des…. does that indicate the nominative case?” Then I realized I couldn’t even remember what the nominative case was. In fact, I’m pretty iffy as to what a case is at all, nominative or otherwise. This pretty much shatters any hope I had of ever reading my own book in another language.

It was a nice thought while it lasted.

Later all,

pat

That’s right – It’s the Japanese version of the book.

I really like this interpretation of Kvothe. He’s young. He’s got some attitude going on. His hair is more manga than I typically picture it, but it’s totally appropriate for the Japanese market. Plus, Kvothe himself says, “When left to its own devices it tends to make me look as if I’ve been set afire.” So there you go.

This translation of the book was different in a lot of ways. For one thing, bringing the book into Japanese is much more difficult than, say, Dutch, or German. Not that every language doesn’t pose its own problems. But there’s just a lot of different cultural things going on, and the languages aren’t really similar at all.

I’m guessing it’s partly because of this that instead of one, I had a team of three Japanese translators working on the book. They were really great. They asked a lot of good questions, and included me in the decision making process. I like it when the translators ask questions or press me for clarification.

You see, when I wrote the book, I made a point not to over-describe everything. I also tried to make the book very full… of stuff.

Yeah. That’s great. My book is full of stuff. They should put that on the cover: “The Name of the Wind – It’s full of stuff.”

What I mean is that I didn’t want to club the reader over the head with everything. My strategy was to make sure that every page had enough cool things in it than if you missed half of them, you’d still have a good time. That means there’s stuff for you to enjoy the second time around. That means you can like the book in a different way than your friend. And it means if you’re a careful reader, you’ll get more out of the book.

So I’m fine if the average reader doesn’t get everything I put into the book. I expect that. I planned on it.

But if a translator doesn’t notice something that I’ve put into the book very subtly, that’s different. If they don’t catch it, it can’t be brought into the new version. And that’s a problem, obviously. But these translators were really on the ball, and I’m guessing that not a lot slipped through the cracks with them.

There’s another big difference in the Japanese edition. Apparently big, thick books aren’t really the norm over there. So they broke this first book into three separate volumes. That means three separate covers for the first book….

And number three. Check out the draccus in the background. I would not want to fuck around with that thing.

I’ve been reading the comments and suggestions for future contests, and my gears are slowly turning. But more on that later. For now, I’m off to write.

pat

Our final category is: “Best Cosplay.” But before we get to that, there was a small subcategory of photos that I haven’t included yet: photos commenting about the covers of the book itself.

This is the real hot-button question, of course. How much naked man chest do you prefer?

A lot of people weighed in on the subject.

Even to the point of dressing up as their preferred cover.

And here you see my clever segue into the “Best Cosplay” category. Look like anyone you know?

Maybe this will help. When I started this contest up on Facebook, someone else took young Kvothe’s posed picture and photoshopped him onto the cover. I think both the model and the photoshopper deserve an honorable mention prize.

Some of the pictures people took told a story.

Or not.

Interesting side note: this is the look that women have been consistently giving me for the last 15 years. Admittedly, they usually have a pretty good reason….

I was especially tickled by the people who staged scenes from the book. This one is subtle, and the reference is easier to catch in the following version:

This is hot. The best part? Kvothe’s drawn-on abs.

Winner. Such a sweet picture. I’m guessing most of you can identify this scene too.

We have a good degree of accuracy here too. Denna is all, “You’re so dreamy.” And Kvothe is thinking, “I wish Denna liked me…. Hey, are those cumulus or cirrus clouds.?”

Congrats. Both Kvothe and Denna can have a fabulous prize of their choosing.

This is so not cannon. Still, it’s nice to see poor Kvothe get a little love…

Remember, if you’ve won, you need to follow the guidelines I laid down at the beginning of the contest in order to claim your swag. Now that all the winners are finally posted, I’m going to go through and start packaging and mailing things out.

Well…. I shouldn’t say that ALL the winners are posted. There was one entry so amazing that I had to give it a post all its own. We’ll see that next week, so stay tuned.

pat

Doubtless some of you want a copy of this book because it is clearly A Novel. I also know a lot of folks want this cover because the style will more closely match the hardcover for The Wise Man’s Fear:

I understand your desire, and I feel your pain. I wanted this new cover too, and even though I’m the author, I still had a bitch of a time locating it. I had to hunt around for weeks before I managed to get my hands on one.

The truth is, I don’t know where these new copies will be showing up. These are the books that currently live in the warehouse. If a store orders a book from the warehouse, this cover will probably get delivered to them. But if the bookstore orders from a distributor, the distributor might not have this fifth printing in stock. They might still have first printings, or third printings. It’s a crap shoot.

However, since so many people were asking about it, I worked something out with a guy I met out in Seattle last year. His name is Shawn Speakman, and he runs a business that sells signed books over the magical interweb.

So, when I head out to Seattle at the end of the month for Norwescon, I’m going to swing by his place and sign a bunch of books for him. If you want one you can go order a copy at his store.

Please note that I’d be more than happy to personalize your book for you, free of charge. Just make sure you enter what you’d like me to write when you your order your book.

Now, the more astute of you that have doubtless already clicked on the link and noticed that Shawn is charging 29.95 for the books. Five bucks more than the cover price. This isn’t because he’s a greedy son of a bitch. No. Shawn is a high-class gentleman. I know this because Shawn is giving me that five bucks to help offset the cost of my plane ticket out there. If not for that, I wouldn’t have been able to justify making the trip out to the coast.

Lastly, as an added bonus for those of you who have been dying to get hold of a copy of the Illustrated, Annotated, College Survival Guide, Shawn will be selling some of those too.

Those will be signed by me, and each will have a cool doodle and a signature by my longtime friend, illustrator, and co-conspirator, Brett Hiorns.

Later all,

pat

Of particular note are my two appearances in St. Paul this weekend. I’ll be appearing at two separate libraries, one on Saturday, the other on Sunday. It’s free for anyone to attend. I’ll sign books if you bring them, and there will be books there to buy…

More events will be posted in the weeks to come. Seattle folk – I’ll be out near y’all over Easter weekend. I’ll be posting those details soon.

Okay. On to business.

Response to the Italian cover was every bit as varied as I expected. But there was rather more of it than I’d thought there would be. Since there were a lot of good comments and questions, I decided that I’d do a follow-up post to clarify a few things.

Points of interest and/or clarification.

• The art is done by a guy named Brom.

I didn’t know about him before someone made reference to the cover as Brom-art in the comments of the last blog, but I have seen his stuff before. Mostly on D&D books back in the day….

Side note: I am currently working on a theory that once you reach a certain degree of fame, you get bumped up to a new quantum energy state wherein you only need one name.

This is easier to achieve for artists (Donato, Brom) and musicians (Sting, Madonna).

It’s much rarer for authors. I suspect they need way more energy, like electrons in different valence shells. So for writers, only the SUPER elite have enough juice to make the jump (Cervantes, Tolkien, Shakespeare, Chaucer).

• Brom’s website is OVER HERE if you’re interested.

• The art wasn’t drawn for the book specifically. The Italian publisher bought the rights to a pre-existing piece of art to use as the cover for the book.

That means:

• It’s not Kvothe or one of the Chandrian. Don’t sprain anything trying to make that fit in your head. (Though I would like to see Brom’s take on the Chandrian.)

• You didn’t miss the part of the book where someone has an eye in his hand. Neither is the eye-hand a mistranslation issue or some strange cultural signifier.

 

• My favorite comments on the cover:

• Kip: “It’s obviously a picture of Kvothe LARPing his favorite Vampire: The Requiem Character.”

• “They must have wanted to picture someone with good eye-hand coordination.”

• “NOTW? WTF?”

• Sarah: “Kvothe has some sort of pointy pain stick. He should be careful or it will poke him in the hand-eye.”

A few responses to questions and comments:

“Oh man Pat. As a graphic designer can I just say that that is a bad choice. There is no connection to the book that I can come up with at all. The thing on his hand is so prominent that people are going to wonder why its not in the book. It will be confusing. Then the really bad drop shadow, or black glow around the text is just bad design. The whole composition just was not meant to have text covering it.”

I think you’re right about the composition of the piece. It obviously wasn’t meant to be obscured. I got the permission to show the original artwork from Brom: So here it is…

I’m pretty sure that they used that black shadow and my name to cover up Gothy McHotBod’s nipple ring.

And yes, for those of you who are wondering, my chest looks exactly like that when I take my shirt off. By which I mean that I am pale as a bleached ghost on a moonlit night.

Christian asked: “Pat, I am very curious as to who that person is on the cover of the Italian version of your book. I’m pretty sure you would have a big say into what visually depicts your book to first time ( and in my case, long-time) readers.”

Typically, authors get little-to-no say as to the covers of their books. Part of this is because the cover is, ultimately, a marketing choice, rather than an artistic one. And truthfully, publishers know more about marketing than authors do. Also, authors are word-smart, not necessarily picture smart.

That said, in my opinion it is a shame that authors aren’t included in that process more frequently.

I did get to participate in the discussion about my US covers. But that is the exception to the rule, as my publisher, DAW, is very considerate. And my editor, Betsy, respects my opinion on these things. Still, they didn’t say, “what do you think we should do.” they said, “Here’s what we’re planning, what do you think?”

Still, it’s nice to be asked.

My French publisher asked for my thoughts in the planning stage, and my Japanese editor asked early on if I had any suggestions as to who I would like as an artist. But none of the other foreign editors have included me so far. The first time I saw the Italian cover was about a week ago…

In a few of my more recent foreign contracts, I have approval of the final covers. But that doesn’t mean that I get to design them. If the books continue to sell well, I’ll probably get even more say in the future. I’m guessing.

“Why do they keep changing the cover? What’s wrong with original Shirtless Kvothe and Green man?”

Those covers belong to the US publisher. The foreign publishers would have to buy the rights to them if they wanted to use them. They probably don’t want to do that because they’re marketing the book to an entirely different culture.

That’s all for now, folks. I’m back to work on book two…

pat

I don’t know if it’s significant that the book is coming out on leap day. Except I think it means this book will age more slowly than the other versions of my book, only getting one year older for every seven normal years.

Wait. Seven? No. Four. I was thinking of dog years….

…

Man. Now I’m wondering what would happen if a dog is born on leap day.

Okay. I can figure this out. I used to be good a story problems, and that was before I studied symbolic logic. Let’s see…

Given – one dog year is equal to seven human years.
Given – those born on leap day only age one year for every four calendar years.

If a dog was born on a leap day, after twenty-one calendar years, he would be:

A) 504 years old.
B) 36 years old
C) 42 years old.
D) Still bound by his duty.
E) Other

Anyway, back to the Italian translation. I haven’t actually seen the book yet. Not in a real-world sense. I got the editor to send me a nice picture of the cover, but it’s really not the same as holding a real book in your hands. It’s roughly the same difference as seeing baby pictures and holding a baby.

Anyway, here’s the cover. I think you’ll all agree that it’s a whole lot different than the US, UK, and Dutch covers that we’ve seen so far…

That’s all I’ve got for now. More news is on the horizon, so stay tuned.

pat