This is a Worldbuilders blog.
As I write this, we’ve raised over $202,000 which means we’ve beaten last year’s total by over ten thousand dollars.
This seems to indicate that we, as a group, are awesome.
I’m going to celebrate by moving our donation goal up to 225K. Part of me wants to shoot for 250K. It would be nice to say, “We raised a quarter million dollars this year.” But we only have a week left, and I don’t want my reach to exceed my grasp….
Unfortunately, this burst of generosity draws attention to the fact that I haven’t posted the 150K bonus blog yet.
I’ve been slow posting this blog because I wanted to do something a special for this milestone. Specifically, I wanted to post up a video of me reading a picture book to y’all.
The book is called Beatrice’s Goat, and it’s the story that made me fall in love with Heifer International.
I’m donating 10 copies to the fundraiser:
I’ve been planning this for months. I got permission from Heifer International to read the book in a video. I found a guy that does video editing here in Stevens Point. I looked into the proper pronunciations for the names….
I even (and this should really underline how seriously I was taking things) got a haircut so I wouldn’t look like a hobo on the video. Or at the very least, I’d look like a halfway respectable hobo.
Lastly, in a stroke of genius, I decided to bring my son into the project. He’s way more photogenic than I am, and he loves books. Why wouldn’t I shoot a video of me reading the book to him?
So yesterday I got the edited video back, sat down to to watch it…. and was appalled.
The problem is my voice, you see. I never realized that my voice goes up about three quarters of an octave when I read to little Oot.
You know how that uncomfortable feeling you get when you hear your own voice played back from a recording? That’s how I felt watching the video, except about a hundred times worse. I was in a constant state of cringe.
I know it’s a silly thing to be embarrassed about, but I don’t know if I want a video out there of me reading to my son in this goofy-ass voice.
Why am I telling y’all this? Well, over the last month, I’ve told a lot of people that I was planning on posting the video, so I figured I owed you an explanation as to why I’m not posting it up here with the books.
Sorry to sissy out on y’all…. Let me make it up to you by tossing some more cool stuff into the fundraiser.
*Â Â Â Â *Â Â Â Â *
As some of you on facebook might have already seen, when I was out at Confusion a week ago, a bunch of authors got together and played a game of D&D. Old school D&D. AD&D.
There was a lot of talent at the table: Peter V. Brett, Joe Abercrombie, Jim Hines, Scott Lynch, Elizabeth Bear, and Jay Lake. Myke Cole and Saladin Ahmed ran things.
Brent Weeks did a write up of the adventure over here, if you want to hear the epic details of how we were almost killed by goblins.
Simply said, it was a great time. I got to cast Magic Missile and everything.
In order to pass on some of the geeky love, I’ve decided to run a game at the next convention I’m attending: Stellarcon 36.
So if you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to have an adventure in the Four Corners, this is your chance to find out.
The winners of this auction will get to play in a one-shot role-playing geekfest set in the Four Corners world. You will join Pat Rothfuss and Steve Long of HERO Games for a collaborative storytelling experience of such intensity that it will doubtless leave you a shattered wreck of a human being.
Pat will pre-generate characters and provide a brief explanation of the HERO gaming system. (You don’t need to know the system in order to play and enjoy the game.) The game will be run on Saturday, March 3, 2012 in the afternoon or evening.
In addition to a seat at the gaming table, the winners of these auctions will receive free memberships to StellarCon 36 where the game will be held.
StellarCon 36 runs from March 2nd – 4th, 2012. The convention will be held at the Best Western High Point Hotel in High Point, North Carolina.
Please note: this auction does not include food, lodging, or transportation to the convention.
Two more seats will be in auctioned or raffled off at the convention itself on March 3rd. Folks who are through registration by 11:00 AM will definitely still be able to throw their name in the hat and/or bid on those at the convention.
You can bid on the first game seat here.
The second seat here.
And the third seat here.
Or you can stalk all the auctions at once by following this link.
- 10 first edition hardcover copies of The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss. The first WMF books ever signed by Pat.
I wasn’t going to include any copies of my book in the fundraiser, then Penguin sent a couple boxes of books along to help out with the fundraiser.
They were the last remaining books that I signed in New York back in January of 2011, months before the book was even out. I wrote about the surreal experience in the blog.
I’ve taken the liberty of dating these books January 26, 2011. Which makes them something of a rarity, as they’re dated two months before the publication date.
- One hardcover copy of Subterranean Press’s Tales of Dark Fantasy.
A long out-of-print collection featuring an early version of my short story, “The Road to Levinshir,” as well as stories by other notable authors like Mike Carey and Poppy Z Bright.
- Three first edition copies of The Adventures of the Princess and Mr. Whiffle. Signed by the authors and doodled by Nate Taylor.
These are first edition copies that Nate was kind enough to doodle in:
I wish I could doodle….
- Three hardcover copies of Gollancz 50th anniversary edition of The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss.
Gollancz printed retro-style copies of 5 classic fantasy books in celebration of their 50th year in publishing. The fact that Name of the Wind made it into the mix still makes me blushy with pride.
The introduction in this book by Steaphen Deas makes me kinda blushy, too.
- One copy of Your College Survival Guide. Signed by Patrick Rothfuss and doodled by B.J. Hiorns.
This book was my first publication from back in 2005. A shameful piece of my sordid past.
It’s a collection of of humor columns I wrote for the college paper between 1999 and 2003. Columns dealt with pressing philosophical issues such as the fast zombie/slow zombie debate as well as everyday problems like how to bribe your professor or start a career as a prostitute.
The book is full of illustrations by BJ Hiorns, the same guy that occasionally illustrates my blog. It also contains annotations where I explain how some columns got written, the lies I told, and what sort of trouble various jokes got me into.
Only 500 of these were printed, and I have less than a dozen left.
The last time I looked online, the only ones I could find were being sold for over 800 bucks on Amazon:
Here’s the doodle Brett did in this one.
You can see why I love him….
- AUCTION: One-of-a-kind Leather-bound Hardcover of The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss.
(Click to Embiggen. It’s worth it.)
Last but not least, we have a real gem.
This is a one-of-a-kind copy of The Name of the Wind, hand-bound in leather by bookbinder Hunter Ford.
This hardcover book is bound in blue Northamptonshire goat leather and decorated with gold acrylic paint. Printed on acid-free paper with marbled end pages, it is 636 pages with size 12 font and narrow margins.
It’s not just a rare book, it’s a unique book. And I’ll gladly sign it to the winner, if the winner so desires.
Our thanks to Hunter Ford for this treasure.
To see more pictures or bid on this book, click here.
*Â Â Â Â *Â Â Â Â *
Remember, for every 10 dollars you donate on our Team Page, you get a chance to win these books and many more.
Even better, if you chip in before February 7th of 2012, Worldbuilders will match 50% of your donation.
If you’d like to see all the auctions Worldbuilders is currently running, you can find them over here.
Or, if you want to see the other items that have been donated to Worldbuilders, or learn more about the fundraiser itself, you can head over to the main page here.
150K Blog: Rare Books and a Chance to Game with Pat
As I write this, we’ve raised over $202,000 which means we’ve beaten last year’s total by over ten thousand dollars.
This seems to indicate that we, as a group, are awesome.
I’m going to celebrate by moving our donation goal up to 225K. Part of me wants to shoot for 250K. It would be nice to say, “We raised a quarter million dollars this year.” But we only have a week left, and I don’t want my reach to exceed my grasp….
Unfortunately, this burst of generosity draws attention to the fact that I haven’t posted the 150K bonus blog yet.
I’ve been slow posting this blog because I wanted to do something a special for this milestone. Specifically, I wanted to post up a video of me reading a picture book to y’all.
The book is called Beatrice’s Goat, and it’s the story that made me fall in love with Heifer International.
I’m donating 10 copies to the fundraiser:
I’ve been planning this for months. I got permission from Heifer International to read the book in a video. I found a guy that does video editing here in Stevens Point. I looked into the proper pronunciations for the names….
I even (and this should really underline how seriously I was taking things) got a haircut so I wouldn’t look like a hobo on the video. Or at the very least, I’d look like a halfway respectable hobo.
Lastly, in a stroke of genius, I decided to bring my son into the project. He’s way more photogenic than I am, and he loves books. Why wouldn’t I shoot a video of me reading the book to him?
So yesterday I got the edited video back, sat down to to watch it…. and was appalled.
The problem is my voice, you see. I never realized that my voice goes up about three quarters of an octave when I read to little Oot.
You know how that uncomfortable feeling you get when you hear your own voice played back from a recording? That’s how I felt watching the video, except about a hundred times worse. I was in a constant state of cringe.
I know it’s a silly thing to be embarrassed about, but I don’t know if I want a video out there of me reading to my son in this goofy-ass voice.
Why am I telling y’all this? Well, over the last month, I’ve told a lot of people that I was planning on posting the video, so I figured I owed you an explanation as to why I’m not posting it up here with the books.
Sorry to sissy out on y’all…. Let me make it up to you by tossing some more cool stuff into the fundraiser.
*Â Â Â Â *Â Â Â Â *
As some of you on facebook might have already seen, when I was out at Confusion a week ago, a bunch of authors got together and played a game of D&D. Old school D&D. AD&D.
There was a lot of talent at the table: Peter V. Brett, Joe Abercrombie, Jim Hines, Scott Lynch, Elizabeth Bear, and Jay Lake. Myke Cole and Saladin Ahmed ran things.
Brent Weeks did a write up of the adventure over here, if you want to hear the epic details of how we were almost killed by goblins.
Simply said, it was a great time. I got to cast Magic Missile and everything.
In order to pass on some of the geeky love, I’ve decided to run a game at the next convention I’m attending: Stellarcon 36.
So if you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to have an adventure in the Four Corners, this is your chance to find out.
The winners of this auction will get to play in a one-shot role-playing geekfest set in the Four Corners world. You will join Pat Rothfuss and Steve Long of HERO Games for a collaborative storytelling experience of such intensity that it will doubtless leave you a shattered wreck of a human being.
Pat will pre-generate characters and provide a brief explanation of the HERO gaming system. (You don’t need to know the system in order to play and enjoy the game.) The game will be run on Saturday, March 3, 2012 in the afternoon or evening.
In addition to a seat at the gaming table, the winners of these auctions will receive free memberships to StellarCon 36 where the game will be held.
StellarCon 36 runs from March 2nd – 4th, 2012. The convention will be held at the Best Western High Point Hotel in High Point, North Carolina.
Please note: this auction does not include food, lodging, or transportation to the convention.
Two more seats will be in auctioned or raffled off at the convention itself on March 3rd. Folks who are through registration by 11:00 AM will definitely still be able to throw their name in the hat and/or bid on those at the convention.
You can bid on the first game seat here.
The second seat here.
And the third seat here.
Or you can stalk all the auctions at once by following this link.
I wasn’t going to include any copies of my book in the fundraiser, then Penguin sent a couple boxes of books along to help out with the fundraiser.
They were the last remaining books that I signed in New York back in January of 2011, months before the book was even out. I wrote about the surreal experience in the blog.
I’ve taken the liberty of dating these books January 26, 2011. Which makes them something of a rarity, as they’re dated two months before the publication date.
A long out-of-print collection featuring an early version of my short story, “The Road to Levinshir,” as well as stories by other notable authors like Mike Carey and Poppy Z Bright.
These are first edition copies that Nate was kind enough to doodle in:
I wish I could doodle….
Gollancz printed retro-style copies of 5 classic fantasy books in celebration of their 50th year in publishing. The fact that Name of the Wind made it into the mix still makes me blushy with pride.
The introduction in this book by Steaphen Deas makes me kinda blushy, too.
This book was my first publication from back in 2005. A shameful piece of my sordid past.
It’s a collection of of humor columns I wrote for the college paper between 1999 and 2003. Columns dealt with pressing philosophical issues such as the fast zombie/slow zombie debate as well as everyday problems like how to bribe your professor or start a career as a prostitute.
The book is full of illustrations by BJ Hiorns, the same guy that occasionally illustrates my blog. It also contains annotations where I explain how some columns got written, the lies I told, and what sort of trouble various jokes got me into.
Only 500 of these were printed, and I have less than a dozen left.
The last time I looked online, the only ones I could find were being sold for over 800 bucks on Amazon:
Here’s the doodle Brett did in this one.
You can see why I love him….
Last but not least, we have a real gem.
This is a one-of-a-kind copy of The Name of the Wind, hand-bound in leather by bookbinder Hunter Ford.
This hardcover book is bound in blue Northamptonshire goat leather and decorated with gold acrylic paint. Printed on acid-free paper with marbled end pages, it is 636 pages with size 12 font and narrow margins.
It’s not just a rare book, it’s a unique book. And I’ll gladly sign it to the winner, if the winner so desires.
Our thanks to Hunter Ford for this treasure.
To see more pictures or bid on this book, click here.
*Â Â Â Â *Â Â Â Â *
Remember, for every 10 dollars you donate on our Team Page, you get a chance to win these books and many more.
Even better, if you chip in before February 7th of 2012, Worldbuilders will match 50% of your donation.
If you’d like to see all the auctions Worldbuilders is currently running, you can find them over here.
Or, if you want to see the other items that have been donated to Worldbuilders, or learn more about the fundraiser itself, you can head over to the main page here.