So You Want to Be a Hero?

A while back, I said I’d be giving people a chance to get their names into my second book: The Wise Man’s Fear.

I’ve finally managed to work out all the details. So we’re going to do our best to kill two birds with one stone.

You want to get your name into book two….

…and I want to raise money for Heifer International.

So, as a prologue to this year’s fundraiser, we’re going to have a raffle.

There are three ways you can get your name into the book. Pay attention.

Option One: The Regular Raffle.

You buy chances to win, like raffle tickets. Tickets will be 10 dollars each.

That means if you donate 30 dollars, your name gets thrown into the drawing three times. Simple.

However, if you want to be a big spender and donate fifty dollars, you get a free ticket. So fifty bucks gets you six tickets total.

At the end of the lottery, I’ll be drawing a winner from these tickets. If you don’t win, your ticket will enter a second drawing combined with the free entries. (See below.) What this means is that every ticket you buy gets two chances to win.

You have two ways to buy tickets:

• To Buy Your Tickets by Mail:

You only need two things.

A check, made out to Pat Rothfuss. Signed by you.

A 3×5 index card that looks like this:

Remember folks, I have to read these. That means you should probably print instead of using cursive. It doesn’t need to be pretty, just legible.

And you see what I did up there? Where I wrote an “a” then wrote over it and made it a “u?” That’s not very clear, is it? I should have used some white out, or done something else rather than leave it ambiguous. That would have been the smart thing to do…

Lastly, mail the check and the card to:

Pat Rothfuss
PO Box 186
Stevens Point, WI 54481

• To Buy Your Tickets Online:

[EDIT: Woo Hoo! After a relatively painless review process, the online option is back! Thanks for being cool about this, Paypal!]

Because international post is slow and expensive, I decided to make a paypal option available. (You can use the three custom buttons below to donate.)

Note – Tickets through paypal will actually be $11 each. This is because paypal takes a percentage of all the money it helps transfer. And, to be completely honest, because it’s going to be a bit of a pain for me to sift all these digital entries onto paper tickets.

However, if you donate an even 50 bucks through paypal, I’ll cover the extra fees myself, and you can still have six tickets.

If you’re feeling extraordinarily extravagant, you can donate as much as you like with this button. (Keeping in mind that it should probably be some multiple of 11 or 50.)

Remember: when you submit your paypal order, you need to include all the information you would have written on the note card.

DO THIS BEFORE YOU COMPLETE YOUR DONATION! After you donate, there’s no way to go back and add this information.

Your phone number.
Your name.
Your e-mail.
The name you’re hoping to get into the book.

Option Two: The Poor-Boy Raffle.

I spent nine years as an undergrad, so I know what it’s like to not have a lot of folding money. This is the option that will give everyone a chance to throw their hat into the ring, even if they can’t afford ten dollars for a ticket.

To get into the free option, you just mail a 3×5 note card, filled out just like the one above.

To this address:

Pat Rothfuss
PO BOX 186
Stevens Point, WI 54481

And that’s it.

After I draw the winner from the paying option, I’m going to take all the non-winning tickets from that raffle, combine them with the free entries, and draw a second winner.

Important: If you buy a ticket, I will automatically enter you in the poor-man’s raffle.

That means if you buy a ticket, DON’T don’t send in an entry for the poor man’s raffle too. This will only waste your time and anger me.

Option Three: The Cool Name Option

If I look through the entries and see a suggested name that looks cool to me, I might tweak it a bit and use it in the book.

Simple as that. I’m always on the lookout for cool names.

FAQ:

When is the raffle over?

One month from now: November 15th.

What are the odds of my winning the raffle?

Just like all raffles, that depends on how many tickets you buy, and how many people enter. But it should be obvious that you’re (roughly) twice as likely to win than if you use the free option.

Edit: As of October 27th, we had raised a little more than 8000 dollars.

That means if you buy a ticket, your odds of winning are roughly 1 in 400. (Because I’m drawing two winners.)

Or, if you donate fifty bucks and get six tickets, your odds are about 1 in 70.

Those are pretty good odds.

Also, if we get a bunch more people participating. I’ll draw an extra winner from the group that paid for their tickets.

That means it won’t hurt your odds to spread the word to your friends. More participants will actually lead to more chances to win.

Can I use my own name as the one I want in the book?

Of course. I’m guessing this is what most people want. I’m just leaving the door open for people to suggest other options.

If I buy more than one ticket, should I send in more than one card?

No. There’s never any reason to send in/fill out more than one card.

Does this mean book two isn’t finished yet?

*sigh* Yes. That should be pretty obvious. I couldn’t add things if it was finished. The revision process for a book this big takes a long time, and I’m still fixing things. Adding more awesome. Taking out things that aren’t quite awesome enough. Making sure everyone’s eyes are the right colour. That sort of stuff.

So if I win, I get to put whatever name I want in your upcoming book?

No. What will happen is the two of us will have a talk about how your name, or a variation of it, will fit into my book. Something that will make us both happy.

Read this blog for details and reasons why.

Will I get any control over who I am in the book? Will the character with my name look like me?

This will be part of our negotiation. If you really want to be a student at the University, and your name will work for that, we can make that happen. I might be able to tweak their appearance a little so it’s closer to yours, too.

The short answer is that I’ll do what I can to make you happy. But the book comes first, and I’m the final arbiter of what goes in and what doesn’t.

Will you be doing this again for book three?

I don’t know. A lot of that depends on how well this raffle works. If people are excited and we raise a lot of money, then I’ll probably do it for book three.

On the other hand, if the response is small, and the whole thing ends up being a pain in my ass, there’s a real possibility I won’t do it again.

So all of the money you raise from this is going to charity?

Yes. All this money will be going to Heifer International. This raffle is actually just a warm-up to the bigger fundraiser that I’ll be running on the blog next month.

If you’re curious, you can look at last year’s fundraiser HERE.

What’s to keep people from swamping the free option with multiple entries?

There are several things that I think will keep this from being a severe problem.

1) Human Decency.

My readers are generous, kind human beings. Only a rapacious fuckwit would try to game the system on a charity raffle.

2) Human Laziness.

There’s no online option for the free drawing. I doubt very much people will be filling out dozens of note cards by hand and sending them all in.

3) The name and phone number required with each entry.

I’m using phone numbers to catalog and organize the entries. That means I’m just going to throw away multiple free entries that have the same phone number, or those with no phone number at all. It’s the classic “one entry per household.” Except in this case it’s not a house, it’s a phone.

And yes, I know it’s not a perfect system. But it’s the best we can have without going to ridiculous lengths.

Are these prices in American dollars?

Yes. Foreign payments are one of the mail reasons I’m including a paypal option. Paypal will convert from your currency to US dollars.

If, for some strange reason, you want to send me a foreign check you need to do the following.

1. Figure out how much you want to donate.
(Let’s say you live in London and want to donate 50 dollars.)

2. Add three dollars. Because that’s how much my bank charges me to cash a foreign check.
(That makes your total 53 dollars.)

3. Convert this into your local currency.
(53 dollars = 32.96 British Pounds.)

4. Write your check out for this amount in your native currency. My bank can’t cash it otherwise.
(So you write me a check for 33 pounds. Rounding up because you’re a generous human being.)

Keep in mind that the raffle will be happening pretty soon after November 15th, and international post is slow. So if you’re going to mail me a check, do it sooner rather than later.

I was really looking forward to this being an auction. I’m all full of money and was willing to pay whatever it takes to get my daughter’s/husband’s/dwarven monk’s name in the book.

I’m willing to entertain the thought. If you really want an auction, let me know in the comments below and I’ll think about setting one up, maybe in conjunction with the other auctions we’re going to be running for the main fundraiser in a couple weeks.

More FAQ over here.

I’m excited, folks. Let’s do this.

pat