Category Archives: The Tinker’s Packs

Published: November 18, 2011

Link Salad: Worldbuilders and Waterparks…

So I’m kinda swamped right now with one thing and another. I’m struggling manfully with NaNoWriMo, trying to get ready for Worldbuilders, and working on putting new inventory in Worldbuilder’s online store: The Tinker’s Packs.

And, on top of it all, I’m attending a convention this weekend in Wisconsin Dells.

I wasn’t planning on going to the Dells this weekend, I was going to try and knuckle down and focus on my wordcount. But the local sci-fi convention that’s based here in Stevens Point got hit with a sudden change of venue when the convention center here in Stevens Point unexpected closed a month ago.

But the folks at Daishocon didn’t let that stop them. They called around and found somewhere else they could host the convention: The Kalahari in Wisconsin Dells. Which is kinda cool, because now I can take Sarah and Oot to play in their indoor water park in between my panels.

What’s my point? Mostly :

1. If you’re at loose ends this weekend, and want to come to a gaming/sci-fi/anime convention, you should stop by Daishocon. Not tonly will we I be doing three panels on Saturday, but we’ll be holding an auction for worldbuilders.

Best of all, fellow fantasy writer and Wisconsinite Scott Lynch will be there, too.

2. I’m kinda busy.

So for the blog today, you’re going to get link salad. An interesting miscellany of stuff I’ve been meaning to share for a while now, but for some reason or other, I haven’t gotten around to it.

First and foremost, Goodreads is holding their annual Choice Awards. The Wise Man’s Fear has been nominated for a couple of categories, so you can wander over there if you like.

Or, if you’re not in a voting mood, you can subscribe to my profile over there, so you’ll get a heads-up when I post up a review of a book.

Secondly, here’s a link to a video interview I did with Speculatesf a while back..

Nextly, someone posted a cool flow chart using all the books in NPR’s list of 100 best sci-fi books of all time. It’s a very tongue-in-cheek “how-do-I-find-the-book-that’s-best-for-me?” chart, and you can test your geek street cred by seeing how many of the jokes you understand.

Penultimately, here’s a link to an interview I did with my UK editor when we were both at World Fantasy convention last month.

And lastly, a blog where someone compares different writing styles to different deserts. It struck me as an interesting way to look at the situation, and I will admit that I was a little tickled to be referred to as tiramisu.

Later,

pat

Also posted in Interviews, Link salad, The Tinker's Packs, videos | By Pat21 Responses
Published: November 2, 2011

The New Coolness or How I Accidentally Published a Calendar

So a couple months ago, I went to Worldcon in Reno. While I was there, I had dinner with some friends of friends. One of those people was artist and illustrator Lee Moyer.

I like graphic artists. I like them because they do something I can’t, which effectively makes them magicians.

They’re also fun to have dinner with. You can get them all worked up about the weirdest shit. They’ll get all frothy talking about color. They’ll doodle on napkins. They’ll criticize the layout of the menu.

Best of all, if they have an ipad with them, you can look at their stuff while you’re waiting for your food to show up. This is not something you can do if you are, say, an author who writes 400,000 word fantasy novels.

At that particular dinner in Reno, Lee did have his ipad on him. He showed me some of his work: book covers, posters, commissions….

“Hold on,” I said, pointing at a tiny thumbnail. “What’s that?”

“Oh,” he said, “That’s a project I’m working on. They’re pin-ups based on literary figures.”

He brought it up on the screen:

“That’s really cool,” I said.

He smiled and pulled up another one:

I had to look at this one for a while. The Twain reference was obvious, but this…

“Oh god,” I said. “That’s Hawthorne, isn’t it? It’s Hester Prynne from the Scarlet Letter. She’s got an A tattooed on her chest!”

He brought up another one:

“That’s got to be Dickens, right?”

Lee nodded.

“What are these for?” I asked.

“A calendar,” he explained. “Literary pin-ups.”

“That’s something I’d hang on my wall,” I said. “Sexy but not smutty. Clever. Bookish. Where can I buy one?”

“I’m having trouble finding someone to print it,” he admitted. “I think people would love it, but the big calendar companies don’t seem interested.”

“You have twelve of these?” I asked.

“Yeah. It’s pretty much all ready to go.”

I looked at the sexy chimney sweep. She smiled at me.

“Hell,” I said. “I’ll print it.”

Lee looked at me oddly. This is not a thing authors normally say to illustrators.

“You see,” I said, “I run a charity called Worldbuilders….”

*     *     *

Fast forward to today.

The calendars are back from the printer and they’re gorgeous. We pulled out all the stops with satin finish and nice heavy paper. They really turned out nice.

I was going to wait until we officially started Worldbuilders to put them up in the store. But the truth is, I’m too excited to wait….

So instead, I’ve decided to give y’all a chance to order the calendar before the fundraiser officially starts up this year. Not only can you get some of your holiday shopping done a little early, but if you order now, we’ll be able to ship them out to you right away, before Worldbuilders starts making things crazy busy around here.

If you’re curious what some of the other months look like, here’s a peek at the back cover:

(Click to Embiggen)

A few additional notes:

1. As always, all the money you spend in The Tinker’s Packs goes directly to Worldbuilders.

2. If you order three calendars, you can get free shipping anywhere in the US. (Or 8 bucks off international shipping.) Just enter the code: LITERACY when you’re checking out.

3. You might want to order sooner rather than later. We’re probably not going to do a second print run of these, so when they’re gone, they’re gone….

4. [Edit 7:30 AM] Please be aware that there are two *different* calendar listings in the store. One of them is for art collectors. It’s signed by the artist, and it doesn’t have any holes punched in it. We’re only doing 50 of those, and we’re selling them for 75 dollars. The regular calendar is much more reasonably priced….

And one last time, just in case you missed the link to the store.

Share and enjoy, folks.

pat

P.S. If you don’t know what Worldbuilders is, you can take a peek at last year’s fundraiser over here.

Also posted in cool things, sexy, side projects, The Tinker's Packs, Things I Like, Worldbuilders 2011 | By Pat47 Responses
Published: August 24, 2011

Name of the Wind Onesies

So about a year ago when we were voting on which t-shirt designs were going to get printed, I cast my vote just like everyone else.

Imagine my surprise when one of the shirts I loved went straight to the bottom of the pack and stayed there.

It made me glad that I’d decided to put things to a vote. But still, I was sad that I wouldn’t get a chance to see that shirt made.

Fast forward to a couple months back when I got a flurry of messages from people asking if we would ever print kid’s shirts. Or baby onesies.

So, behold:

We decided to turn my favorite design into some onesies you could buy to support Worldbuilders.

If you want to see a closeup of the design, here it is:

What I really like about this image is that it relates a lot of The Name of the Wind without being in any way language dependent.

In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this shirt would be way easier for kids to appreciate because they could identify the pictures themselves.

So as soon as the onesies came in from the printer, I showed one to Oot.

I point at the lower-leftmost speech bubble. “What’s this?” I ask, thinking, this one should be pretty easy. He knows what a heart is….

“Crab,” he said without any hesitation.

“Oh,” I say. “Okay.” I point at the book. “What’s this?”

“Choccate!” (Chocolate.)

“And this?” I ask, pointing at the cloud.

“Skis,” he says immediately. The word is completely clear. When did he learn what skis are?

“And this?” I point at the musical notes.

“Shopping cart.” Again, he’s absolutely sure of himself.

“Who’s this in the middle?” I ask, pointing at Kvothe himself.

“Issa boy,” he tells me. “Shouting.”

If you’re one of those “pics or it didn’t happen” people, here’s a video where Valerie quizzes Oot about what’s on his shirt.

His answers are a little different there, as he’s obviously gained a clearer understanding of the shirt after re-reading it a couple times.

So there you go. If you’d like to buy a onesie with a boy shouting about crabs, chocolate, skis, and a shopping cart, today is your lucky day.

Because we have them available now in the Tinker’s Packs.

We’ve priced the same as our t-shirts at 20 dollars. I wish I could sell them for less, but the onsies are actually way more expensive to buy than the t-shirts. The printing is more expensive, too, because it uses so many colors.

Rest assured that all the money from the sale of the shirts goes directly to Worldbuilders. It’s not like I’m spending it on hookers and PEZ.

And just for one last piece of cute, here’s a picture of Oot wearing it.

(Click to Encutenate.)

This picture cracks me up a big because Oot looks like such a smooth player in it.

“Hey sweetie,” he says. “What? This shirt? Just some old thing I threw on. You know, this scene is played out. What say you and I go back by the couch and I show you how high I can stack some blocks….”

One more time, just in case you need it: the link to the Tinker’s Packs.

Lastly, a final heads-up for those of you in Northern Michigan and the UP. I’m doing two signings in those parts this weekend, and I probably won’t be back in the area for a while.

Catch me while you can….

pat

Also posted in Oot, The Tinker's Packs, videos | By Pat56 Responses
Published: May 23, 2011

Fanmail FAQ: Where is the Store?

Since I posted up the video interviews with Peter on Friday, I received a dozen e-mails centering around the topic of his Eolian t-shirt.

Some people merely wanted to express their geeky joy at the sight of his shirt. Some people proclaimed terrible envy. Some people asked if I’d ever thought of getting t-shirts like that made so I could sell them. Some people knew there was a store somewhere, but they had no idea where to find it….

So I realized I should probably make a post with a link to our store: the aptly-named The Tinker’s Packs.

A lot of you who have been reading the blog for a while probably already know about the store. But for those of you who only tuned in recently… there you are. You can get t-shirts and books and such there.

Best of all, all proceeds from the store go to our charity: Worldbuilders.

We’ll be re-vamping the website relatively soon, and when that happens, the store will have its own permanent place on the webpage. But for now, we’ll have to do with a link here on the blog.

Meatier blog soon,

pat

Also posted in The Tinker's Packs | By Pat33 Responses
Published: January 14, 2011

Signed Copies of The Wise Man’s Fear

[Edit: As of Feb 20th, the Signed Page is no longer taking orders for signed books. If you want to buy a signed copy, contact one of the stores where I’ll be signing books on my tour, or contact some of the bookstores that got pre-signed copies from my publisher.]

The comments on Wednesday’s blog were lovely.  People’s enthusiasm was infectious, and I have to say I’m looking forward to the tour even more than I was before.

Right now I am filled with warm, fuzzy feelings. And spring rolls.

Since I announced the tour dates, folks have been asking some really good questions about the tour. I’m going to look into the answers and put them together into a tour FAQ that I’ll post up Monday-ish.

But for now, here’s the big question people have been asking me for months.

I don’t think so. At least I’m not going to be doing anything like that really soon.

The main reason is time. I’m going to be spending all of March touring. That means I wouldn’t have the time to sign your books until April at the earliest.That means most of you wouldn’t get your books until two months after the release.

And honestly, when I get home from my month of touring, the last thing I’m going to want to do is sign and ship 500 books….

That said, I know a lot of you won’t be able to make it to my signings. Maybe I’m not doing an event close to where you live. Maybe you have to work that day. Maybe you have a pathological fear of bears, and because of this you don’t want to get very close to me in real life…

So here’s what we’ve worked out.

Shawn Speakman runs a Website called The Signed Page where he sells signed books from all sorts of big-name authors.

He’s based in Seattle, so when I go out to do my first signing there at the University Book Store, I’m going to stop by his place too and sign a bunch of books for him. That means he’ll start mailing out his orders on March 1st.

Shawn does international shipping, so you can get hold of my book no matter where you live. He also is very careful about his packaging, so you don’t have to worry about your book getting banged up on its way to you.

Yes, I will still personalize the book to you if you want.

And yes, the books will be first edition copies of The Wise Man’s Fear. If the first book is any indication, these will probably be worth some serious money some day…

Shawn is also selling signed hardcover copies of The Name of the Wind and copies of prints of the original cover art for The Name of the Wind.

Best of all, Shawn has agreed to donate five bucks of every book sold to Worldbuilders. He’s just that sort of guy….

It’s a way better option than ordering from me. You’ll get it cheaper and faster, and some of the money goes to charity.

So feel free to head on over and make your order.

Have a great weekend everybody….

pat

Also posted in signing books, The Tinker's Packs | By Pat89 Responses
Published: January 10, 2011

Citizen of the World

Well I don’t know about y’all. But I’m considerably more relaxed than a couple weeks ago.

Don’t get me wrong. I love running Worldbuilders.  I also love working on my book and getting ready for Christmas. I even love packaging t-shirts believe it or not.

I just don’t love doing all of those things at the same time. That was not so much with the fun.

At this point, we’ve dealt with most of the aftermath of the fundraiser.  About 3/4 of the prizes have been mailed out, but I haven’t contacted the winner of the Golden Ticket or Gaiman’s Snow Glass Apples yet. That will happen sometime this next week.

So if you see an unfamiliar number on your cell phone in the next couple days, you might want to answer it….

The t-shirt madness is largely over. We shipped a bunch last week, and I packaged up another 60 or so yesterday night. That means with the exception of about a dozen packages, we’re pretty much entirely caught up on mailing out everything people have ordered from the store.

Needless to say, I’m surprised at how well the t-shirts sold. Whenever we thought things would start tapering off, we’d sell another couple hundred. Because of this, we kept running out of specific sizes and have to re-order more shirts. That’s the main reason some orders ended up shipping later than we would have liked.

Speaking of which, we’re about to put in one last order of shirts for a couple months. So if you really want a shirt, this might be the best time to order one. Why? Because the next time we run out of a size, we probably aren’t going to be in a big rush to re-stock it. We might not re-print some of these shirts at all after this next order, and instead focus on other things in the store.

Consider yourselves fairly warned.

In other news, we have a new addition to the family.

(Click to Embiggen.)

It’s the Hebrew translation of The Name of the Wind. As an added bonus there’s some bacon in the picture.

Yknow, only as I typed that last sentence did I realize the weirdness of that. Because…. y’know… Hebrew.

I would just like to state for the record that this happened by accident. I wasn’t trying to be ironical or anything. I was just making a BLT…

I still love seeing the new versions of my book. I don’t think it will ever get old for me. I think this one is the 18th translation of my book to get into print. I should be seeing copies of the Bulgarian version soon, too. And after that should come the two different versions of Chinese: complex and simplified.

When I opened the package and picked up the book, the first thing I did was try to remember what the different Hebrew letters were called. I could identify about half of them, which is better than I can do in Japanese or Russian.

This made me feel very savvy and cosmopolitan. I was a citizen of the world.

That feeling faded when I tried to put the title into Google Translate to see if I could get a literal translation. It said that what I typed in meant “Name Crank.”

So I guess my Hebrew alphabet could use some work…

Erasing my final shred of cool-feelingness was the fact that shortly after picking up the book I experienced two seconds of cold-sweat panic when I realized that somehow a major printing error had happened with this edition. Somehow they’d printed the cover upside-down. It wasn’t just one book, either. It was *all* the books that had been sent to me….

Then I remembered. Hebrew is right to left, not left to right.

Yup, that’s me. Citizen of the world.

More soon,

pat

P.S. For those of you who live in Michigan. I’m going to be doing a reading/signing Q&A session at McLean & Eakin on January 20th at 6:00. For more details you can check out the Facebook event or hit Mclean & Eakin’s website.

Yes, there will be some Princess books there. And yes, I’ll be reading something from The Wise Man’s Fear….

Also posted in appearances, foreign happenings, The Tinker's Packs | By Pat68 Responses
Published: November 22, 2010

At Your Request – New Shirts and Posters

Over the weekend, a lot of people chimed in about t-shirt designs, colors, and things they’d like to see in the store.

So here’s what we’ve decided to do.

  • We’ll be printing the Kingkiller design on a grey t-shirt.

Grey is similar but not identical to gray. You see, grey is slightly cooler. Because it’s British. (It’s also slightly darker. Because I say so.)

We’re still fixing the font. But we’re putting the shirt up for sale in the store now, that way you can order it sooner rather than later if you want.

  • Because people clamored for it, we’ll also be printing the Denner Fishing design on a black shirt.

Be warned. We probably won’t be ordering a ton of these. So if you want one, it would be best to order now, so that you can be sure to get the size you want.

  • We’ll be printing a Worldbuilders shirt.

It will have the Worldbuilders logo on a forest green shirt.

All three of these new shirts are now available in the store.

  • We’ve got an easier way of ordering big & tall shirts now.

We have to charge a little more for these, as they cost us more to make. But now we have a Big & Tall option right in the store.

  • We’re re-printing the Four-Corners map.

Several people e-mailed me asking if I could print posters other than Luring the Draccus. A couple folks  reminded me of the map that I printed waaaaaaaay back in the day.

So I’ve printed out some more of those. They’re up in the store already.

  • We’re selling the gold foil promotional Mr. Whiffle stickers.

People asked for them, so we’re putting them up in the store. Supplies are limited.

  • We’ve got a brand-new Mr Whiffle poster up in the store.

A while back, right after The Adventures of the Princess and Mr. Whiffle was published. I comissioned a special piece of art for my own amusement. Only those of you who have read the book will be able to appreciate it. But I suspect that those of you who have a bizarre sense of humor akin to my own might want a copy for yourselves.

I’m not going to post it up here, though. You’ll have to head over to the store to get a look at it.

So there you are.

Stay tuned for more Worldbuilders swag. We’ll be posting up blogs full of new donated books and auction items every day this week.

pat

Also posted in The Tinker's Packs | By Pat38 Responses

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