This is a Worldbuilders Blog.
So the holiday shopping season is fast approaching. Later this week, corporations all over the US are going to pull every trick in the book to sell you crap. There will be madness in the stores. People will behave badly. There will be news stories about people getting hospitalized while trying to buy some plastic toy made in a third world country.
And you know, I get it. I want to buy my little boy every cute little thing I see in the store. Last year I bought him a plastic Thomas the Tank Engine that he can scoot around on. And he loves it.
But you know what else he loves? The cardboard poster tube I pulled out of the garbage at Worldbuilders central. I brought that home, and you know what he did? He slid it over his arm and said, “I have a robot arm! I can use it to freeze you! fpshhhhh! You’re a statue!”
I’m not going to say that he doesn’t play with Thomas anymore, because he does. But he plays with the tube just as much. He freezes me and Sarah with it, then thaws us out again. It’s a telescope. You can roll marbles through it. It’s a trumpet. It’s everything a little boy needs.
And it was free. Thomas cost me 95 bucks. I feel guilty about that sometimes. If I’d given that 95 bucks to Heifer, it would have paid for a lot of chickens. It means a lot of other little kids would be eating eggs right now. 95 bucks is almost a whole goat.
Every time I hear someone mention Black Friday, I cringe a little. And I think “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could do something better than this?”
That’s part of the reason we’re trying something new at Worldbuilders this year. We’ve formed some official partnerships with a couple geek-centric businesses. And they’re doing two things.
1. They’ve donated cool stuff that you can go and buy in The Tinker’s Packs.
2. If you go buy some stuff from them, (carefully following the directions laid out below) they will give a percentage of that sale to us here at Worldbuilders.
Let me just jump right in and show you how cool they are…
The folks at Badali made the Talent Pipes that we’ve been selling in The Tinker’s Packs for years now. They turned out amazingly well, and I’ve actually seen people wearing them at conventions and book signings.
But recently, Badali has recently made a few other pieces jewelry based on my books.
The first of these is Denna’s Ring:
I have to tell you, they worked with me for a *long* time on this. Over the course of a year, they developed at least 6 different prototypes that I, like the precious little princess I am, looked at and said, “That’s beautiful, but it’s not quite right. Could we….?”
And then we’d chat about it, and they’d go make another version of the ring.
The truly impressive thing is that at no point did they stab me in the neck for being so freakishly obsessive about the design. They worked with me on the type of stone, on the style of the ring. On the feel of it. And, of course, on the knot work involved.
If you want to see more pictures of it, you can see them on Badali’s site over here.
The other thing that came out *very* recently is the Iron Wheel pendant:
It’s modeled after the one Chronicler wears. If you look closely, you’ll see the names of Tehlu’s angels written around the edge.
The coolest thing in my opinion? Badali went out of their way to find someone who would cast it in iron. This doesn’t happen much, because, y’know, nobody with any sense makes iron jewelry. But when I stressed that it really should BE iron, not just iron-ish. They went the extra mile and made it happen.
Best of all, Badali doesn’t just do jewelry from my books. They have something for just about every kind of geek out there. Whether you’re into Celtic or Cthulian. Sanderson or Tolkien, they’ve got something for you.
And here’s the best part, for the duration of our fundraiser, Badali is donating 10% of the sales on their site to Worldbuilders if you use the following coupon codes.
Not only will some of your money go to make the world a better place, but you’ll also get free USPS Priority Mail shipping for US customers and $9.00 off shipping for international customers.
The coupon code is WBLDUSA in the United States.
Non-US Orders should use coupon code WBLDINT.
Amanda’s Edit: Congratulations, everyone, we broke Badali’s website this morning! If you weren’t able to use the coupon code, email janelle [squiggly-at-thinger] badalijewelry.com and she’ll sort it out for you to be sure you get your free/discounted shipping, and to be sure the 10% goes to Worldbuilders.
Do you folks remember the Bear Steins from last year? We put them up in the store, and they sold out inside of a day.
Click to see the many faces of Sea Bear Pots…
This year, Sea Bear joined forces with John Hill (Tree on the Hill Pottery) and Katherine Taylor (Front Room Clay) to create Three Marks Pottery Shoppe. All three of these fine pottery-ists have agreed to have a super-hero team-up and sell pottery out of their Etsy shop to help benefit Worldbuilders.
And you know what? You don’t need a coupon code for this one. Because they’ve told us that 25% of all sales from their store will go straight to Worldbuilders.
Or, if you prefer, you can head over and buy some of their awesome bear steins straight from The Tinker’s Packs. They’re the perfect gift for the person in your life that wants to drink like a bad-ass Viking.
The same blog that talked about the Bear Steins last year also talked about the wonderful Jayne Hats created by Amanda Swenson.
This year, she’s donated even more handmade Jayne Hats to The Tinker’s Packs.
What’s more, if you buy anything on her Etsy store, Almost Wicked Stitcher, 20% of sales will go to Worldbuilders through the end of the fundraiser.
You can buy all manner of coolness there, including what she’s lovingly termed a Diabeetus Stache. We’ve got one here at the office, and my lovely assistant Amanda here is particularly fond of it.
I posted a blog about this a while back, but I wanted to remind all of you that there’s a new, paperback edition of The Princess and Mr. Whiffle coming out from Sea Lion Books, from which 15%, then 20%, then 25% of the proceeds will come to Worldbuilders, depending on how many they sell.
This version and a color-cover limited edition are both for sale over at Sea Lion’s website.
Some people who ordered their books a couple weeks ago e-mailed to ask why they hadn’t gotten their books yet. It turns out Sea Lion’s printer was hit by Hurricane Sandy, so they had to start printing over at a whole new facility. It’s set back their timeline a bit, but don’t worry, your books are still coming….
We’ve also got some great stuff going on in our own store. We’ve already mentioned the Bear Steins and the Jayne Hats, but we also just got a brand-new shirt in.
A couple months back, a fan named Nate designed an awesome logo for Greysdale Mead, the drink of all discerning troupers.
We used it to make a truly awesome shirt.
To make room for the Greysdale Mead shirt, we’re clearing out some of our older shirts. We’re selling off our remaining stock of the Worldbuilders shirts, (modeled below by beautiful assistant Kat) and the Denner Fishing t-shirt, (modeled by the ever-lovely Nicole.)
Just so you know, there are some guys that work for me too. But the ladies are the ones that like posing for t-shirt pictures.
After these are gone, we aren’t going to be printing any more. So if you want one you’d better order now.
Lastly, don’t forget that we’ve got the 2013 Pin-Up Calendars available too. We just launched a new sale on them to make it easier to buy them as gifts. So right now if you use the offer code BUYTHREE, you can get 3 calendars for $50. You save ten bucks and make some geeks in your life very happy.
And I’ve said it before folks, but I’ll say it again. Every penny you spend in The Tinker’s Packs goes to Worldbuilders. So you can buy some gifts and get a big warm fuzzy at the same time.
* * *
Remember, for every 10 dollars you donate on our Team Page, you get a chance to win these books and many more.
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.
(Click on the photos and you can read all about them…)
And today we’re putting in over 600 games into the lottery where every $10 dollars you donate gets you a chance to win. (And then gets doubled, too.)
