Technical Difficulties

1. complete hardback Iskryne edda, A Companion to Wolves, The Tempering of Men, and An Apprentice to Elves, signed by me.
At $100 (05/28/16 1:19 PM CDT)

2. The Goblin Emperor, paperback, signed by me.
At $45 (05/28/16 1:19 PM CDT)

3. The Bone Key, trade paperback, 2nd edition, signed by me.
At $40 (05/28/16 1:19 PM CDT)

Plus more than 150 other wildly diverse items!

This is the auction post for a signed hardback set of the Doctrine of Labyrinths (Mélusine, The Virtu, The Mirador, Corambis). The first bidder comments on this post with his/her bid; the second bidder replies to the first bidder's comment with his/her bid. Third bidder replies to second bidder. And so on.

This auction will run until midnight CST, February 3.

Do I hear $100?

The debsliverlovers auctions end tomorrow (May 23rd) at noon EDT. I've donated a signed paperback set of the Doctrine of Labyrinths, and there are many other fabulous items as well. I'm drooling over the Thomas Canty art, myself.

1. I gave blood yesterday, and the blood drive was very busy.

2. The Elder Saucepan passed his physical with flying colors, plus charming all and sundry.

3. A signed hardback of The Virtu is on its way to the winner of my con_or_bust auction. con_or_bust has raised around $5,000, which seems pretty damn awesome to me.

4. The USPS is going to do stamps to help feed animals in shelters. I have for years now been buying the breast cancer stamps, on the theory that every little bit helps, but I'm more than willing to diversify.

5. There are crocuses blooming in my front yard, even if currently they're having to bloom under a layer of snow.

And one more:

6. "White Charles" made the British Fantasy Awards long list.

Over at con_or_bust, I am offering a signed hardback of The Virtu. Minimum bid is $15. (N.b., The Virtu is the one that is out of print in both hardback and paperback.)

1. I still have this cold.

2. However, yesterday I was feeling grungy but not unbearably subhuman, so all the books from the auction are in the mail. (Megan, the manuscript stories are going to have to wait until I get a new toner cartridge, because I owe you better print-quality than I can currently provide.)

3. I have plane tickets for CupcakeCon.

4. I am told that the Publishers Weekly review of Jonathan Strahan's Best SF/Fantasy of 2009 praises "Mongoose" for its "humor amid life-and-death peril."

5. And last night on Twitter, cristalia and I started hashing out a manifesto for Gromitpunk:

@leahbobet (a.k.a. cristalia): Oh hello there, THE WRONG BOOK.
@pennyvixen (a.k.a. truepenny): It's very like the Wrong Trousers, only generally with less penguin.
@leahbobet: And less Wensleydale. :(
@pennyvixen: And no Gromit. ... although, come to think of it, ALL my books have that problem.
@leahbobet: Time to write the Gromitpunk manifesto.
@pennyvixen: oh GOD yes.
@leahbobet: OTOH, a year and four months later, I just found why that first sentence is wrong... *g*
@pennyvixen: Gromitpunk is all about embracing the Zen of one's writing process, goddammit.
@leahbobet: Y'know, it kind of is. Wallace and Gromit ARE the writing process: make up crazy outsized shit, and then Gromit makes it work.
@pennyvixen: Yeah. Wallace takes all the credit and Gromit just sighs and makes another pot of tea.
@leahbobet: 'Zactly!
@pennyvixen: Gromitpunk is also all about tea.
@leahbobet: And dairyfat, and pies.

(If you're curious about The Wrong Book and its new first sentence, look over here.)

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Survey says, not too shabby.

ONE! The auctions for hominysnark (who, I have learned, named one of her cats Mildmay, hence the icon) are in their final twenty-four hours, and the bidding has reached:

• The Bone Key and 4 mss (plus a fifth when it ceases to be vaporware): 110 $125 $130 $160
  
• 3-book set, Mélusine, The Virtu, The Mirador: $170 $200 $250 and a suggestion that both top bidders be allowed to win, which I am pondering.
  
• Mélusine: $60 $75
  
• The Virtu: $50 $60
  
• The Mirador: $40 $45

That's $420 $435 $465 $475 $480 $485 $500 $550 $580 thus far. I said that if we reached $1,000 I'd do a serial podcast of The Virtu. Now I picked that number deliberately to be out of reach unless something amazing happened, because OMG that's a lot of work, but I have another offer: if we reach $500 total, I will do a free podcast, or podcasts, of up to 10,000 words of my published short fiction, stories to be chosen by you all via LJ poll.

ETA: We're past $500. Yay! After the auctions close (i.e., in about forty minutes), I will put up the poll.

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TWO! In other auction news, the bidding in the helptheproject auction for all four DoL hardbacks is at $100 $200 $250 $300.

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THREE! My Storytellers Unplugged column for February is about endings: "Both The Great Detective Explains It All ending and the Mawwiage Is What Bwings Us Togethah Today ending are artificial in the extreme, and frequently–as Elizabeth Bear pointed out when I mentioned it to her–awkward, obtrusive, and unsatisfying, but the thing is, I understand why people do them. Because it gets everybody to hold still for FIVE FUCKING SECONDS so you can END THE GODDAMN BOOK ALREADY. And I don’t care if your eyes WERE closed, Aunt Mabel, this is the picture that’s going to the newspaper."

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FOUR! yuki_onna speaks for every woman who has ever bought deodorant.

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FIVE! FIVE BEAUTIFUL POINTERS! In case somebody else out there needs these as badly as I did, videos of dancing hexapods.

Opening: 1:00 P.M., February 5, 2010
Closing: 1:00 P.M. CST, February 8, 2010

Signed copy of the hardback of The Virtu (Ace Books, 2006). N.b., The Virtu is OUT OF PRINT in both hardback and paperback.

Minimum bid: $25

If the winning bidder wishes me to, I will personalize the book with the utmost gladness.

Bid in the comments. If you are answering a bid, please do so by REPLYING to that comment, so that the first bidder will know. If you win an auction, donate using the PayPal button on asatomuraki's inciting post, and send me a copy of your email receipt. I will then get your loot in the mail to you as soon as I can get to a post office.

I will ship anywhere in the world.

Go.

Opening: 12:56 P.M., February 5, 2010
Closing: 1:00 P.M. CST, February 8, 2010

Signed copies of three hardback books, Mélusine (Ace Books, 2005), The Virtu (Ace Books, 2006), The Mirador (Ace Books, 2007). N.b., The Virtu is out of print in both hardback and paperback. ETA: And I was forgetting: Mélusine is out of print in hardback.

Minimum bid: $50

If the winning bidder wishes me to, I will personalize the books with the utmost gladness.

Bid in the comments. If you are answering a bid, please do so by REPLYING to that comment, so that the first bidder will know. If you win an auction, donate using the PayPal button on asatomuraki's inciting post, and send me a copy of your email receipt. I will then get your loot in the mail to you as soon as I can get to a post office.

I will ship anywhere in the world.

Go.

Notice that plural. *g*

This is not the auctioneering post! (Thus, comments are turned off to avoid confusion.) This is the administration post for the auctions. Because, as is my wont, I have complicated matters:

Like I said yesterday, I'm going to auction a signed copy of The Bone Key (Prime Books, 2007), with signed manuscript copies of the four published but uncollected Booth stories:

• "The Replacement." The Willows 2.3 (September/October 2008): 48-54.
  
• "White Charles" Clarkesworld Magazine 36 (September 2009).
  
• "The World Without Sleep." Postscripts 14 (Spring 2008): 40-64.
  
• "The Yellow Dressing Gown." Weird Tales 63.2 (March-April 2008): 63-69.

Minimum bid is $15. If we go over $100, The bidding has reached $100. The winning bidder will also receive a signed ms copy of the next Booth story I sell, whatever and whenever that may be (i.e., don't hold your breath while you wait).

ALSO, I woke up this morning and realized that here was a chance to kill two birds with one stone (yummy dead birds, as Glory says). I've made my author copies of the Doctrine of Labyrinths books into sets for the purpose of donation (as, for example, to the Virginia Avenue Project Auction), but I have two sets that are missing Corambis (which, having been published less than a year ago, is the one easiest to find). These incomplete sets annoy me. So what I'm going to do is auction those off as follows:

1. An auction on one signed three-book set, Mélusine, The Virtu, The Mirador. Minimum bid will be $50.

2. Three auctions, one for each book, on signed copies of Mélusine, The Virtu, and The Mirador. Minimum bid will be $25 in each auction.

ETA: FYI, Mélusine is out of print in hardback, and The Virtu is out of print in both hardback and paperback.

As with The Bone Key and its ancillary manuscripts, I will ship anywhere in the world.

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All five auctions will begin here very shortly and will run until 1 P.M. on Monday, February 8. If the TOTAL amount raised by the five auctions is more than $1,000, I will do a free serial podcast of The Virtu here on my blog.

Bid in the comments. If you are answering a bid, please do so by REPLYING to that comment, so that the first bidder will know. If you win an auction, donate using the PayPal button on asatomuraki's inciting post, and send me a copy of your email receipt. I will then get your loot in the mail to you as soon as I can get to a post office.

Since I've disabled comments in this post, if you have questions or need clarifications, please ask here.

And please feel free to spread the word.

Excelsior!