Category Archives: Announcements

Hey, there’s something coming up that I want to tell you about!

Deep Discounts and Quick Commissions at the Sal Velluto Benefit

My friend Sal, who was among the first comics industry professionals I met, is fighting cancer, and a bunch of us are getting together to help out.

This Saturday I’ll be at Dragon’s Keep in Provo, Utah. I’m bringing books, miniatures, and art supplies.

  • The Blackness Between, 1st Printing — $5.00 (retail $15)
  • Massively Parallel, scratch-and-dent — $10 (retail $25)
  • 11-book sets, with slip cases —$200 (retail $230, but I only have four of them)
  • Schlock Mercenary miniatures from Garden Ninja — Make an offer (discontinued, retail $10-$20)
  • Pencil-and-Ink commissions  — $10 to “whatever” depending on what you want.
  • Sharpie sketches in books you buy — FREE!

All proceeds will be going directly to Sal Velluto. I don’t know if Dragon’s Keep will be able to run credit cards through the register for this stuff, so maybe plan on bringing pockets full of cash.  Better artists than I will be doing sketches, too.

We won’t be able to ship anything, so this opportunity is limited to the locals.

Find Me at Phoenix Comic Con

I’ll be at Phoenix Comic Con this weekend. My schedule is pretty light, and I don’t have a permanent seat in the exhibition hall, so I may be difficult to catch up with.

Difficult, but not impossible:

Thursday

  • Writing Excuses Signing: 4:00-6:00pm, Booth 1378

Friday

  • Writing Excuses Podcast, 12:30-2:30pm, West 301a
  • The Lighter Side of Sci-Fi, 6:00-7:00 pm, North 128a
  • Booth 1378 (Brandon Sanderson/Writing Excuses): See table for schedule

Saturday

  • Where are My Aliens? 1:30-2:30 pm, North 128b
  • Official Signing, 3:00-4:00pm, in the author autographs area
  • Booth 1378 (Brandon Sanderson/Writing Excuses): See table for schedule

Like I said, it’s pretty light. My merchandise can be found at the Brandon Sanderson/Writing Excuses booth, #1378, through Saturday evening, and I will be there from time to time to sketch in your stuff. My schedule will be posted there, and will include the times when I’ve promised to brave the madding crowd and return to the table with my sharpies.

I need to get a lot of work done this weekend, including penciling and inking strips for late June. It’s possible I’ll be doing some of that in places where I can be seen. If I’m in public, I’ll tweet my location. Follow @HowardTayler on Twitter for that information, as well as for random noise, some of which might be pretty entertaining.

Pre-Orders Open on Monday

Pre-orders for Force Multiplication, Schlock Mercenary Book 12, will open on Monday, May 23rd at 8am Mountain time. 

FMCover-w-spine

We’re quite pleased with how this book turned out. The stone circuit cover design defines the style we’ll be using for books 12 through 17, and the stuff inside the cover is at least as cool as all that. I love the bonus story that Sandra wrote, and Natalie Barahona’s art is perfect for it. I’m also pleased with the way the Force Multiplication story reads when reading it in one sitting. It’s pretty tight, if I do say so myself.

Force Multiplication is $20.00 + shipping.

Numbered sketch editions are $10 more, and only about 600 of those will be available. If you want one, you need to place your order quickly.

Monday, May 23rd, 8am Mountain time. Maybe mark your calendar?


Other Announcements

As long as you’ve got your calendar open, there are a couple more things to maybe pencil into it.

June 3rd: Planet Mercenary Backerkit Lockdown

PM-LockDown1If you backed Planet Mercenary, on June 3rd you will no longer be able to change your order. Credit card processing will begin then, so now might  be a good time to make sure the card (especially the expiration date) is still valid.

You WILL still be able to change your shipping address after June 3rd.  Details are over here on the Kickstarter Page.

Note: We cannot combine Planet Mercenary Kickstarter shipping and Force Multiplication pre-order shipping. Sorry!

July 1st: Registration closes for the Out of Excuses 2016 Writing Workshop and Retreat.

WX-Logo-2016BluesIn a nutshell, this event is a Caribbean cruise for writers and students of writing. It’s hosted by the Writing Excuses team, and it will the second time we’ve held the event in the Caribbean.

If you’re interested, don’t delay registering because you might not have until July 1st. We’re limited to 150 attendees, and when we reach the attendance cap, registration closes.

 

Looking Pretty Good…

A package arrived from our printer. It was full of pieces of paper for us to look at before committing to the print run for Force Multiplication.

FM-ProofForCover

It’s looking pretty good. The painstaking hours (and hours and hours) of tweaks and adjustments appear to have paid off.

We’re not taking pre-orders for this book yet, but that’ll probably start within a month. I’ll post more when Sandra picks a date.