Category Archives: Announcements

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

Announcements

Last Chance to Register to Nominate for the Hugos

If you’re not already registered for WorldCon, and you want to participate in the Hugo Award nomination and voting process, you must register by Saturday, January 31st. That’s coming right up.

If you’re interested in nominating projects of mine for the ballot, here’s a list of what I did in 2014, and the categories in which those projects are eligible for nomination:

Graphic Story
Short Story
Novelette
Related Work

Whether or not you think any of these are worthy of nomination, the nomination process is something you can be involved in. If you love genre fiction, and want to see honor done by your favorite things, get registered and fill out your ballot!

The registration deadline is January 31st. The nominations close on March 10th, 2015. The final ballot should appear by the end of April, and the voting on that ballot will likely close at the end of July. Winners and full results will be announced at WorldCon in Spokane Washington, on August 22nd of 2015. More information is available at http://www.thehugoawards.org/.

 

Announcements, Journal

Over Budget and Overbooked

I just put together my project budget for 2015. It’s a big spreadsheet that describes how I’ll spend my time during the year. It includes things like the events I’m attending (each of which chews up a bunch of work time, just like actual work would) and “steady-state” stuff like making 52 weeks of comics (except I need to make 54, because the buffer’s a little thin.)

Good news! I know how to budget! Bad news… I’m 9 weeks over budget. So I guess I’ll just have to shoehorn an additional nine work- weeks into 2015, because obviously I’m not going to stop doing any of these cool things we’ve got planned.

Announcements

Sketches, Shopping, Shared Nightmares, and Schlock

I finished the last of the internationally-bound sketch editions early Sunday morning, and then took Sunday off. Today Sandra and Keliana will be shipping all the international packages, which means that unless there are postal issues in the destination nation, they’ll be arriving in time to be Christmas gifts.

Meanwhile, our store is still open, and there’s plenty of time for the delivery of gifts to folks in the United States. Pins, coins, and patches make great stocking stuffers, and for folks with office walls that need decoration, the 2015 Schlock Mercenary Monthly Calendar is kind of perfect. We still have the Munition Canister slipcases that hold the first five and the second six books for folks who own books, and want a handsome way to keep them upright without book-ends. (Note: the slipcases sell fast, and we can’t stock huge numbers of them because they take up a lot of space in our warehouse.)

If you’re considering taking the plunge for the first time, going all-in, as it were, we have an eleven-book bundle!

Since it’s not unlikely that you’ll be doing some shopping elsewhere for gifts this week (and by “elsewhere” I mean “Amazon“), you might consider starting your trip with this link. A portion of the proceeds from your purchase will help pay the bills here at Chez Tayler. It’s a small thing, but it adds up quickly on our end, and has gone a long way toward paying the bills in January and Februrary in past years.

Oh, hey! If you’re out at Amazon anyway, check out the SHARED NIGHTMARES anthology! It’s just $2.99, and features really bad dreams from a Hugo nominee, a couple of Campbell nominees, a Prometheus winner, and a New York Times best-seller. It’s also available here on Smashwords.

Me? I’ll be spending Cyber Monday scripting comics and sketching in books. It may be Schlock, but it still doesn’t draw itself.

Announcements

Shipping Update

The trucks* full of Massively Parallel and Munitions Canister 1 & 2 slipcases will arrive on Monday, and we’ve got the volunteers we need. Meanwhile, the calendars have already arrived, and the ones that can be sketched and shipped without books are queued up for me to work on. They’ll get packaged Saturday, and will go out the door on Monday. We’re still basically on track with this schedule I posted.

I’ve finished one week of comics this week, and need to finish a second before Saturday night. Today’s schedule: Blog (almost done!), pencil five rows of strips, take a ten minute break, then sketch 50 calendars. That gets me to about 1pm. From there, the schedule looks a lot like draw comics, breathe, sketch calendars, breathe, repeat. Maaaybe I’ll leave the house for treat food, but it’s far more likely that Sandra will forbid such distraction (she can’t get HER work done until I’ve finished MINE), and simply drop something delicious and paper-wrapped in front of me. Along with napkins, so I don’t get food on anybody’s calendars.

I’ll probably post a running count of completed sketches on Twitter. The next time THIS page gets updated it’ll probably have pictures of giant stacks of merchandise.

(*Note: Yes, more than one truck.)