We’re having a sale at the Schlock Mercenary store. If you spend $100 with us we’ll ship your stuff to you at no charge, no matter where in the world you are.

Many of you residing in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand have justly complained about the high shipping costs. Until now we’ve had no way to address this, short of losing money. But now, with five books in inventory, along with magnets, pins, shirts, and posters, we can go out on a limb and cut into our profits a bit.

How do you want to spend $100? Well… the first four Schlock Mercenary books come to $80. Add the full set of warning-sign magnets for $20 and you’ve got yourself a fanboy (or fangirl) dream-package, and we’ll ship it to you for free.

Chief among the wonderful things you can buy is Hold On To Your Horses, by Sandra “Not Just The Cartoonist’s Wife” Tayler and Angela Call. This lavishly illustrated book will make a delightful holiday gift for that small, hyperactive, pony-loving person in your life. Niece? Cousin? Daughter? Impulse-control issues? Book her.

We’ve accumulated a few scratch-and-dent Schlock books as well. These are going for roughly 1/3 off. $10 for the $15 books, and $18 for the $25 books. They’re in exceedingly short supply, though (less than 20 of each.)

Finally, we’ve got Writing Excuses CDs for you. Just $10 gets you the complete first season, nine hours of DRM-free podcasts on writing, plotting, editing, re-writing, and letting your characters run away with your story. There’s a lot of bonus material as well, including three essays, an entire book, and a pile of desktop wallpapers.

Supplies for this sale are slightly limited. We only have 150 magnet sets left, and once we’re out we’re not going to be able to get more before the holidays are upon us. We have a mere 100 Writing Excuses CDs on the way, but if we run out I think we can get more quickly. Oh, and we’re also down to our last 800 copies of Under New Management, though I doubt we’ll sell out.

Feel free to prove me wrong, though. You maniacs.

We’re running this sale through December 31st. If you want things in time for Christmas, and they need to cross an ocean to get to you, you should place your order by November 24th.

I love the look of the new WaMu Website*, too.

(*Note: No, that’s not actually the new WaMu website.)

Apparently the change in temperature and associated firing-up of heaters everywhere I spend time was NOT the cause for my sniffles. In short, this isn’t a dust-induced bout with hay-fever. This is an actual rhinovirus, complete with systemic aches and pains, and it wiped me and Sandra both out today.

We’ll see if I’m too Type-A to take the day off tomorrow. Odds are good I’ll get at least a little bit of work done, but I expect that between now and Tuesday morning I’ll be getting around 30 hours of sleep.

I finished the last of the sketch editions today. That’s 979 books sketched. I still need to do #001 for the auction winner, but that one will not be a “sketch” so much as it will be “marker art.” The remaining 20 are emergency spares… except for #s 999 and 1000, which, if they’re not needed as spares, will hit the auction block.

To celebrate, I took Sandra out to dinner. Our waiter’s nametag read “Drac,” because he’s a vampire fan. He asked us if we liked Anita Blake stories by Laurell K. Hamilton. I snerked. He got worried. “Oh. You’ve heard of her and don’t like her stuff?”

“No, that’s not it at all.” I sighed and looked at Sandra, then back at ‘Drac.’ “I’m trying not to name-drop.”

“Huh?”

“Laurell K. Hamilton wrote the intro for my second book. I like her work, and she’s actually a fan of mine, too.”

Man, I can’t go ANYWHERE. (/sarcasm)

Dinner was great. We tipped our vampiric server well (gotta stimulate the local economy, right?) and headed home feeling fatly replete.

So… the books are all sketched, which is wonderful. The bad news: My shoulder and wrist hurt.
The good news: I’m not taking any ibuprofen, and the pain is quite managable with simple hot-pack or cold-pack treatments.
More good news: I don’t have to draw anything again until Tuesday (except maybe #001 on Monday), when I can start the Buffer-Fu again.
Still more good news: I’m feeling pretty relaxed. We’re all set for Thursday’s shipping party, and Friday’s release party.
Best news: My friend and introduction-writer Brandon Sanderson will be joining me for the release party, and we may even get Dan Wells there with us for a couple of podcasts. Join us this Friday at Dragon’s Keep if you can.