Other than that, this has been a perfectly normal Saturday in mid-October. I made blueberry pancakes for Maddy, and juiced a bunch of local apples and late garden vegetables for me, and am starting to come out of the muffle-headed cocoon I went into when I got home. Haven't written anything yet, and last night when a software update rebooted the computer, losing me most of yesterday's blog entry and a bunch of firefox tabs I barely minded...
Walking around Glasgow, I keep seeing this everywhere:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/90252691@N00/52526126/
I'm not sure what, or even if, it's advertising. A bit of your book escaped into the world. Weird.
-- Stu West
Thanks so much for sending that over! I hadn't known about them, although I can figure out what they're for -- http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2005/06/blogging-for-joy.asp may be clue...
Hi Neil - I'm trying to figure out where on the Internet I can find out how many books, for example, you have sold (like a statistical website). I realize that's probably a fairly invasive question, and you may not even know where to find that information, but I thought there has to be a way to track "sales" per ce and figured you may know. I also appreciate that you're not a directory service...but again, I thought I would ask. Thank you!!! Chrysta
I don't think that information is available anywhere online. It's not even something I know, without piling up hundreds of royalty statements and totting it up. I can average things out based on what I do know (for example, in 2003, a little over 300,000 Sandman trade paperbacks and hardbacks were sold in the US) but really don't know. Sorry.
do you have a signed copy of anansi boys or limited edtn copy for sale. i'm from scotland in the uk. can pay by any method regardless of cost.thank you
Your best bets would be
a) go to DreamHaven Books -- www.neilgaiman.net -- who do a whole shop of stuff by me and have lots of signed books in stock
b) check out the shops I signed in on the last tour -- most of them had extra books signed. I also signed hundreds of books at http://www.booksmith.com/.
c) wait until I come to Scotland on the 9th of November...
Wednesday, 9th November
1.00pm: Borders, Buchanan Street, Glasgow Signing Contact: 0141 222 7700
6.30pm: Waterstone�s, West End, Princes Street, EdinburghTalk and signingContact: 0131 226 2666Tickets �3
(Full UK signing information here.)
Hi Neil,Is there a Europe tour after the UK tour? (I live in Belgium) Regars. fred
No. There may be something next year, when the book starts to come out in translation, but it will depend a lot on what else is going on.
Hello,I've been looking forward to seeing Mirrormask for months now and I have yet to see any canadian venues for it. It's not announced on any local listings (like www.cinemamontreal.ca) and it doesn't appear on the Canadian Sony website. Would you happen to have any inside info on this??
thank you Joelle Sekla
PS. thanks for coming down to Toronto. I had a blast.
Mark Askwith just phoned to tell me that MirrorMask will arrive in Canada on the 28th of October. You now know all that I know, and more than I knew 5 minutes ago.
Dear Neil, I was cruising George RR Martin's site and found a great link posted there (http://www.loc.gov/bookfest/authors.html). It occurred to me that some of your other fans might wish to see yours and possibly other authors' speeches/discussions/q&a's on video from last month in DC. Hope this is more of a help than a hindrance. Cameron
(If you're using RealPlayer, you may have to go to tools/preferences/media types/advanced and put a check against real time streaming protocol before it will work...)
...
And a couple of small public service postings before I go off and take Maddy somewhere that she can eat blue moon icecream on a perfect autumn day, when the sky is blue and the leaves are gold...
One personal...
Hey Neil, I was near at the end of the line at your recent Toronto signing. First off thanks very much for staying so late for us. It was really heartening to see you maintained your good cheer despite the fatigue you must have been feeling. I struck up a really nice conversation with the person standing right in front of me while waiting in line and am now kicking myself for not getting any contact information.
The only thing I know about her that could help me get in touch is that she reads your journal regularly. So if you could mention on the blog that Aamir (me) would really like to continue the chat I was having with Bonny in the Toronto sign lineup that would be very very much appreciated. Regardless thanks again very much for everything.
And one political...
Hi Neil,
Any chance you could include this quick & urgent plea to fellow UK readers of your blog to contact their MPs asap, via www.writetothem.com or other means, to ask them to vote against the Identity Cards Bill, which has its third reading in the House of Commons next Tuesday, 18th October. This is almost certainly the last time that MPs will get to vote on it. (It scraped through by a majority of only 16 at the last reading.)
For a good clear explanation of how a National Identity database can link up lots of other databases, and why this is so dangerous, people might like to read: this post
For a rather longer but very readable, thoughtful and highly recommended overview of the ID card issue, there's http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/ahrb/script-ed/vol2-1/idcards.asp
Or, there are some singing dogs:
http://eclectech.co.uk/clarkeidcards.php
Thanks!
Very much enjoyed Anansi Boys, and working my way through the gorgeous new Hodder paperback reissues of your other novels, though my mind boggles at books with 'extras' and what can only be called 'director's cut' editions of the text. I have a terrible, terrible urge to have you sign ALL of them next month, seeing as I couldn't resist getting a new set of books that I thought I'd already bought. I doubt I can be that mean, though, damn. :)
(Am very tickled by how incredibly well-endowed they all are with hyper-enthusiastic flowery accolades. "As Gaiman is to literature, so Antoni Gaudi was to architecture" (Midweek, from the inside front of American Gods). Huh??? They're all perfectly correct in what they say, of course, but it is rather funny seeing so many of them blurbed over every spare inch of cover, inside as well as out, of one small paperback.)
See you in Manchester!
best wishes,
Maria Ng