A huge thank you, and some life and some death...

Thank you all for taking part in the Humble Bundle, or just for putting up with me blogging, tweeting and facebooking about it. It's been over for a couple of days now: We just got a letter from the guys at Humble letting us know it was:

#1 on the Humble Book Tab
#1 Highest Overall Average for any Bundle.
#1 Media Coverage for a Book Bundle 

And they went on to say:

This bundle was particularly special since it elicited such a beautiful and positive reaction from both our fans and Humble newbies alike.   I talked with our Customer Service Manager yesterday and he reported that there wasn't a single negative comment.  (Except new customers not understanding how to redeem their bundles.  A very common complaint.)   This has never happened before either!
There was a tremendous amount of delighted energy at Humble HQ since the launch.    Everyone here was stoked to be involved.   Dare I say that it was almost in the realm of The Magical. 

 I was so happy how many friends, acquaintances and people I do not even know gave it a push.

John Scalzi went further -- he reviewed my 1985 Duran Duran book, and let the review become a gentle meditation on who we are and who we were and who we become. It's at http://whatever.scalzi.com/2015/09/22/duran-duran-neil-gaiman-and-beginnings/ and you might enjoy it.

Here are the final results for your interest:
Humble Book Bundle: Neil Gaiman Rarities
https://www.humblebundle.com/books?view=pPpiWRbzesK-Launch Date:  September 9th 2015
End Date: September 23rd 2015
Avg. price per bundle: $19.63
32,294 bundles purchased
Total Revenue: $633,787.98
(Note the numbers might change ever so slightly over the next few weeks.)  

I'll post the actual numbers here, and how much money that actually makes and how much is going where, when I get the information from Humble.  Hurrah for transparency.

(Also, I commend to you the Banned Comics Humble Bundle that's going on right now: $231 of forbidden comics for Pay What You Like https://www.humblebundle.com/books )

...

Meanwhile, so many things. For example The Sleeper and the Spindle came out in the US on Tuesday. So did the new Sleeper and the Spindle Full Cast Audio. You can listen to it at https://soundcloud.com/harperaudio_us/sleeperandthespindle_gaiman or

And read a great interview with Chris Riddell (and see pictures from the book) at http://epicreads.tumblr.com/post/129147915806/books-for-keeps-window-into-illustration-with

The Moth put up a new radio show and weirdly, in a week a son is born, it includes me talking about my father and my son: http://themoth.org/posts/episodes/1520 (This was actually recorded somewhere on the Unchained Bus Tour of 2012.)

I recorded a documentary for the BBC  Radio -- I'm presenting it -- on Orpheus: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06cw171  I'm really proud of it, and it has wonderful people, like Margaret Atwood and Jonathan Carroll and Peter Blegvad in it. (And this is the poem I wrote for Kathy Acker that's extracted in it: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/5gmSz0PkBn6G81cdsySP8mJ/orphee-a-poem-by-neil-gaiman)

Miracleman, The Golden Age stories by me and Mark Buckingham is coming out right now on a weekly schedule. You really want to go to a comic shop and buy it. It's thrilling for me rereading it now, and really strange starting the process with Mark Buckingham of finishing the story we began so many years ago.

...

The baby is nine days old, happy and healthy and, slightly to my surprise, he makes amazing noises: squeaks like mice and gentle burbling like mourning doves and little chirrupping grunts like guinea pigs. I adore him. And his mother's doing really well too. In case you were wondering. 

Labels: banned books week, Fathers and Sons, Humble Bundle, Miracleman, Orpheus, The Moth, The Sleeper and the Spindle, Unchained Bus Tour

Holy Thundering Sludgebuckets! THANK YOU!

The Humble Bundle went live almost ten hours ago.

It's broken all the previous Humble Bundle records for Books.  As I type this, about 7000 people have already bought the  Bundle. It's raised $133,000. And it's done something really peculiar...

The average donation (right now $18.88) is actually higher than the level we had set as our top level ($15). This means that the books we thought were going to be mid-level books are actually, much to our surprise, the top level books.

This means a few things, including some changes of plans in the week ahead to make sure that as many people as possible get as much stuff as possible...

There's a great interview with me over at The Nerdist where I talk about embarrassment and age and why I'm willing to let some of the embarrassing stuff from the basement and the attic out. (Well, out for the next 13 days, anyway.) It's at http://nerdist.com/exclusive-neil-gaiman-discusses-uncovering-rarities-for-humble-bundle/

One of the best unexpected side-effects of this has been an ask me anything on Reddit with my daughters, Holly and Maddy Gaiman. You get a great sense of their personalities. They are both very funny in very different ways. For anyone wondering, this is what they look like now.

Maddy is the author of this book. Or she was, in 2002. It's letters and poems we sent each other while I was off writing American Gods, and she was Very Young. Only 100 copies were published, and given to close friends. And now it's part of the Humble Bundle too...

So thank you, and thank you again.

If you haven't bought it yet, you can still get your rare and collectible eBooks, eComics and eWhatnots at https://www.humblebundle.com/books for the next 13 days and 14 hours. 1249 pages of  stuff. All the money goes to good causes, and you can control how much of it goes to charities, to the creators, to Humble Bundle...

(There will be more stuff in the bundle released midweek. If you've already bought the bundle you will get it all without having to pay any more.)

...

Also, things I should mention:

Miracleman #1 is out! The art by Mark Buckingham has never looked better. The story by me is, well, I'm still proud of it, after all these years. If you've wondered what the fuss was about, it's a great place to start and should be at your local comic shop.

http://marvel.com/comics/issue/50326/miracleman_by_gaiman_buckingham_2015_1

The Global Goals: On the 25th of September, the UN will officially adopt the new Global Goals. Head over to http://www.globalgoals.org and learn what they are, and what you can do to change the world for the better...

Before that, Penguin are going to be releasing the world's first Post-It Note book, to draw awareness to the global goals: I helped, a little, in making it happen: http://www.thebookseller.com/news/richard-curtis-and-neil-gaiman-michael-joseph-global-goals-curate-worlds-first-post-it-note-book-311417  Richard Curtis did all the heavy lifting.

And, in case you were wondering...

Labels: Global Goals, Holly, Humble Bundle, Maddy, Miracleman, thank you so much