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

Taking A Story Out In Public...

The Unchained Tour is over, and I will write a blog about it, when I get a moment.

It was amazing.  I feel like I'm learning a whole new skill.

I'm in San Diego today with Amanda, and talked her into letting me try something a bit odd: I want to tell one of the stories I told on the Unchained Tour at her gig tonight, before she hits the stage. I like the idea of seeing what happens if I do this without having the Unchained Team around me, without Edgar and Dawn and Peter telling stories, without Peter keeping the show running.

It's not a reading.

It'll be closer to this (from The Moth in 2007):

Not sure how it'll work out of context and at a rock club, but it might be fun.


If you want to come and see me, get there early. I'll probably sign afterwards with her and the band.

This is probably much too late notice for anyone not actually here in San Diego, but if you're here, come down to the House of Blues around 7 pm.

Labels: San Diego, The Moth, Unchained Bus Tour

In which I am Unchained...

I am typing this on an old blue school-bus. There are eleven people on the bus, including me. Two of them are asleep. There are two musicians, a sound man, a PR-wrangler, a driver, a videographer, and six storytellers. We are a motley and disreputable bunch, a diverse mixture of genders and skin-colours, sizes, ages and body-shapes.

I am one of the storytellers.

The outside of the bus is hand-painted with scenes from stories.

Two of the storytellers in the bus have scenes from stories they have told painted on the outside of the bus. They are Edgar Oliver, and George Dawes Green. George's story picture shows him listening to stories as a boy, while the moths flutter into the porchlight. When George grew up he founded the storytelling movement/institution/ organisation called The Moth. This bus, and the tour, is George's idea too.

 Edgar Oliver's story shows Edgar and his mother and sister, and painted next to it, the opening of one of Edgar's stories about Savannah, and his childhood. Edgar is from Savannah, and he lives in New York, but his accent is unlike anyone else's, probably in the world: it is musical and it is theatrical and it is unplaceable, vowel sounds that are English or Eastern European.

The bus is a storytelling bus. Every day – sometimes twice in a day – the bus will come to rest and we will tell our stories.

I am here because George asked me to come, and it seemed like an interesting way to spend nine days of my life.

Last night I told a story about chains: about my dog, who spent the first three years of his life on four foot of chain, and about the chains that bind us, and about love, which, only after I told it, I realised was peculiarly appropriate, given the name of the tour. It's called Unchained.

I was really nervous: one reason I was nervous was that I hadn't told the story before, or even rehearsed it. (The rehearsing time had been eaten because the bus had blown a tyre on its way to Columbia, where I was connecting with it.) But once I started telling the story, it seemed to work. People listened.

I haven't done anything to promote that I'm on the tour so far, mostly because I didn't want to change the nature of the tour or the audiences too much by being here. It's not a Neil Gaiman show or a Neil Gaiman tour: it's the Unchained tour, and I'm just one of the storytellers, and that is the way I like it and was the reason I agreed to come out.

The tour has pretty much sold out without me saying anything. Right now there are only two venues with any real tickets left for sale (Charlotte SC and Charleston NC) and a couple of venues with a handful of tickets left.

http://theunchainedtour.org/events-calendar/ is the website with the venues on it.

(It may say Over 18 Only on the website, but they are fine with under 18s turning up - they just wanted to make it clear that this wasn't an event for kids.)

I am typing this as we chug down the freeway from Columbia to Spartanburg. I'm happy: there are nice people around, and a table in the bus I can type at. I have lots of things to write, and it's always good to write with people around you, all of them working on their own projects, or reading, or talking. There's a No Internet on The Bus rule too, which I may break in a moment, and put this up. Or I may enjoy the No Internet rule, and wait until we get to where we are going, and find a coffee-shop instead.

There is no air-conditioning. Instead we are driving through a hot day with the windows of the bus rolled down, and we are cool, and there is a breeze, and tonight we will sit in a room in Spartanburg (“It's called Sparkle City,” said someone this morning, "and Hub City".) and we will tell true stories about our lives, of our childhoods or our longings and desires, our fears, and there will be music, and we will feel human.

Someone came back to the Green Room last night after the show and handed me some comics he had written. “These are for you,” he said. “Because stories... I guess, stories are the nearest thing I have to a religion.”

“Me too,” I said. “Me too.”

If you are in the area, come on down to the shows, if they are not already sold out. Last night's was very sold out. Someone Twittered this photograph of a sign at the front of the line to get in. 

I promise you nothing except stories.

(This is me not working yet while Jose, who is driving the bus, does something that makes the bus go.)

Labels: Storytelling, The Moth, Unchained Bus Tour