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

Banned Books and Ig Nobels

It's BANNED BOOKS WEEK!

Would you like a graphic novel reading list? The Huffington Post gives you a slideshow of the ten most challenged graphic novels...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/american-library-association/banned-books-2010-graphic-novels_b_740726.html#s145730

The list will probably surprise you.

...

Tonight I found myself on the stage of the Ig Nobel Awards, sitting in a row of seven seats, each of which had NOBEL LAUREATE on a piece of paper except for the one that said NEIL GAIMAN, and that made me feel both pleased and (in a very good, almost reassuring way) insignificant.

The Ig Nobels are funny and glorious and exist on the intersection of science and silliness.

I gave a speech -- a 24 second speech, followed by a seven word summary -- on Writer Identification. The theme of the evening was Bacteria. I'll post a link to the video of the evening when it goes up, and you can see what I said. (And how fast I said it.)

...

Right. Bed now. (Oh. If you're in New York on Saturday, Lemony Snicket wants to buy you a free ice cream: http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-book-news/article/44661-three-words-free-ice-cream.html)

Labels: banned books week, ice cream, Ig Nobels

It's been One Year...

About eighteen months ago, at a party held by ex-HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman, in LA, on the Fox Lot, a nice lady named Riley Ellis came over to me, introduced herself, and explained that she had read an advance copy of The Graveyard Book and that in her educated opinion it would be at least 53 Weeks in the New York Times bestseller list. I took this, at the time, as amiable Hollywood Hyperbole indicating that she had liked it. While I'd had books on the bestseller lists -- I'd even had Number Ones -- nothing ever lasted more than 6 weeks. The books went onto the list, drifted off, then carried on quietly selling forever.

Then The Graveyard Book came out. It went onto the New York Times children's bestseller list. The children's list is only ten places long. Weeks went by. It stayed there. When it started to drift down, it won the Newbery Medal, and drifted up again. And then, in defiance of all reason, it stayed there.

I told Elise Howard, my editor at Harper Collins, that if they could keep it at #1 for four weeks, I would buy everyone at HarperChildren's cupcakes. They did. I did. (Actually, my agent, the amazing Merrilee Heifetz, paid at least 10% of the cost of the cupcakes, and did much more than 10% of the organising to make them happen.)

Somewhere in the cupcake madness Elise promised me that if The Graveyard Book managed to stay on the list for a year, she would bake me a pie. It seemed unlikely, but then...

...people kept buying it. Last week was week 51. And we had drifted down, a place here, a place there, to our lowest position on the chart. We were at number ten. Below that, you aren't on the charts any more.

And suddenly, it became very important. Firstly, 52 consecutive weeks is a lot more than 51 weeks, and secondly, PIE. Elise was going to bake one. (I am sure there are many people who edit books and also casually produce pies. Elise, for all I know, may be one of these people. I do not believe she is. I liked to think that she was someone who, if The Graveyard Book stayed on the NYT Bestseller List for a year, would need to brush up on her pie-making skills, to navigate the unfamiliar twin territories of piecrust and filling. It would be an adventure.)

I sent out a thing on Twitter, suggesting that if there was anyone who'd been putting off buying a copy of The Graveyard Book, this would be a Very Good Week to do it.

And then it was today. Wednesday, when the previews of the Times list creep out to advanced subscribers. And the whole house was on tenterhooks. I was on tenterhooks, as sat and I signed sheets of paper for the Neverwhere Limited Edition. My assistant Lorraine? Tenterhooks. Her friend Betsy, Woodsman Hans (who dug out a giant pond while I was away)? Tenterhooks all the way. The only one not on tenterhooks was Cabal, my big white dog, now back in his People Shooting Season orange cape, who couldn't figure out why we weren't taking him for a walk, and was getting frustrated with the foolishness of people.

The phone rang. Lorraine said, "It's for you."

I took the phone. "Hello," said Elise Howard, happily. "What kind of pie would you like? I was thinking rhubarb..."

The Graveyard Book had crept up to #8. (And Odd and the Frost Giants had gone onto the list at #5.)

So we did our year, and I wrote an email to Riley Ellis saying You Were Right, and she wrote back to point out, very sweetly, that she'd said 53 weeks actually.

So now Merrilee and I are plotting ways to send pie to HarperChildrens (my initial plan of finding a bakery in New York that would enthusiastically make an amazing pie big enough to feed 125 people seems to have been sunk by real life) and once again she will pay about 10% of the price of the pie and she and her assistant Jennifer will do 98% of the organising.

A year ago I was reading the first chapter of The Graveyard Book to a roomful of people in New York. I had just returned from China. I had a broken finger. My dad was still alive. Amanda and I were vague friends and project-buddies. I thought I'd written a good book, and hoped people would notice and like it, but none of the awards or recognition had happened. And now I'm planning my return to China in a few weeks, to wrap up the research for the China book. I'm writing again, and enjoying writing again...

...

Banned Books Week continues.

Several people wrote in telling me that I had it wrong in yesterday's post and that there aren't bookshops in every little American Town where kids can buy books that have been removed from their school libraries.

Actually, I knew this already.

The last time I posted here about the lack of sarcasm marks in punctuation, people wrote in to tell me that there are Ethiopian languages that actually have a written sarcasm mark, intended to show the world that the person writing means the opposite of what he says. So if anyone is translating this blog into Ethiopian, you'll need to put sarcasm marks around that bit of yesterday's post.

Ah well. To make up for it, here is a link to a sane and civil (and sarcasm-free) letter from a librarian to a concerned parent, explaining why he does not plan to remove a book from the library shelves: http://jaslarue.blogspot.com/2008/07/uncle-bobbys-wedding.html

Labels: banned books week, New York Times Bestseller, Pie mainly rhubarb but also enormous, What are tenterhooks anyway?

On banning books and escaping from the attic...

Another not-quite-back-on-top-of-things-yet day. Awake at 5.00am expecting to drift back to sleep, and I didn't. Ah well. Wandering around the house unshaven, in my oldest dressing gown, feeling vaguely scary, like a crazed uncle who has escaped from the attic.

Frost is predicted for tomorrow, so lots of frantic apple-picking and tomato-gathering is happening right now. But I am not doing it. I am wearing a ratty dressing gown and blogging.

Hi Neil,
I know you're a wonderfully self assured and present writer who may not need more Positive Thoughts, but what the heck, here's one.
I wanted to say in response to the "tired of hearing about Amanda" reader that I'm on the other side. Not that I want every post to contain Amanda, but I always smile when you do mention her and what fun you all have been having. You do the same when talking about Holly, or Maddy, or Mike, or Bees, and that's cool. Maybe people don't want to hear about them either, but whatever. :)
I think they're all great and I love to hear your stories. It makes us feel a little part of your life (for those of us who know you're a Real Life Person and not just an Award Winning Writer.) I will sometimes tell my husband, "Guess what Neil and Amanda did!" Or, "Maddy's going to meet the Jonas Brothers!" or "Amanda just auctioned off a date with Holly!" or "Mike works at GOOGLE!" (My husband is a computer programmer so he was very excited about that.)
Anyway, if that makes me weird, so be it, but the internet has a way of forming a community that we're all still figuring out, and is wonderful, and intertwined, and sometimes fantastically small. Just the way I like it.

Love and Laughter,
Mel

Oh. Good. That makes me happy. I don't think I like being an Award Winning Author very much -- it seems to carry with it an awful lot of respectability and such that I know I didn't sign up for, but I love being a Real Life Person, and delight in being Maddy and Holly and Mike's dad, or being the person who comes up with the plan to unite Zoe, the blind cat in the attic with Hermione, the deaf cat in the basement. (NB. This plan may not work.)

And the most interesting thing to me about this internet thing is that we all are sort of making it up as we go along.

Hey Neil,

Just wanted to let you know that I, personally, have no issue with you talking about Amanda. On the contrary, it let's me (and the other fans) know that you're happy. And that makes me happy to know it.

My question for you is, with Halloween coming up, do you have any favorite traditions? I'm trying to think of some good ways to celebrate the spookiest night of the year, so any ideas would be welcome!

By the way, congrats on staying on the bestsellers' list for so long! The Graveyard Book is amazing!

- Samantha

Hallowe'en traditions? Not really. For the last few years I've gone to my assistant Lorraine's house (she's been away) and scared children with a rather sweet looking rabbit that opens to reveal huge teeth and tongue... and a small bar of chocolate, sitting on the tongue.

And there are poems I like to read to Maddy on Hallowe'en.

(This year, however, I will be in Singapore on Hallowe'en. So I will read Maddy her poems when I get home.) (http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=135663652857)

Which reminds me. I'm in Cleveland talking and signing on Sunday and Toledo talking and signed bookplates on Monday.

...

It's Banned Books Week. There's a rather mad Wall Street Journal Editorial explaining how silly a Banned Book Week is (after all, if you're a kid and a book that somebody's parents didn't want any of you to read is removed from your school library, it's not really banned: you have the freedom to save up your pocket money and go out to the well-stocked bookshops you can somehow find in every American small town and buy a copy for yourself). The editorial doesn't quite go as far as claiming that libraries are UnAmerican, but it strongly implies that all librarians and people who work in libraries are, along with people who support the First Amendment -- unless they're trying, reasonably, like Good Americans, to stop other people's children from reading things they don't like. There's a cartoon of Good Americans being intimidated by a Scary Librarian too, for anyone who missed the point.

There's a ( from my perspective) sane reply to it over at the Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joan-e-bertin/banned-books-week-still-n_b_302248.html although I was more interested in the pie charts over at the ALA site, showing what books get challenged and who challenges them. http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/frequentlychallenged/challengesbytype/index.cfm

I've got a few letters from librarians over the last few months copying me on conversations about middle school libraries getting nervous about The Graveyard Book (the saddest bit of which was one worried middle school librarian explaining that she had no intention of reading it, but wanting to find out from other librarians if it was the kind of book that might get her into trouble) but on the whole my books seem to be relatively unbanned and unchallenged. I'm always aware that the next book I write might tip things over the edge. Or that some twerp might decide to challenge Coraline or The Graveyard Book, or Blueberry Girl...

...

According the the Guardian,

After winning a trio of major literary awards in the US, Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book has landed a nomination for the Booktrust teenage prize on a shortlist which is being described as the award's most subversive yet.

Hurrah for subversive award nominees.

The nominees are
Auslander by Paul Dowswell
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Ostrich Boys by Keith Gray
The Ant Colony by Jenny Valentine
The Vanishing of Katharina Linden by Helen Grant
The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness

Details and a photo at http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/sep/21/booksforchildrenandteenagers-awards-and-prizes
...

Jonathan Carroll on Twitter pointed me at the photos of Australian criminals at http://www.atimetoget.com/2009/07/early-sydney-mug-shots.html from which I wandered to http://blogs.hht.net.au/justice. Haunting photographs. Much more fun than mug shots at the Smoking Gun.

...
Right. I better post this and start signing sheets for the limited edition of Neverwhere that Harper Collins are bringing out this year. (And that reminds me: Subterranean Press are doing an edition of Smoke and Mirrors, illustrated by and designed by Dave McKean. It's not cheap, but it gets more expensive on Friday. (If you liked Dave's very sold-out Subterranean edition of The Graveyard Book, this will be like that, only more so, because all the illustrations are original.)
...

And finally, we have a Magical Hallowe'en Party Map. It's at
http://www.neilgaiman.com/p/Cool_Stuff/Graveyard_Book_Halloween_Parties. Five independent bookshops have listed their parties. I know -- from things booksellers have said to me -- that there are more to come. So, if you have a shop and a party planned, let the webgoblin know and he will make sure that your store is on the list.

Labels: banned books week, halloween traditions, neve, subterranean

typing clunky

I'm in Washington DC, and it's chilly and rainy. The weather forecast for Saturday is not quite as chilly but still rainy, which may affect the Book Festival. We'll see...

Before I flew out I had a wonderful lunch at It's Greek To Me with the winners (two from Mexico, two from the UK) of a Beowulf movie competition, which had flown them to Minneapolis. The English couple told me that enough time had passed since they entered the competition that they had assumed the email from an unfamiliar address that came in telling them they had won a trip to America was Spam. And then the visiting Miss Cat told us how she had entered a competition to win Johnny Cash's guitar, and won it... and then deleted every email that came in letting her know. There's a moral in there somewhere, probably.

Here's the Birdchick's account (and films) of yesterday's bee-harvest with added National Public Radio.

It's Banned Books Week. The 2007 Most challenged books list is up -- Toni Morrison is off the list, Philip Pullman is on (The Golden Compass, challenged for its "religious viewpoint")

The most frequently challenged authors of 2007,

1) Robert Cormier
2) Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson
3) Mark Twain
4) Toni Morrison
5) Philip Pullman
6) Kevin Henkes
7) Lois Lowry
8) Chris Crutcher
9) Lauren Myracle
10) Joann Sfar


And once again, I suspect that I'm not trying hard enough. I'm probably not even in the top thousand.

I'm glad the ALA keeps track. I'm glad they still fight to stop books being banned. And I'm deeply, happily proud of Mark Twain, who is still raising hackles and tweaking noses 99 years after his death.

(Here's the ALA Poster of me, a photo Maddy disliked so much when she saw it on the wall of her school recently that she photocopied a head from another photo of me, took it to school and carefully taped it over the head of this one, much to the puzzlement of her teacher.)

I'm typing as I did when I was a teenager -- practically two fingered, with just my forefinger on my right hand and random fingers on my left. It seems to work, although it's slightly slower than normal. (The alternative is typing more or less properly, but as soon as the middle finger on the right hand gets involved, either it hurts or, more usually, because it's in its little metal case, I hit more keys than I intended to.)

I've loved Chris Riddell's artwork since I randomly picked up a copy of the Edge Chronicles in Japan, so I was wondering if his version of the Graveyard Book cover will only be available in the U.K. or will I have to pay expensive international shipping if I want to obtain a copy?

For now, the only edition with Chris's artwork in is the Bloomsbury one, which is going to be available in the UK, and, along with the US version, is already creeping onto the shelves in an export edition in places like Singapore and the Philippines (which means I've been getting some surprised and delighted queries from people in those places).

Labels: banned books week, typing, you may have already won....