Do I Actually Have or Need Diplomatic Immunity?

I'm typing this on a plane to Australia where I will hunker down and go back to being a man writing a novel, and life will turn into a long-running battle between man and blank page, between man and what happens next, between man and the people in his book who have other ideas about what they ought to be doing now.

I had a fascinating time on the road, though. I was never not exhausted: Initially I knew that all I had to do was keep going until the second weekend, and then by the time I got to that weekend plans had changed and now I was in Iceland for 36 hours, filming a mini-documentary extra for American Gods. It was wonderful: I love Iceland. But I was tired, and didn't really get to see much Iceland.

(My favourite moment was one where the director asked if I would mind being filmed in an alleyway reading American Gods. I suggested we wander into a bookshop instead, if they didn't mind, and have me look at books in there. So I did, and took the opportunity to sign as many books as I could, in the time we had, racing before the last of the February light went.)

Iceland really is beautiful. And if it wasn't for Iceland, there wouldn't be an American Gods...

I had some really fun times. The BBC radio interviews were all so different and all so much fun. My Royal Festival Hall event was a delight to do, and that lunchtime I showed up as Children's Laureate Chris Riddell's secret guest on the same stage, and I got to meet Posy Simmonds and turned immediately into a starstruck teen.

Chris stayed and drew while I spoke and was interviewed that night:

\

...

Now I'm in Melbourne, Australia and it's two days later and I'm not really sure where the last 48 hours went. I caught up on my sleep (Amanda and Ash are in Adelaide, where she's performing), started to clamber up the email mountain that was waiting for me, spent time with a sick friend, and, today, actually started to write some more of the novel.

Norse Mythology came out on February the 7th and went straight in at Number One on the US, UK and Canadian bestseller lists; in its second week it dropped to Number Two in the US, and has somehow stayed at #1 in the UK and Canada, despite a lot of bookshops running out of copies. The phenomenon of it becoming an incendiary sell-out hit has left me delighted and a bit baffled -- my books always sell, but they usually sell sanely and normally and I'm a bestselling author because they keep on selling in healthy numbers for ever.  It's not usual to see people online talking about visiting five bookshops and getting the last copy (or failing to find any) in whatever town or city they are in. People (friends, family, journalists, even Amanda) tell me that I and the publishers and the bookshops must have expected this sort of response, and I reply that if we'd expected this level of enthusiasm and sales, the publishers would have printed a lot more copies to begin with and the booksellers would all have ordered a lot more copies, and for that matter I wouldn't have taken over four years to write the book...

But then, I think it may be that this book happens to be ridiculously popular partly because it is now and this is the right time for it to have been published.

There have been lots of terrific articles about the book and a slew of amazing reviews.  I really enjoyed this article in the Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/02/the-politics-of-retelling-norse-mythology/517422/ and this blog review, which I felt articulately explains what I was trying to do, https://andrewfindlaywrites.wordpress.com/2017/02/11/gaiman-norse-mythology/.

I liked this James Lovegrove review from the Financial Times: https://www.ft.com/content/42fad176-ec96-11e6-ba01-119a44939bb6

Sarah Lyall interviewed me and came to the New York event for the New York Times:  https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/12/books/neil-gaiman-norse-mythology.html

Here's me talking to the New York Times Book Review Podcast: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/17/books/review/neil-gaimans-myths.html

Michael Dirda starts  his review of Norse Mythology in a way that sent my stomach lurching, and the review itself was something of a roller-coaster ride (but the kind you are glad you have taken):

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/neil-gaimans-suspenseful-and-surprising-norse-mythology/2017/02/13/986c0ffe-eef2-11e6-9973-c5efb7ccfb0d_story.html?utm_term=.5b6e58d98428

And I'm now realising that if I keep linking to reviews, interviews and such on either side of the Atlantic this blog will never end...

So here is the cover of a recent Australian Sunday supplement: do not let its 1977 cover date fool you.

....

On public events: If you go and look at Where's Neil  you will see the public appearances I'm doing this year.  Of the events in Spring, Seattle is sold out and so is Santa Rosa and Boston, Costa Mesa is almost sold out,  Mesa AZ is going fast, and there are... still lots and lots of tickets in San Diego.

I don't know why this is. However, if you fancy coming to see me talk and read and answer questions and such, and you can't get in to any of the other evenings, San Diego is a two hour train ride from LA and they even have wifi on the train,  andit's less than three hour's flying time from Seattle. And right now, there are seats. ("San Diego. It's not just for ComicCon.")

I have news on the only New York area event, too: it's on April 15th, at Bard College, where I am a professor. It's going to be all about American Gods, and I'm going to be interviewed by my special guest, American Gods' Executive Producer and co-showrunner Bryan Fuller. We are hoping to show you things on the big screen that night, too. After all, it will only be two weeks before the first episode of American Gods goes out.

It's free to the Bard community, $25 a ticket for the rest of the world. Info here: http://fishercenter.bard.edu/calendar/event.php?eid=132108

...

Which reminds me:


AMERICAN GODS now has a broadcast date: the first episode of the first season will be broadcast on Starz on April 30th in the US, and be watchable digitally too, via Starz on Amazon Prime.

Outside of the US, you can watch American Gods on Amazon Prime Video, from May 1st.

...

And my biggest news of all, even bigger and more exciting than a Number One International Bestseller, or a glorious TV series adapted from my novel launching, is this:

I've been appointed a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for Refugees. I even have a certificate. (It is blue and the same size as a passport.) I'm not sure what this means in real terms: I'm going to keep doing the work I've been doing since 2013 to draw attention to refugees, to raise awareness and knowledge, and to help them.

I was disappointed to learn I won't get diplomatic immunity from parking tickets*.

Here's the Facebook Live interview announcement, in which I am interviewed by Jonathan Ross and answer questions from the people watching. The interview begins about 4 minutes and 30 seconds in.

https://www.facebook.com/UNHCR/videos/10156047439338438/





*Joke. Weak joke.  UN Goodwill Ambassadors pay their own parking tickets, air tickets, hotel bills etc.

Labels: ABBA, American Gods, chris Riddell, Iceland, New York Times Bestseller, Norse Mythology, Refugees, the mysteries of San Diego

Reading George Reynolds on the plane

A small thought on reading George W M Reynolds’ Wagner the Wehr-Wolf on a plane.

It was obvious, just as it was open to no doubt, no kind of doubt at all, oh reader, that the person, the fine, good hearted gentleman who had written this story, a man with the frosty hair of too many winters yet still with the apple-cheeked demeanour of a lad of no more than thirteen summers,  a lad ready to clamber out on a spring morning his pockets filled with marbles, aye and perchance even stuffed with several of the miniature animals that comprise a Noah’s Ark as well: this individual of whom I speak, this person and this noble, fusty elderly and yet young person alone, was, there was no arguing with it or saying that it was not happening, for it was, it was and none could deny it with an honest heart and a clear conscience: this man and no other, I tell you, was being paid, recompensed and otherwise compensated by the word.

Labels: George W M Reynolds, Wagner the Wehr-Wolf, writing

The Longest Day

I'm on a plane to LA, where I change planes and fly to New York. My alarm went off in Hobart, Tasmania at 4 am this morning, the 8th of February. (I was at the MONA Museum, where Amanda will be playing a gig. There may be nicer places to stay than the pavilions at the MONA Museum, and better places to eat than the Source restaurant at MONA, and there may even be finer museum-gallery-James-Bond-Villain-Lairs than MONA, but I have not yet encountered them.) I will land in New York at 6pmish on the 8th of February, about 30 hours after I set off.

Yesterday, although it may still be today as I type this, was or is publication day for Norse Mythology. It seems to have gone straight to #1 on the Amazon book charts (it's www.bit.ly/NorseMythology) which has taken me rather by surprise. Not that I'm grumbling, mind. I just wish I was enjoying it with loved ones and friends instead of sitting on a plane in the dark.

I went with the family and with some of the Bookend Trust folk to the Bonorong Animal Sactuary in Tasmania. Go, if you are there. They take in injured birds and animals and rehabilitate them, then, if they can, they return them to the wild.  We fed an echidna and tawny frogmouths and sugar gliders and a wombat and many, many kangaroos...

Some articles about me and Norse Mythology out there.  Lovely Guardian article, even if the title is clickbait (and many of the commenters seem to have fallen for it) https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/feb/04/neil-gaiman-interview-books
A really personal sort of an interview with the Big Issue at http://www.bigissue.com/features/letter-to-my-younger-self/7316/neil-gaiman-interview-stephen-king-gave-me-the-best-piece-of

Here's a Tor.com review... http://www.tor.com/2017/02/07/book-reviews-neil-gaiman-norse-mythology/

And the plane internet is getting dodgy, so I'm going to post this, and try and get a nap. It's a long day.

Thank you, to everyone who bought Norse Mythology. Thank you to everyone who enjoyed it and told other people about it... Thank you!

Labels: Bonorong, kangaroo feeding photo, Mona, Norse Mythology

California! Arizona! Seattle! Bard! Spend an Evening With Me.

I took 2016 off from all public engagements, in order to get a novel written.

I did a lot of things last year. I finished writing the Norse Mythology book (it comes out in February). I finished writing the six hour long Good Omens television series (the BBC will be making it this year).  I did a lot of baby-raising.  I endured a hurricane and a bad haircut. And I got the new novel started...

But I didn't get it finished.

So this year, I'll be madly writing a novel AND doing the public appearances and such I didn't do last year.

There's a West Coast tour in March/April, that starts in San Diego and finishes in Seattle, and goes to Costa Mesa (which is secretly Los Angeles) and Santa Rosa (north of the Bay Area).

I'll be at Bard College on the 15th of April, talking about American Gods and the American Gods TV series (and if possible, we'll be screening an episode or two).

In July I'll be in Texas (Austin, Dallas and Houston) and in Hartford CT.

There's another talk in a Library that isn't on here, but basically, that's about it.  (I'm not listing the New York or London Norse Mythology events in February as they are both sold out -- although there are still a few tickets on sale for Town Hall members.)

The brown links will take you to relevant place on the Where's Neil page.

29 Mar 2017

San Diego, CA

An Evening with Neil Gaiman

30 Mar 2017

Costa Mesa, CA (LA)

An Evening with Neil Gaiman

31 Mar 2017

Santa Rosa, CA

An Evening with Neil Gaiman

01 Apr 2017

Mesa, AZ

An Evening with Neil Gaiman

02 Apr 2017

Seattle, WA

An Evening with Neil Gaiman

15 Apr 2017

BARD COLLEGE: Annandale-on-Hudson, New York

Neil Gaiman and American Gods

06 Jul 2017

Austin, TX

Long Center Presents Neil Gaiman

07 Jul 2017

Dallas, TX

An Evening with Neil Gaiman

08 Jul 2017

Houston, TX

Society for the Performing Arts presents Neil Gaiman

10 Jul 2017

Hartford, CT 

An Evening with Neil Gaiman

Some of the events have plenty of tickets left, some are almost sold out. You probably need to move fast if you want to get a ticket for Seattle. (Mostly the ones with lots of tickets left have only just gone onsale.) The "Evening With..." is me talking, and reading things published and things new, and answering questions.

Dallas is not yet available singly -- but you can get tickets if you wanted to see me and two other events. And they have Neil deGrasse Tyson and they have Fran Lebowitz and Garrison Keillor there for you to choose from, giving rise to one of my favourite Headlines of last year:

Neil deGrasse Tyson, Neil Gaiman, Two People Not Named Neil to Speak in Dallas

(Up there with the New York Times's iconic headline "Neil Armstrong and Someone Not Named Neil Walk on the Moon"*)

*I understand they might have changed it in later editions.

...

I'm getting better. Fever is very over. Bronchitis is a pain in the chest but it is on the mend. Ash got very sick after I did, but now he's through the fever bit and is perking up, which bodes well for everyone getting a bit more sleep: his nose is running like a tap, though, which means that sometimes without even trying he blows snot-bubbles half the size of his head.

We're in Melbourne.  Amanda's going to be doing a residency here, while she also tours Australia. I am writing my novel, using as my office the same tiny flat that Amanda began to work on The Art of Asking. (I've read it reported online that we've moved to Australia now, but we haven't. We're here for a couple of months. We just have a different kind of visa. But 'they have a different kind of visa' isn't really newsworthy.)

And it was our sixth wedding anniversary. This is a photo of Amanda and Ash I took a week ago, on Hermosa Beach, when we got stranded for 24 hours in LA by a late plane. I am a lucky man to have so much love in my life.

Labels: An evening with Neil Gaiman, Neil Armstrong, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Touring, writing novels

Another Year

We landed in Brisbane 24 hours late, because a set of plane delays had made us miss the flight we were meant to be on, and I started fading away during the drive out here. (I wasn't driving. I was entertaining Ash, mostly.) By the time we got to the house I was gone. I need to sleep, I thought, and isn't it odd that in such a hot part of Australia in high summer it is so cold that I'm shivering...

And then I was mostly asleep for 3 days, with a fever caused by something that was probably a really nasty flu. Then it became a chest infection. During the short waking periods I would read volume 3 of Henry Mayhew's LONDON LABOUR AND THE LONDON POOR.

Three days of fever dreams filled with Guy Fawkes Men and Penny Mousetrap makers was entertaining, but it wasn't getting better. So yesterday evening, I went in to the Woodford Festival to see the doctor there. By luck, I caught the song Amanda dedicated to me, then went home, took the medicine, slept, woke up, thought I really need to write a blog for the New Year, and went straight back to sleep...

Which is why I'm writing a New Year's wish on New Year's Day. Although it's New Year's Eve still in the US (and in the UK as I type this, but it will already be next year there by the time I post it).

It's been a strange, hard year for so many of us. I find myself thinking of the old Jack Benny radio shows. Particularly during World War Two they'd do a new year's sketch, where the old year (played by Jack, with an old man voice) would give advice to the new year (played by a child). They weren't funny: they were a mixture of hope and sentiment, optimism, realism and resilience.

We are going to need all of these things in 2017.

For this year, the words are Leonard Cohen's, someone that 2016 took from us.

Seventeen Years ago, I wrote:

May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.

And almost a decade ago I said,

...I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you'll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you'll make something that didn't exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind.

Half a decade ago, I wrote:

And for this year, my wish for each of us is small and very simple.

And it's this.

I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something.

So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you're scared of doing, Do it.

Make your mistakes, next year and forever.

From 2012, terrified but trying to be brave, from backstage at a concert:

It's a New Year and with it comes a fresh opportunity to shape our world. 

So this is my wish, a wish for me as much as it is a wish for you: in the world to come, let us be brave – let us walk into the dark without fear, and step into the unknown with smiles on our faces, even if we're faking them. 

And whatever happens to us, whatever we make, whatever we learn, let us take joy in it. We can find joy in the world if it's joy we're looking for, we can take joy in the act of creation. 

So that is my wish for you, and for me. Bravery and joy.

This is from two years ago:

Be kind to yourself in the year ahead. 

Remember to forgive yourself, and to forgive others. It's too easy to be outraged these days, so much harder to change things, to reach out, to understand.

Try to make your time matter: minutes and hours and days and weeks can blow away like dead leaves, with nothing to show but time you spent not quite ever doing things, or time you spent waiting to begin.

Meet new people and talk to them. Make new things and show them to people who might enjoy them. 

Hug too much. Smile too much. And, when you can, love.

.......



And, because Death took so much in 2016, I'll give her the final word. (It's from the 911 short story "The Wheel" with art by Chris Bachalo.)

Labels: Happy New Year

Watch DEMOCRACY melting in water colours

We were in Toronto on November the 11th, the day after we heard Leonard Cohen died, and four days after the election. I was there as tour nanny, but Amanda asked if I would do something on her stage. I loved the spoken word version of Democracy Leonard Cohen had recorded, and so I went to YouTube, worked out what lines from the song he had dropped for the poem, and what he had moved, and read it on the stage. 

And then I did it again in Chicago and Minneapolis. 

We recorded it, me taking time from the recording of the audiobook of How The Marquis Got His Coat Back to record it, and email it to her, Amanda recording her piano accompaniment up a mountain in a snowstorm, then Jherek Bischoff and a string section doing glorious quiet things to make it sing. We gave it to PEN America as a gift, to draw attention to their sterling work and to help raise funds for them. Then David Mack painted many paintings (there's one below this), and Olga Nunes animated them into a video.

It was all funded by Amanda’s Patreon, and I thank all 9000-odd people who support her and it.

It’s a very beautiful video. I could post the YouTube video here, but I’d rather you went and watched it at the PEN America page, at https://pen.org/donate-democracy. 

If you watch it, and it it moves you, reblog it. I hope people watch it. I hope they care.

You can buy the track too, at Bandcamp. All proceeds go to PEN America as well. https://amandapalmer.bandcamp.com/track/amanda-palmer-neil-gaiman-democracy-leonard-cohen

Labels: amanda palmer, Democracy, Former webelf makes good art, Jherek Bischoff, Leonard Cohen, Olga Nunes

A huge thank you

The Humble Bundle finished yesterday, at a little over $394,000, from almost 25,000 people. 

Some of that goes to Refugees. Some to the CBLDF. Some goes to the Publisher, which in this case is basically me, and all my share goes straight to the Gaiman Foundation (and my agent, who dealt with all the contracts, is passing on her share to the Gaiman Foundation too). Some of the artists of the work asked for their share to go to specific charities, most wanted it tossed into the general charity pot, and two are using their share of the money to pay rent and buy food.

The last time we did the Humble Bundle, 15 months ago, it raised $633,000. Which means that old and out of print books, comics, and things I was embarrassed to let out in public, have now raised over $1,000,000. I wish I could go back in time and tell the 23-year old me writing his Duran Duran book that it would be the best thing he could be doing with his time. 

Thank you to everybody who bought it. Thank you to everybody who helped, or who agreed to have their work go into the bundle, to Charles from the CBLDF and Cat from Neverwear who worked their bottoms off to assemble everything and make it work, and to the people at Humble Bundle for having a wonderful platform that does good.

You can donate directly to UNHCR through this link:

https://donate.unhcr.org/int-en/neil-gaiman/

Donate, or become a member of the CBLDF through this link:

http://cbldf.org/contribute/donate/

I'm going to be mostly offline for the next week, in places where there isn't a lot of internet. I hope I get a lot of writing done.

Happy holidays. Here's a link to a piece I wrote 8 years ago about being a small Jewish boy who wanted a Christmas tree. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/neil-gaiman-hanukkah-with-bells-on-1203307.html

Labels: CBLDF, Humble Bundle, UNHCR, whew

Where do you run?

I just woke from a dream in which my film agent (the redoubtable Jon Levin) was upset because a movie company had bought the rights to the 1972 Steptoe and Son movie and were convinced that by redubbing it to change the plot and adding special effects, they would have a science fiction blockbuster on their hands, and he was calling me in the hopes that I could persuade them that it was a bad idea. I'm not quite sure what I am trying to tell myself about Hollywood here.

I'm on my own for a few days to write, while Amanda and Ash are in Havana. Amanda will be doing a gig there, and Ash will be squeezing people's noses and continuing to learn how to walk. His hair is getting darker as my hair gets greyer.

Reading about what's happening in Aleppo is soul-numbing. I look at Ash and wonder what I'd do if the normal world I lived in became a war zone, how I'd cope, and the only thing I'm certain of is that I'd want to get him somewhere safe.

I supported refugees before Ash came along, but having him here makes it feel so real and immediate: I remember the people I saw entering the camps in Jordan who had carried their own babies and small children for hundreds of miles to get them to safety.

The Humble Bundle has four days left to go. You get over a thousand pages of ridiculously rare stuff by me, comics and books and more. There's new audio and video material, even posters for those who got it before (and you can gift a bundle to a friend or enemy for the holidays). The money goes to two charities -- to the CBLDF, and to refugees, and you can adjust the slider however you wish on who gets what. Please support it, and spread the word on social media.

https://www.humblebundle.com/books/neil-gaiman-book-bundle is the link.

And https://donate.unhcr.org/int-en/neil-gaiman/ is a direct page with a video from me in the camps, and ways to donate. Also, especially in these dark times, http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/.

...

I drove up the coast yesterday and listened to the BBC production of STARDUST. I think it's my favourite adaptation of any of my books or stories. It's broadcast in two parts, tomorrow and Sunday, and you can hear it over the internet anywhere in the world for a month after broadcast free, because the BBC is still a wonderful thing. There's a page of Stardust clips, art and other goodies for you here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07xs1fd

And one more Ash photo, taken by Amanda on a chilly beach a few days ago, because I miss him.

Labels: Ash, baby photo, Dreams, Hollywood, Humble Bundle, jon levin, UNHCR

Many Candles: The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe

 The Worldbuilders charity passed its stretch goal of a million dollars, so I lit a whole bunch of candles, put on a coat once worn by a dead brother in the Stardust movie, and I read Edgar Allan Poe's poem THE RAVEN by candlelight. You can donate to Worldbuilders at worldbuilders.org. And you should.



 (Thanks to Deanna Leblanc who filmed it, Augusta Ogden who helped light candles, and Phillip Marshall who held the baby.)



You can find out all about Worldbuilders, and the inspiring copy of STARDUST, and so many other things, at http://blog.patrickrothfuss.com/2016/12/ravens-and-recitations-the-kindness-of-neil-gaiman/

DO YOU WANT TO SAVE THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS WHILE DOING GOOD? ER, AND ALSO GET SOME INTERESTING THINGS TO READ AND LISTEN TO?

A little over a year ago I released my rarest, earliest, and hardest to find work -- books and comics --  through Humble Bundle to fund charities that do good work.  People were all so generous and enthusiastic that the Bundle broke several records. More importantly the people who donated to get the Bundle made it possible for the CBLDF and for the charities supported by the Gaiman Foundation, including the CBLDF, to help make things better for people. 

People asked if the books and comics in the Humble Bundle would be put up for sale afterwards. I said no. They were part of the Humble Bundle, and it had happened and it was done.

The world is a more dangerous place than it was 14 months ago. Refugees need help and support. Freedom of speech is under threat.

I've brought back the original Humble Bundle of Gaiman extreme and collectible rarities, and I have added some brand new bits, including audio stories.  The Bundle supports the UN Refugee Agency, the CBLDF, and the Gaiman Foundation (which then, in its turn, supports other good causes). Get the books and stories and such for yourself if you missed out the first time. Give them as gifts to friends. It will make a difference.

And if you are wondering what is in the Humble Bundle, here is the original post:

https://www.humblebundle.com/books/neil-gaiman-book-bundle

The thing about having a writing career that spans more than thirty years is that that you write things – books, comics, all sorts of things – that for one reason or another become rare. They go out of print. Often because you are embarrassed by them, or do not want to see them in print. Or because circumstances are against you. Or because something was only ever published in a limited edition.

I have a basement library filled with mysterious copies of things. Some I only have one copy of. One book, the hardback of my Duran Duran biography, I paid $800 for, about eight years ago, astonished that anyone would ask that much, but aware that I'd only ever seen one other copy. (I saw another one for sale last week for over $4000.)

Many years ago, I sued a publisher for non-payment of royalties, registering copyright in his own name on things I'd written, and various other things. And, because it felt right, I decided that any money I made from the case would go to charity. Long after the case was won, when the finances were eventually settled, I found myself with a large chunk of money.  I didn't want to give it all to one charity, and instead formed the Gaiman Foundation which has, for several years, been using that money to Do Good Things. The Gaiman Foundation has funded the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund's Education program, various Freedom of Speech initiatives, the Moth's High School program which teaches kids the power of telling their own stories, along with helping to fund good causes like the Lava Mae charity, which gives showers and cleaning facilities to the homeless around San Francisco.

Giving money away to good causes has been a fine thing to do, especially when the results were immediate and obvious.

The only downside is that the initial chunk of money from the lawsuit is almost used up. I've been putting money into it as well, but last year Holly Gaiman (who is not only my daughter and an ace hat maker, but is studying running non-profit organisations and has been invaluable on the professional side of things of the Foundation) pointed out to me that if the Gaiman Foundation was to continue, it would need me to put in a big chunk of money as an endowment. And I started thinking...

Some years ago I took part in one of the earliest book-based Humble Bundles, and was really impressed with how the Humble Bundle thing worked.  E-books (back then,  of out of print or unavailable work,) would be put up DRM free: some of them would be available to anyone who paid anything at all, some only for those who paid above the average, some available to anyone who paid more than a specific amount. Artists and writers got paid, and money also went to support good causes -- when you paid for your books, you could choose how much of the money going to charity went to which charity, how much goes to the creators, how much to Humble Bundle. 

Hmm. I had the beginning of an idea.

Charles Brownstein at the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is always willing to listen to my strange ideas. He liked this one.

This was the idea:

I'd put into the Humble Bundle all the rare things we could find. 

Books that were long out of print, stories and such that collectors would pay hundreds of dollars for, obscure and uncollected comics and pamphlets and magazine articles. Even the things I am still vaguely embarrassed by (like the Duran Duran biography, a hardcover copy of which, as I said, can set you back thousands of dollars these days, if you can find one). 

Books which have been out of print for 30 years, like GHASTLY BEYOND BELIEF, a collection of quotations from the strangest SF and Fantasy books and movies that Kim Newman and I made when we were 23 and 24 respectively. Things that were absolutely private and never before sold, like LOVE FISHIE, a book of poems and letters from my daughter Maddy (aged 8) to me, and from me back to Maddy, that was made into a book (with help from my assistant the Fabulous Lorraine) as a gift for my 42^nd birthday. 

Two long out-of-print books from Knockabout Comics: OUTRAGEOUS TALES FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT and SEVEN DEADLY SINS, with stories written and or drawn by me, Alan Moore, Hunt Emerson, Dave Gibbons, Dave McKean and a host of others. 

Rare out-of-print comics stories by me and Bryan Talbot, by me and Mark Buckingham, even by me and Bryan Talbot and Mark Buckingham.

There would be small-press short story and suchlike collections like ANGELS AND VISITATIONS and the LITTLE GOLD BOOK OF GHASTLY STUFF containing stories that went on to win awards and be collected in the more big, official collections (Smoke and Mirrors, etc), and stories no-one has seen since, not to mention non-fiction articles, like the one about the effects of alcohol on a writer, or the one where I stayed out for 24 hours on the streets of Soho, that are now only whispered in rumours.

There would even be a short story of mine, “Manuscript Found in a Milk Bottle”, published in 1985, that is so bad I've never let it be reprinted. Not even to give young writers hope that if I was that awful once, there is hope for all of them.

Charles from the CBLDF liked the idea.

It was a good thing Charles liked the idea. He had to do so much of the work, coordinating, finding, talking to people, getting contracts with artists and publishers and everyone signed, all that. Which he did, cheerfully and helpfully and uncomplainingly.

The Humble Bundle people liked the idea too.

Humble Bundle money is divided between the creators and the charities, with the person buying the Humble Bundle deciding how the percentage that goes to the charities is divided.

I'm giving my entire portion of Humble Bundle creator-money directly back to the Gaiman Foundation. (My agent Merrilee has donated her fee, too, so 100% of what comes in to me goes to the Foundation.)

There are, obviously, other authors and artists and publishers involved. Some have asked for their money to go to charities, and some are, perfectly sensibly, paying the rent and buying food with it.

(Originally, we'd hoped to split the charity money between the CBLDF and the Gaiman Foundation as well, but in the very last couple of days of putting things together we discovered that was impractical, so we made the other charity the Moth's Educational Program instead: it's the Moth storytelling in High Schools, it's done some really good things, and I'm proud to be helping it.)

Normally Humble Bundle likes to explain that you are paying what you like for perhaps $100 worth of games or books or comics. It's hard to price this stuff – buying Duran Duran and Ghastly Beyond Belief together could set you back thousands of dollars. Here, you'll get some ebooks if you pay what you like, more ebooks if you pay over the average, and some choice plums (like Duran Duran, and “Manuscript Found in a Milk Bottle”) if you pay over $15. 

There's a total of about 1,300 pages of DRM-free ebooks and comics, fiction and non fiction. There's even a Babylon 5 Script I wrote.

These books and comics and suchlike are going to be available during the two week on-sale life of the Humble Bundle. After that, they are going away again. This really is your chance to read them.

Click on the link: https://www.humblebundle.com/books. It will take you somewhere that will look a bit like this, where many pages of ebooks will be waiting for you:

And remember, it's pay what you want. (If you want to pay the thousands of dollars it would have cost you to buy all this stuff as collectibles, you can do that too. I'll be grateful, and so will the various charities, not to mention the artists, other writers and so on.)

Thank you to Charles Brownstein; to Mary Edgeberg, Holly Gaiman, Cat Mihos, and Christine DiCrocco, on my team; thank you to my agent Merrilee Heifetz; to everyone who drew or wrote or published or in other way gave us permission to put things up; to Mike Maher and the team at Scribe for mastering the eBooks;  and above all thank you to everyone at Humble Bundle for relentlessly doing good for wonderful causes.

I hope you enjoy all 1,289 rare and collectible pages. Even “Manuscript Found In a Milk Bottle”.

https://www.humblebundle.com/books

Labels: CBLDF, Humble Bundle, Refugees