Free stories from THIS IS HOW YOU DIE!

Today’s the day! Our book This Is How You Die is officially released. Some people on Twitter are reporting having received their pre-ordered copies already!

(The above tweet is in reference to my guest appearance on the podcast Jordan, Jesse, GO this week!)

We’re also super excited that The A.V. Club gave the book a solid A grade:

…But what is consistently surprising about This Is How You Die: Stories Of The Inscrutable, Infallible, Inescapable Machine Of Death is the range and quality of the stories. Machine Of Death was smart and sophisticated. The stories often had twist endings, but they tended to be O. Henry-style twists, based in well-realized characters and the inevitability of fate, rather than cheap reversals or shock-driven rug-pulls. The sequel keeps the insight and the commitment to solid storytelling, but broadens the scope considerably. The editors challenged contributors to take the central concept in bold new directions, and the result is a much wilder collection that stretches around the globe, spans a range of genres, and experiments with the short-story form.

The review goes on to point out delightful things about several of the stories individually. It’s always funny…you work on something like this for a long time, with nothing but your own taste and judgment to guide you, and it’s so gratifying when people like it! Maybe this whole thing makes sense after all.

OKAY so you ALREADY KNOW you can buy the book on Amazon or your favorite bookstore. BUT WHAT CAN YOU READ FOR FREE? Here’s all the chunks of the book you can read without paying a single dime:

Here are EIGHT OF THE STORIES as a free PDF. Ninety pages! That’s a pretty healthy chunk.

The publisher’s website also has a preview featuring FOUR FREE STORIES. Two of these are also in the PDF above; two aren’t.

Lightspeed Magazine has Ryan North’s story “Cancer” on their site, in both text and audio. It’s a lovely, heartfelt story, and really funny too. There’s an interview with Ryan as well!

• The publisher also has a short preview of the audiobook here — not an entire story, but still a fun excerpt to listen to. I’m trying to get them to send me one of the full stories, so I can post it on our MOD podcast.

And I assume at some point Amazon will enable the “Look Inside the Book” feature as well.

Hopefully this gives you a pretty good sense of whether the whole book is something you might like! OR, just read these, and enjoy them!

IF YOU’VE ALREADY ORDERED THE BOOK: thank you so much! Send me a picture on Twitter when you get your copy!!

BONUS LINK: Contributing author ’Nathan Burgoine has been reading and reviewing the stories in the book one by one, if you’d like to read even more about the different pieces that make up the collection!

BONUS LINK 2: here are a bunch of puppies looking adorable and confused

MACHINE OF DEATH 2 — Video! Pre-order! Reddit AMA!

We are in EXTREME COUNTDOWN MODE for the Machine of Death sequel, This Is How You Die! Here are some IMPORTANT BULLET POINTS:

• We’ve made a super-cool video to introduce the MOD concept to people! My friend Michael Mohan directed it. WARNING: it features violence and attractive people in swimwear so DON’T WATCH IT if you don’t like that stuff.

FRIDAY, JULY 12 – 9:30 AM Pacific / 12:30 PM Eastern – I’ll be doing a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) interview along with Machine of Death co-editors Ryan North and Matt Bennardo, as well as many of the contributors to MOD Volume 1! We’ll be joining authors Cherie Priest and Robert Charles Wilson as we discuss the newest Humble eBook Bundle, which features the first Machine of Death book!

If you’re not familiar, the Humble Bundle allows you to name your own price for a whole bundle of top-shelf ebooks (by Neil Gaiman! Cory Doctorow! Wil Wheaton! Randall Munroe!) and support great charities at the same time. If you haven’t read the first MOD, this is one great way to get it, in whatever ebook format you choose, for a price that you choose.

Once it’s live, the AMA will be linked from this page.

• Regarding This Is How You Die. Matt, Ryan and I have worked super hard to make it the best book we can. It’s filled with great illustrations and comics by tons of cool artists whom you probably know (Aaron Diaz, Meredith Gran, Trudy Cooper, Ramón Pérez, Graham Annable, KC Green, Kris Straub, Ryan Pequin, Anthony Clark, THE LIST GOES ON). And the stories are our very favorites from the nearly 2,000 submissions we received from writers around the world. It’s a book we couldn’t be more proud and excited to share with you.

Last time, as you may recall, you helped us drive the first Machine of Death book all the way to #1 on Amazon. It was an amazing success that opened a lot of doors for us — including paving the way to make this book possible, which we love just as much as the first one (and which is a little longer, even!) We’re so grateful to everyone who’s shown support for MOD over the past few years, and we wanted to make sure we made exactly the book you’d want to read.

But how do you top being #1 on Amazon?
Only one answer:

We want to make this book a New York Times bestseller.

We want to make every single one of the contributors to this book into a New York Times bestselling author. To have any shot at it, we need to rack up as many orders as possible between now and July 20, which is the end of our first week of release.

The book is available for pre-order nowyou can get it from Amazon, or your favorite retailer. We think we have the best shot at the print-format list, but if you’d prefer an ebook, it’s available from all the regular ebook vendors too.

Or, if you’ll be at the San Diego Comic-Con, you can pick it up from us in person — Ryan and I will be at TopatoCo booth #1229 (and we’ll be doing a formal signing on Friday morning, 11:00 AM. Also, every other time).

We’ve set up a page with the video, the book links, and even a FREE PREVIEW of EIGHT FULL STORIES from the book, in case you need to try a little taste first. All that info is at:

ThisIsHowYouDie.com

That’s the link to pass around to share the video, the ordering info, and the preview chapters. If you have other ideas about how we can spread the word, please leave a comment on this post! I’m keen to hear your thoughts!

JULY 20. We have EIGHT DAYS. You are going to hear about this from me a LOT.

Here’s the table of contents in case you’re curious! (click for bigger)

Thanks so much for your support! I wouldn’t be this loud if I didn’t really, truly believe that this book is worth your while. Five hundred pages of stories for about twelve bucks!!

Video: Just DO stuff.

Our Kickstarter is over! We ended up doing pretty okay. Thanks to all who participated! Here is a video I recorded yesterday as a sort of wrap-up and reflection. I talk about taking risks and putting things out there in the world, and I hope it inspires you a little. Mike, my friend operating the camera, called it my “TED Talk.” It’s not a subject I’ve never talked about before, but I think it bears repeating once in a while. I have to remind myself, periodically.

Also I was interviewed by Matthew Lesko, the guy from the infomercials who wears a suit covered in question marks. So I decided, for the interview, to wear a suit covered in exclamation points.

If you missed the Kickstarter, we have a PayPal-powered pre-order page for the game up now! I’ve already started receiving some of the special webcomics-artist bonus cards and they’re great. So excited to get this thing out there!!

LOS ANGELES READERS: I have an improv show tonight (Friday) at M.i.’s Westside Comedy Theater in Santa Monica! 7 PM!

Machine of Death game videos – LAST DAY!

It’s the LAST DAY for the Machine of Death card game Kickstarter! I am completely overwhelmed by the support. Thank you so much to everyone who’s pledged! We’ve been able to unlock a super-ton of bonus content thanks to you, and that’s stuff that’s going to everyone who gets in on the campaign before it ends later today.

Here is a video of me and Kris playing the game in 2-PLAYER CO-OP MODE. I think it shows how the game acts as a fun vehicle for jokes and conversation and the creation of absurd scenarios.

Kris and I have created a number of Wondermark- and Broodhollow-themed bonus cards that will go free to all backers during the Kickstarter! Some samples:

If you haven’t been reading Kris’s new comic Broodhollow, you gotta. It’s super-great. Start at the beginning.

BONUS VIDEO: Here is a BEHIND THE SCENES PLANNING SESSION recorded just over a month ago, right before Kris and I launched the campaign! It features…JOKES

Machine of Death game – Deluxe Box prototype

Here’s the first prototype I’ve received for the Machine of Death card game Deluxe Box! The Deluxe Boxes will be laser-cut and hand-assembled by Jason Lioi of Dapper Devil, and each individual box is laser-numbered. A unique number is cut into every box with a laser.

Because of the labor involved, these boxes will only be available during the Kickstarter! They’re really nice, too.

I think at this point it’s fair to say that I am beyond flabbergasted with how well the Kickstarter has done. We’ve raised over $385,000 — with a few days left to go still. It’s an amazing vote of confidence in the game, which is tremendously flattering, but I think it’s also because we’re trying to add a ton of value as well.

In our recent updates we have so far released eight free preview stories from the upcoming Machine of Death sequel This is How You Die, and we’ve also now unlocked twenty-two bonus mini-sets of cards by webcomics greats. Here’s a video where you can see some of who’s involved:

All the bonus webcomics artist cards come FREE when you pledge to the game during the Kickstarter. And if you already have, hooray! More great stuff for you!

I’m so excited about this game, folks. With all the dozens of stretch goals that we have so far unlocked, it’s MAYBE become the most complicated thing I have ever attempted. BUT THAT IS OKAY because if I am anything, it is UP FOR THE CHALLENGE. Handing me a pile of money and saying “Make this thing as AWESOME AS YOU CAN” is basically the best job ever, and I’m so pleased to find that so far it seems like seven thousand other people agree!!

THE KICKSTARTER ENDS ON TUESDAY