machine of death

Machine of Death limited hardcovers, talent show, and price drop!

Matt, Ryan and I — the editors of Machine of Death — want to be the kinds of people who do things for no other reason than we think they’re cool. I explain over on the Machine of Death blog:

The point is that, if you simply look at the stats, we have done far better by following whims than by executing carefully-planned strategies, for the simple reason that the strategies eat up time. Matt, Ryan and I love discussing ideas. And letting all the steam out of an idea by talking about it means it’s harder to ever do it. Energy that could be channeled into action sometimes gets channeled instead into hand-wringing.

So we decided to just do some stuff. We now have a little money to play around with — not very much (we funneled most of our immediate profits back into printing more books), but since we all have other jobs and none of our mortgages are riding on this project, we want to play around a little, to buy ourselves a little adventure. Here’s what we’ve done… (more)

• We made a bunch of cool death prediction cards that you can have.

• We have created and released a limited-edition Machine of Death hardcover, packaged in a collector’s set with an embroidered patch and a personalized Death Prediction certificate. Update: These are all gone, snatched up at once!

• We are putting on a talent show on April 26 that you can audition for and be a part of.

• We have temporarily lowered the prices on all of our ebooks — Kindle, Nook, iBooks, and ePub.

We want to live in a world in which “this would be really cool” is totally a good enough reason to do something. So we’re making it happen! We’re very proud of it all, and would very much love for you to take a look. Thanks!

Machine of Death: For your Hugo/Nebula consideration.

Machine of Death is now available in Apple’s iBooks! This and other data-crunching ebook news are reported over on the MOD blog:

We heard from ebook publishers and distributors warning us what we’d be missing out on by turning down their terms.

“We reach thousands of ebook sales partners,” they said. “Even if you do a Kindle version yourself, that’s only one of thousands of sales channels.”

“Are there really thousands of ebook sales channels?” we responded. “Why have we never heard of any but about five?”

Also, if you are a member of the SFWA and thus eligible to nominate works for the Nebula awards (only open through next week!), and/or are a member of SciFi Worldcon and thus eligible to nominate for the Hugos, we’d like to present two works for your consideration:

“ALMOND,” by John Chernega, in the novelette category;
“LOSS OF BLOOD,” by Jeff Stautz, in the short story category.

More details on the MOD blog here, and of course both stories are available to read in our totally free PDF. “ALMOND” has also been narrated in audio as part of our ongoing fiction podcast.

MACHINE OF DEATH is now available pretty much everywhere.

@Willetton shares an MOD sighting from a bookstore in Calgary, Alberta! I'VE NEVER EVEN BEEN THERE.

If you’ve been following the Machine of Death blog or Facebook, you know this already: Machine of Death is now available in bookstores across the U.S. and Canada.

Our little self-published book has been reported in stores all across the continent. This is tremendously exciting! Booksellers can order copies through our distributor, PGW, and you can get probably find copies in-person at your local store — or if they don’t have it, you can order it!

Just like a real book! THIS IS AMAZING.

ALSO, CANADIANS: It’s now available on Amazon.ca.

ALSO, EUROPEANS: It’s now available at The Book Depository for free shipping to the UK and Europe.

ALSO, CITIZENS OF THE WORLD: The Book Depository ships its books worldwide for free.

ALSO, THE UNCONVINCED: Check out this great review we just received from The Onion AV Club:

…Machine Of Death is a marvelous collection, riddled with intelligence, creative reach, and a frankness that makes the best use of the central gimmick. While the seed idea seemingly lends itself to twist-ending stories about people who try to evade their predicted deaths, there are only a few of those; more often, the stories examine how the death-predictor machine would change the world. […] Whether taken as an experiment in the new wave of self-publishing or as a proof of concept in the realm of artistic crowdsourcing, it’s a fascinating artifact and a really good read.

ALSO, BOOKSELLERS: If you stock the book, and like it, please consider nominating us for The Indie Next List! Being named to the list that goes out to indie bookstores everywhere would be a tremendous publicity boost for us. We’ve been so gratified to watch folks everywhere fall in love with our little project, and we’re trying desperately to use all the tools at our disposal to bring it before as many more eyes as possible.

SO FAR SO GOOD. Thanks for all your support so far!

{ Buy MOD from Amazon • Powell’s • IndieBound • TopatoCo }

Seattle! SteamCon! and a STORY

Steamcon: A steampunk Convention; Nov. 19-21st 2010

This weekend I’m at SteamCon in Seattle, Washington! This is only the third or fourth steampunk event I’ve ever been to and they’ve asked me to be on a whole host of panels:

FRIDAY

Webcomics
Cartoonists discuss their internet creations and the future of web cartooning.
– Shawn Gaston (M), David Malki !

SATURDAY

The Making of Wondermark
Thrill as comic creator David Malki ! builds a Wondermark comic strip out of 19th-century woodcuts and engravings! Gasp as he pulls back the curtain and delves into his delightful collection of Victorian-era books! Swoon as he makes them into strange comic strips that bear no resemblance to their prior state!

Researching the Victorian Era
How to find and use source material on the Victorian era to enhance your writing.
– Gail Carriger (M), Michelle Black, David Malki !

True Stuff From Old Books
David Malki ! presents a slide show of fascinating, forgotten articles unearthed from Victorian-era newspapers and magazines. A man breathes fire! A steam-powered flying machine attempts its first flight! Racial stereotypes abound! And human nature remains unchanged through the ages.

SUNDAY

Neo-Victoriana in Contemporary Comics
A discussion of the rise and growth of steampunk and neo-Victorian aesthetics and narratives in comics, graphic novels and the arts of the 21st century.
– Kate Lynch (M), David Malki !, Cheyenne Wright

I’m super-excited about all of ’em but especially Saturday’s set: I’ve been hard at work digging up some amazing artifacts for the “True Stuff from Old Books” panel and my challenge now is to condense it into the time allowed! So much interesting material!

In between panels, I’ll also have a table set up in the “merchant” area where I’ll have a neat spread of goods including some of my Monocle Poppers greeting cards — specifically, the holiday cards are mostly what I’ve brought with me. I’ll also happily sign Wondermark and Machine of Death books or really any book you like — from time to time people ask me to sign random books that I didn’t write and I can’t think of any reason not to. I mean, it’s your book, you can do (or have done) whatever you want to it. Happy to oblige!

Speaking of Machine of Death…yesterday we learned that we made it onto an Amazon “Best of 2010” list (Customer Favorites, Sci-Fi & Fantasy)! We’re floored. Each day brings new wonders. Hooray!

I also, this week, wrote a brand-new Machine of Death story for our blog. The characters in the story are proofreaders who kindly combed the book for typos in preparation for a new printing, and in the story, their predicted deaths are related to the typos they each found.

Evan flinched at the sharp metal snapping of the kit-box clasps. Marshall lifted out the reader — a standard handheld, a little worn from a few years on the road, but familiar to everyone. Evan knew what was required of him. Marshall popped a sterile plastic thimble from a blister pack, fitted it to the reader, swabbed the handgrip with alcohol and Evan wrapped his fingers around it, resting his thumb in the thimble. He’d done this a hundred times, probably. Everyone had done this a hundred times.

I had fun writing it! Hope you like it too. And of course the book is still available as a free downloadable PDF if you haven’t checked it out yet!

TO RECAP: What will happen at SteamCon? Will I be wearing a bowler cap? Will I be pleased to meet you at the SeaTac Marriott and/or Hilton? We will learn the answers to these BUT NO OTHER questions — this weekend.

MACHINE OF DEATH – Digital versions now available!

So thrilled to announce this! Machine of Death is now available in a variety of digital formats. Here’s the full rundown but I’ll just hit the highlights:

• FREE DOWNLOADABLE PDF. You hear that? Grab the whole book for free. We even got two versions of it, depending on the dimensions you prefer. We want you to have it. As we say on the site:

Why are we doing this? Aren’t we worried about hurting our book sales?

In a word: no. You have proven time and again that you are willing to pay for content that you find valuable. You have shown that you are driven to share material that you fall in love with. And we are committed to ensuring that you can experience our work whether you can afford to buy a book or not; whether you live in a country that Amazon ships to or not; whether you have space in your life for a stack of paper or not.

Please, download, read, share and enjoy!

• KINDLE VERSION. Instantly downloadable from Amazon, worldwide. Only $9.99 and available right this second.

• EPUB VERSION. Instantly downloadable via a link here, same price.

• NOOK/iBOOKS versions are in the works; not ready quite yet.

(And remember! You can get a free ebook version — meaning Kindle, ePub, or rich-text — just by forwarding us your order confirmation from a print version! The order can be from Amazon or TopatoCo, it doesn’t matter which. But you have to send it to info at machineofdeath dot net by midnight this Friday! The free-ebook offer will end after Friday.)

• PODCAST. That’s right! We’re recording audio versions of every story in the book and will be releasing them as a free podcast, about once a week. That means you have around thirty-four weeks of free entertainment to look forward to! Many of the stories are read by their authors, while others are read by generous and talented friends and colleagues. The first episode is available now and it’s great.

You can also subscribe to the podcast in iTunes by clicking here: http://www.itunes.com/podcast?id=402077546

Or here’s the direct feed address if you want to pop it into a non-iTunes podcatcher. For iTunes subscriptions, though, please use the link above — that way the subscription goes through iTunes’ servers and lets them know that folks are listening.

I also spoke briefly with American Public Media’s John Moe — one of my favorite radio hosts — on today’s Marketplace Tech Report about our campaign of loading you up with all this free stuff! (The segment with me starts about 3:30 in.)

Thank you for all your support! We couldn’t be more amazingly thrilled and proud of the book itself and everything that’s happened — and continuing to happen — around it. We hope you love it too!