Well, we're two days out from official release, and I'm sleeping a little better at night, which is nice, especially since being two days out from A Local Habitation [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] means I'm now fifty-eight days away from Feed [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy]. This is basically guaranteed to be a fun year, if you consider the distant sound of chainsaws and hysterical giggling to be the soundtrack of fun. I...kinda do, really. So that's all right.

As an author, it's natural and expected that I'll go a little crazy right around release day. I tell people it's less like having a baby and more like planning a wedding. You sink your heart and soul and resources and time and energy into this one day, and you just pray it'll be perfect, and that you haven't slipped into a horror movie (since weddings are basically catnip for demon serial killers). And then, whether it's perfect or not, you go to bed, you get up, and you carry on.

As a professional, it's also expected that I'll do my best to keep the majority of my crazy off the Internet. I'll twitch and flail and make little gasping noises about the pandemic, but at the end of the day, I won't scream at people, throw things, or threaten to have you all tracked down by my elite army of dinosaur commandos. (Well. Maybe the dinosaur commandos. They get so bored when they just sit around the barracks all day...) The Internet, as I have said before, is forever, and the fact that I'm having the release day crazies right now doesn't mean you won't be able to find my hysterical meltdown in black-and-white (or whatever your screen is set to) six months from now. As I do not want my crazy preserved for all time like fossilized mosquitoes in amber, I try to have more sense than that.

So if I've been overly crazy in the march toward release, I apologize, and hope that you'll forgive me. If I haven't been overly crazy, then, in the words of London Tipton, "Yay me!" You have all been wonderful, and I appreciate you all being here. I'll be running a few more contests in the weeks to come—as a hint, if you've already purchased A Local Habitation, you may want to say your receipt. I'll also be continuing to wind back down to my usual levels of madness, which has more pandemic, and less panic.

Life is good.

Uh-oh, look out—Borderlands Books in San Francisco, California is being awesome again. As many of you know, Borderlands is basically my "home" bookstore; I spend way too much time there, enjoying their awesome, annoying their cats, and feeding cupcakes to the staff. They've recently opened the Borderlands Cafe, a friendly, comfortable, welcoming place to sit, have a cup of coffee, read a magazine, and experience general awesomeness. Because of this, they're updating some things about the bookstore, and—best of all—they're having some sales.

First up is the OMG AMAZING gift certificate sale, which I wanted to highlight because it's not geographically restricted. Here's a quote from the store newsletter:

"We're going to offer one hundred special gift certificates. Each one will cost $100. Unlike a normal gift certificate, it won't give you $100 of purchasing power at the store...it'll give you $120. But also unlike a normal gift certificate, you won't be able to use it until the 1st of August this year. In other words, you buy the certificate this month and in five months or so you gain $20.

If you do the math, it seems like a crazy deal since, if it were a loan, it works out to more than 40% interest over a year term. But, from my standpoint, it's not bad at all. First off, you'll be spending the certificate on inventory at the store, which I get at a discount. Second, it is much simpler for me and has a much surer result than jumping through all the hoops necessary to get a loan for the business. For you it's a great deal since the return (if it were an investment, which is isn't—the people in charge of looking at securities and investments wouldn't like that at all) is much better than you could expect from almost anything else that you could do with a hundred bucks.

The certificates are transferable if you want to buy one for someone else and they're good for anything in the store, including special orders. But you might want to act fast. I'm only going to issue 100 of them and when we're out, we're out and it's not an offer that I'm likely to repeat.

If you live outside of San Francisco or even outside of the United States, you can participate in this as well and I hope that you do. We are happy to sell these certificates by mail and, since we'll be tracking the purchaser names, certificate numbers, and balances, you can buy one and then use it for mail orders to your heart's content. Plus there's an added bonus—the person in the United States who orders one of these certificates and who is located the farthest from San Francisco (based on the billing address of their credit card) will get an added certificate good for $10 and usable immediately after the 100th certificate is sold. And, not to leave our international customers out, we'll do the same thing for the international customer who's the farthest from San Francisco (and that is going be be based on their mailing address). Just give a call or drop us an email and we'll be happy to set you up."

So a) contact the store, b) buy a gift certificate, c) in five months, get $120 worth of books for $100 in actual money. Um, wow? Also, please note that the certificates "mature" at the start of August, and I have a book coming out at the start of September...

There are also bunches of awesome physical sales running through the month of March; you can read about them in the store newsletter. Finally, remember that Borderlands is happy to take orders for signed books. To quote their event policy:

"All events are free of charge. You are welcome to bring copies of an author's books purchased elsewhere to be autographed (but we do appreciate it if you purchase something while at the event). For most events you are welcome to bring as many books as you wish for autographs. If you are unable to attend the event we will be happy to have a copy of any of the author's available books signed or inscribed for you. We can then either hold it until you can come in to pick it up or we can ship it to you. Just give us a call or drop us an email. If you live out of town, you can also ship us books from your collection to be signed. Call or email for details."

Awesome! Enjoy the awesome, exploit the awesome, turn the awesome to your own gain, and help support my favorite local bookstore.