Doing Something New...

Some of you have emailed me to ask "what is a sketch edition?"

Simply put, a sketch edition is a copy of a Schlock Mercenary book whose last page has been numbered and sketched in by me. The first time around I did 300, and I turned off the ordering at that point because that was all I thought I could manage. The second time around there were over 800, and I allowed people to order one each for the first 24 hours of the pre-order period.

In both previous cases, I've simply drawn whatever I felt like drawing in each one, and then shipped the book to somebody who ordered a sketch edition.

This time around we're changing it. The order form (which you will see in just under a week) will have an option for which character you want in your book. There will also be an option for "surprise me," though I don't recommend picking it, because I'm not sure how surprising I can be if I have to surprise a lot of different people. Will you be surprised if the character I draw is a head in a jar? Probably not. This is harder than it looks.

Hopefully this new process will ensure that none of you sketch-collectors end up with the same character in all of your books. And if you're really into collecting sketches, this time around we'll let you buy more than one, as long as you make your purchase or purchases within the sketch-edition window.

Some of you have expressed concern about my hand. Well... my hand and I have talked this over. I showed my hand my wallet, and explained certain fiduciary principles. I'm pleased to announce that he's totally on board. And you know it's true, because if he wasn't okay with me volunteering him for all this work, none of the letters on the right side of the keyboard would appear in this message. Oh, sure, you might think that if my drawing hand decided not to take part in the typing, my left hand could pick up the slack, hunt-and-peck style. Not so! My right hand is dead clever, and would interpose himself between lefty and the keys. Gibberish would ensue.

Is handthropomorphism a word? No. Should it be? Probably.