FTP Me to Penguicon, Fly My Book to China
I may have gotten the subject line backwards.
In glorious, burden-lifting news here in the Tayler Household, we've just sent Schlock Mercenary: Emperor Pius Dei off to the printer. And by "sent" we mean "transmitted."
Every previous book-shipping involved DVDs and Federal Express. Now our printer has an FTP server that will keep a connection open for long enough to get a proper, four-gigabyte job done. In this case it took almost as long as it would have taken via FedEx, but I still have my wallet in my pants.
Isn't that cover pretty?
Also shipping: ME.
I'm going to Penguicon this weekend, and I fly out with Brandon Sanderson on Thursday. I'm the Toastmaster Guest of Honor at the event, which means that instead of seeing me on panels you'll be seeing me in a tux introducing the other guests, running the masquerade, and emceeing the auction for the Child's Play charity.
My books will be in the dealer's room at Mike Williamson's table alongside assorted sharp, pointy things. I'll schedule some signing time there, but I'll have an Industrial Strength Sharpie-in-a-Sherpa on me throughout the convention, allowing me to deface your books wherever you're able to catch up with me.
On Sunday from noon until two Brandon and I will be recording some live-studio-audience episodes of Writing Excuses, the award winning, Hugo-nominated podcast for genre-fiction writers. We've invited Campbell nominee Saladin Ahmed and filker extraordinaire Tom Smith to join us during the noon hour. Other invitations are still outstanding.
Follow @HowardTayler and @BrandSanderson on Twitter for our up-to-the-minute, mobile updates, or watch the #penguicon hash-tag for general convention chatter.