Right now that short story commission–I will write the winner a short story of their own in time for Christmas!–is resting at $200, but here’s the thing: the current high bidder is Bill Schafer, the dude who owns Subterranean Press! Now, I actually think this is pretty clever and funny of him, but do you *really* want to let the chance for a commissioned CE Murphy short story get away to a publisher who could buy one from me at any time? I’m just sayin’!

The pitch:

Author CE Murphy is in the early stages of proposing new series ideas to her editors, which means you have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to become a major or recurring character in a brand-new urban fantasy world! This auction is for a Tuckerization (your name, or a name of your choice, as a character name) in an upcoming series, the details of which can’t be revealed because the world hasn’t been decided on yet–but it can pretty much be guaranteed as another mile-a-minute wild ride from CE Murphy.

Chances are you will not see the main character named after you, but it will absolutely be a major or recurring smaller role within the new series. Male or female, doesn’t matter, there’s room for all!

The fine print:

1. It’ll be some time before your character sees print, since we’re still in the discussion stages for selling the series! You’re probably looking at an 18 month to two-year wait…but what’s a few long months to literary immortality?

2. You may not be a good guy. (Frankly, the higher the bidding goes, the more likely you are to have input into whether you’re a hero or a villain and what you-the-character looks like.)

3. This auction may be given as a gift, but you should clear it with the person whose name you want to use first.

Bid early, bid often, folks. The auction is here!

Furthermore, DTRPG are matching $5 and $10 donations, if you can’t afford the $20 download donation. The fundraising drive has brought in a mind-boggling $93,500 so far (I don’t know if that includes the matching funds or not, but I’m not sure it matters: it’s a hell of a lot of money), and I’m sort of expecting it’ll break $100K before morning.

If you’re at all inclined to donate through them, let me sweeten the pot just a little: I will send advanced copies of DEMON HUNTS, book 5 of the Walker Papers, to the first dozen people who donate and email me their receipt (to cemurphyauthor@gmail.com).

For a time frame, I expect to get copies of DEMON HUNTS around mid-April, so if that’s correct you’d be getting the book about a month, perhaps slightly more, before it comes out in the bookstores.

Edited to add: A dozen people have now emailed me their receipts for their donations to Doctors Without Borders via Drive Thru RPG. In fact, a few more than a dozen have emailed me, so I will throw in a baker’s dozenth book.

The 13th book will be a name drawn from a hat after DTRPG shut down their fundraising efforts, so if you decide to donate through them, go ahead and email me the receipt and I’ll put your name into the hat.

You guys are all extremely, extremely cool. Thank you for participating in this. *beams*

THE CONTEST: tell me (in no more than 50 words) what Old Races story you would like to see told. It doesn’t have to be something that comes organically from the books; you can just randomly want “a story about the djinn” or something.

THE CAVEAT: I may make off with one or more idea and turn it into a story at some point. :)

THE OTHER CAVEAT: This contest is also running at my main blog at mizkit.com/mizkit.livejournal.com, so it’s possible the winning entry won’t actually show up in *this* comment thread. I will, however, post the winner’s entry at both locations, so everybody’ll know who won and for what story idea.

THE WARNING: I expect there will be spoilers for the Negotiator trilogy in this thread. If you don’t want to be spoiled, stay out of the comments.

THE WINNER: will be the person whose story idea I like best!

THE DEADLINE: the contest will end on June 9th. :)

THE OTHER CONTEST: My agent, the incomparable Jennifer Jackson (who apparently started agenting at the tender age of nine), is celebrating her 16th year of being an agent by running a contest for ARCs and books written by her clients. Go read her instructions carefully and participate! :)

Someone asked recently if there would be more books in the Inheritors’ Cycle. I have plans for 2 or 3 more books in that series, but I haven’t yet sold them to Del Rey, the publisher for that series. I’ll be writing up a proposal toward the end of the summer, so hopefully I’ll have more information about whether the series will continue by the end of 2009.

In the meantime, DEMON HUNTS, book five of the Walker Papers, has been completed and delivered. There is, however, still time to bid to become a character in that book, and if bidding on both my auction items combined (the Irish gift basket is here) goes over $450 by the close of the auction on Sunday, I’ll write a new Walker Papers or Old Races short story for my internet audience. :)

And speaking of the Walker Papers, the mass market editions of books 1-3 should be available now! I’m ridiculously excited about these, as they’re my first mass market releases under the CE Murphy byline. May they be the first of many!

I have two items in the auction: one is a Tuckerization–ie, your name in my book–in the fifth Walker Papers novel, DEMON HUNTS (yes, the one I’m working on right now), which is due out in June 2010. Bidding starts at $2. The auction runs until the end of May, and you can find the details here.

The second is an Irish gift basket which will include mass market paperbacks of the first three Walker Papers, and my recent night shot of Ha’penny Bridge in Dublin. Bidding starta at $2, and the auction runs until the end of May. You can find the details here.

My agent, Jennifer Jackson, has a proposal critique in the auction, and all the items up for auction from her client list here. Bid early, bid often! :)

I haven’t yet posted about Match It For Pratchett because I’m easily distracted by bright shiny objects, but I have been meaning to. On the off chance anyone reading this hasn’t heard, Terry Prachett, who was recently diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s, has donated half a million British pounds (approximately $1m USD) to Alzheimer’s research. His fans, within a matter of days, had started the Match It for Pratchett fundraising effort, which has the aim of raising an additional half million pounds, to bring it up to a nice round million.

In the past week, some £34,000 has been donated. The Alzheimer’s Research Trust in Britain is stunned and overwhelmed; according to their figures, $25US pays for an hour of their high-end research, so this kind of money really does make a significant difference to them.

My agent, Jennifer Jackson ( / arcaedia) has just posted the following:

Also–the person reading this blog that makes the highest donation by midnight on Saturday, the 22nd (and sends me some verification thereof), I will read and review your synopsis plus 50 (or so) pages of a work-in-progress (limited to novel-length fiction in the adult/YA genre categories I actually represent). You can go directly to the tipjar on the Match It site and make a donation. You can send verification to jjackson [at] maassagency.com

I *unquestionably* have the most awesome agent in the universe.

I am also hoping to get, at the very least, a Match It tip jar set up at the front desk for P-Con, and hope to get tickets handed out to everybody who donates. At the end of the weekend we’ll draw from a hat and I’ll give a signed copy of the complete Walker Papers series (so far) to the winner, or possibly books 1 and 2 of the Negotiator and will send 3 along when it comes out, if the winner prefers that.

I love my tribe, I really do, and I’m terribly proud of them for this effort.

And on a not exactly related, but not exactly not, topic, I’d like to raise a glass to Arthur C. Clarke, who was one of the pioneers of the world we live in.