Patrick Rothfuss's Blog, page 35

GOG – Using Games to Make the World a Better Place

As y’all know, Worldbuilders is steadily growing into something much bigger than I ever dreamed.

Last year, for example, we had to design inventory software for all the books we were giving away as prizes. We’ve brought in competent, organized staff to replace my incompetent, disorganized self, and we started seeking out corporate sponsorships.

This year, companies have started to seek *us* out, looking to have superhero team-ups up for fundraising purposes. Big companies like GOG.com.

GOG is re...

Twitter Contest – The Reveal

Well folks, the votes are in on the twitter conetest.

And the Winner is… Pat Rothfuss.

Or rather, the winner is @Pat_Rothfuss

Which is to say that the winner was *not* Pat Rothfuss.

By which I mean that the winner was not me. And it wasn’t even a close thing.

With a crushing 42% of the electorate, the winner is.

@Pat_Rothfuss, which was Mary Robinette Kowal.

Mary Robinette Kowal is the author ofShades of Milk and Honey,Glamour in Glass,andWithout a Summer. In 2008 she received the Campbell Award for...

Twitter Contest – The Voting

Okay folks, we’ve been running our game on twitter for almost two weeks.

It’s been fun, but now we’re just a day away from Halloween. That means it’s time to start voting on who you think the real Rothfuss is.

But first, some things to consider:

1. Voting starts now, but the contest isn’t over until Midnight on Oct 31st. (And just to be clear, we mean midnight in American Samoa (UMT-12.) We picked that time zone so *everyone* gets all of Halloween to vote.)

But the contest will continue right up...

Delicious Geekery – October 2013

Back in August, we tried something a little new for Worldbuilders. Kevin Hearne and several of his anthology-mates sent us some signed copies of their carnival-steampunk collection, aptly named Carniepunk.

The books were signed by multiple authors, and rather than save them for our end-of-the-year Worldbuilders extraviganza, we decided to throw them up in our online store. We doubled the cover price because they were signed by some cool authors and because all the money goes to charity…

… and d...

Upcoming Appearances – England, Spain, and…. Stevens Point?

This year, World Fantasy Con is is England. Brighton, to be specific.

That means for the first time in more than four years, I’m heading over the big water.

And since I’m going to be over in England, it seems a little silly for me not to do a couple events.

And if I’m going to do a couple stops in England, it would be impolite for me not to swing by Spain for at least a couple days. Because I have a *lot* of readers there, and I had to cancel my tour plans there a couple years ago.

I’d love to hi...

Twitter Contest – The Memes, Cleverness, and Prizes….

So we’re almost a week in, and the twitter contest is ticking along nicely….

(If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you can check out the first blog explaining the game here.)

There’s been a lot of discussion as to the best way to refer to a group of Rothfi. A ponderance? A blither? Someone very clever suggested “Pontography.” Someone else proposed “Pisser” as the proper collective noun. There were a lot of good ones.

Personally, I think a group of us should be “a maunder of Rothfi.”

And don’...

2014 Calendars – Fantasy and Philantropy

So for the last couple of years, Worldbuidlers has put out a calendar to help raise money for charity.

This year, we decided to up our game and put out TWO calendars:

The first one we put together with help from Heifer International itself to showcase the good work they do all over the world:

The second is filled with joyful geekery, featuring a bunch of cool fantasy authors… and me.

Right now, both of these calendars are up for sale in our online store, The Tinker’s Packs.

If you want, you could...

Twitter – A Beautiful Game

So for a couple of years now, I’ve been a bit of a laughing stock in the geek community because I’m a luddite.

You see, I did not posses a smartphone. Neither did I have a twitter account.

This might not seem like a crippling social affliction, and most of the time it’s not. Most of the time I’m at home in Wisconsin, writing and hanging out with my little boy.

But then I go to a convention, like Origins, and while I’m there, I hang out with John Scalzi, Felicia Day, and Wil Wheaton. And while we...

WMF Photo Contest Part II – Pet Stew

These days I’m making an effort to catch up on some things I’ve been letting slide, some of them for an embarrassingly long period of time.

As you can guess from my last blog, one of the things I’m trying to catch up on is my correspondence. Other projects include cleaning out my closets and getting all my books onto shelves in some sort of decently organized fashion.

(I don’t know about you, but if my books aren’t properly organized, I never feel like my life is in order. And honestly? My book...

Concerning Fanmail #3

So a couple months ago, I unlocked another achievement in the great sandbox videogame that is my life.

Specifically, I hit 10,000 pieces of fanmail.

While I occasionally answer questions people send me, or post quotes from letters up on facebook, I haven’t actually written anything about fanmail itself since…

*Pat goes to check the archives*

Wow. Since five years ago. I did two blogs back then. One talking about fanmail in general. And another giving some memorable quotes.

Back in October of 2008,...