Here is the live stream! UPDATE: Now here is the full show in two parts, recorded for your viewing pleasure! More video clips will be posted over time.

Tweet along to us using #machineofdeath. Search to see what others are saying too!

At the Super-Stupendous MOD Magic & Variety Show this Thursday, we’ll be collecting canned and nonperishable foods for the LA Food Bank. Every donation of a can, box of cereal, jar of peanut butter etc. will earn you a raffle ticket for cool prizes at the event, including T-shirts, signed books, and more!

Here’s dat FB invite again

These pictures are of the press kit for the upcoming Italian version of MOD1, La Macchina della Morte! The exclamation point is not in the title of the book, that is just me being excited. The Italians are going all-out with a promotional blitz that includes custom bookmarks inserted into other books in stores, point-of-purchase ads and displays, media coverage in the Italian press, even some sort of app. It’s incredibly exciting to watch a large publisher’s promotional machine swing into action on our behalf. I hope the book does well in Italy when it comes out next year! Tell all your friends in Italy to buy a copy!

Oh and if you have friends in Germany, tell them to buy one too, when the German edition comes out in January.

Oh and if you have friends in Spain, tell them to buy one of the Spanish versions too.

If you have friends in France, you might as well tell them too.

Ditto for all your friends in Croatia, Korea, Japan, and Israel.

That’s right — there will be eight different foreign editions of MOD1 coming out next year across the world, and we are just pleased as punch! I hope all of the covers will be as cool as that flowery skull design.

We’ll be reading from the Italian press kit (and doing many other things) at the Super-Stupendous Magic & Variety Show in Los Angeles this very week! It’s on Thursday night, the 17th, 8pm at the Fake Gallery in Hollywood (4319 Melrose Ave, 90004). Admission is free. Drinks and snacks will be served. I will be there in person along with MOD illustrators Kris Straub and Kevin McShane, and Ryan North will be there via Skype (for you to chat with!). We have a Facebook invite too. There’ll be magic. Music. Games. Talking — including the official public announcement of the stories that will comprise MOD2. If you can’t come, watch the livestream right here on the blog. So excited about this.

I’m excited to see a magic show, sure. But just as much, I’m excited to say “I want to do something fun. What’s stopping me? I guess…NOTHING” and then I just put on a dang show. I really hope you can come be a part of it.

If you have not heard from us regarding your MOD2 submission

Please contact us right away. All emails should have gone out by now. Some are bouncing back. We do what we can.

Regarding the illustrations

Here is some demographic information on the illustrator submissions! There were 151 valid portfolio submissions in all. 85 were from men and 66 were from women, for a % split of 56/44 — it’s super great to see it be that close.

110 submissions (72.8%) came from the US
18 submissions (11.9%) came from Canada
9 submissions (6.0%) came from the UK

We also had:

Australia: 4
Greece: 3
Ireland: 1
Hong Kong: 1
China: 1
Indonesia: 1
Thailand: 1
Sweden: 1
New Zealand: 1

for a total of 12 countries and 4 continents represented. Not bad!

We will be contacting the artists we wish to hire soon. We will not be contacting the ones we don’t need for MOD2, but we will be keeping all info on file for any future projects.

Future projects

What of them? Thanks for your great suggestions in the comments to the last post. We’re taking all options under advisement, although we are definitely keeping MOD2 at the forefront of our attention right at the moment. We still have to edit the stories, commission the illustrations, and put the book together, which is a big job. But we are definitely carefully considering possible next steps as well. So keep the ideas coming!

Evidence Photo Contest Winners

Will be announced this week.

An MOD subreddit

Is now a thing.

We leave you with

Tiffany showing a little team spirit. MOD apparel is available in our TopatoCo shop.

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At the World Fantasy Con in San Diego, volunteers spent yesterday assembling promotional giveaway packages for each of the 1200 registered members of the convention. Largely publishing professionals, each member will come away with a “gift bag” of books, courtesy of publishers eager to get influential eyeballs on their titles.

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This “bag” must be the size of a garbage bag and fifty times as strong. I am curious to know what exact form this package will take! Will registration staff also be handing out luggage carts to cart away the booty?

I mention it because if you’re attending World Fantasy this weekend, dig deep in your gift bag and keep an eye out for this:

This 52-page booklet features info about Machine of Death (which, if you’re reading this post, you probably already know about, but not everyone at the con will) as well as a preview of two stories from Volume 2.

I’ll be at the convention myself, and hope to meet you there! I won’t have a table, but I’ll be at the autograph session on Friday afternoon, and I’m also on a panel:

Sunday, 10AM: Intellectual Property Rights vs. the Free Web

Does information really want to be free? Do the people who say that still think so once they’ve been published? Generational differences in attitudes toward information and its effects.

Justin Ackroyd, David Chanoch, Jeff Conner, Ashley Grayson (M), David Malki !

I find it interesting that “generational differences” as a factor is called out right in the panel description. Are old folks by definition curmudgeons about Those Blasted Internets? Are young folks cool and hip and culture-savvy and with-the-flow, riding their skateboards with their backwards caps? WE SHALL SEE, on Sunday!

Able chronicler of generational differences Harley Schwadron

I also hope to spend some time asking folks their opinion of the giveaway bags. Is this a viable way for publishers to promote new titles, or just a thing that they feel they have to do because everybody else does? THE DEFINITIVE ANSWER: FORTHCOMING.

You will also be able to pick up a sampler booklet next weekend, November 5-6, at the Minneapolis Indie Expo! Matt will be representing MOD and signing books along with MOD frontispiece illustrator Katie Sekelsky. (Did you know that Katie also sells prints of her drawing?)

IN CONCLUSION: THESE THINGS ARE GOOD

Can you believe it’s been almost a year already?

Nearly six months ago, we held the Machine of Death Half-Birthday Party and Talent Show in Hollywood. We were delighted by the packed house — folks came from all over town to watch comedy, sing songs, deliver monologues, play games, listen to Jesse Thorn read Jeffrey Wells’ story, and hear us announce that submissions were open for Volume 2.

It was a ton of fun! And person after person came up to me afterward, excited and feeling inspired and creative and ready to take that feeling with them into their own lives. That’s great! That, of course, was the entire point!

Now we’re going to do it again.

Not a talent show, not the same exact thing — something different, something amazing.

Please save the date for the…

Super-Stupendous Machine of Death Magic & Variety Show!

Once again, we’ll be at The Fake Gallery in Hollywood, starting at 8pm, and streamed live online. The show will feature many things, some of which are still under development…but I can announce that there will be:

• A spectacular Machine of Death performance by master magician Pop Haydn!

• A sit-down talk-em-up conversation with Ryan (via Skype) and David, hosted by the incomparable Kris Straub!

• Games and such!

• Our birthday gift to you: We’ll have a special Volume-2-related giveaway for all attendees that you will not want to miss!

• And once again, admission will be free!

It’s gonna be great. How great? I’ll leave you with this video of Pop Haydn, whom I had the pleasure of meeting earlier this year at a convention and who absolutely charmed me in every way. As soon as I met him, I thought “I gotta put on a magic show, just to have the pleasure of working with him.” So by gum, that’s what I’m doing — and I’m bringing my friends along too. (That’s you!)

NOTE: We previously announced an October 26 date for the show, but it’s now confirmed for November 17. We hope to see you there!