Most people who have been to conventions with Sharon and me know that we have a practice of offering "red shirts" (Tuckerizations) in various books and/or slots on my "first readers" list for con charity auctions. For those not familiar with the "first readers" list, these are the people who get each of my manuscripts in electronic format at the same time that I turn them in to the publisher. That is, these are the "raw" pre-copy edit manuscripts, exactly the way that they go from my computer to the publisher.
I try, when there's time, to get out revised manuscripts if I've made substantive changes before the book actually goes to production, as well, so in some cases, "first readers" get more than one copy of the manuscript.
Now, normally, these are offered ONLY in charity auctions, but I am in a bit of a special situation this year. Honorcon, a convention in the Raleigh, North Carolina, area was initially organized by BuNine and then handed off to the TRMN (that's The Royal Manticoran Navy, my official fan group, for those not familiar with the acronym). Last year was the final Honorcon, because that con name is being "rested," but there are two "daughter cons" emerging from it. One, SphinxCon, will be in the Atlanta area in November. The second, FantaSci, will remain in the Raleigh area as a regional con, and its first convention will be in March 2019.
Because these are new cons, and because they are both associated with and springing out of the TRMN, I want to offer them a little special support. So, to raise a little money for them and — even more — to promote awareness of them, I am going to offer 10 slots on the first readers' list for $200 each, and split the proceeds evenly between the two cons as a contribution to their first-year operating budgets. This is a one-time offer because of our special relationship with Honorcon and its descendants.
We want to be fair about this and we definitely DIDN'T want to get into some sort of an online auction situation, so what we are doing is to set up a raffle for the first readerships. If you go to Weber's Universal Outfitters at the link below, you will be able to register — at no charge — for a ticket in the raffle. The raffle link will go "live" at noon (Eastern Time) on August 2. On August 15, we will draw ten winning numbers from among those who have registered, and those individuals will be able to purchase the first readerships at the $200 price. We are planning at this time to post the drawing live online, although we have not yet determined a time for it.
There are a total of 1,650 tickets. We arrived at that number because some of you have already visited Universal Outfitters and become customers, and we wanted to offer you a sort of customer loyalty reward. So there will be 1,500 "regular" tickets and 150 RESERVED tickets for you guys. If you sign into the site with your password, you will see a special First Reader Raffle button which will allow you to register for one of the reserved tickets. Anyone else who goes to the site will be able to register on the publicly available button under the "categories" menu. If all of the reserved tickets are not registered by August 10, we will release the remaining reserve tickets to the publicly available button.
You will be able to register for only 1 ticket per valid email address.
And, of course, we hope that in addition to registering for the first reader drawing, you will also check out the two conventions. Sharon and I intend to be at both of them.
http://www.weberuniversaloutfitters.com/
) itself on FB yesterday. The winners will also be contracted by email. They have 10 days to claim their readerships. If they haven't contacted us by then, we will draw replacement tickets from the pool.