Auction for John M. Ford Memorial
elisem has set up a John M Ford Memorial Endowment to buy books for his library in Minneapolis. You can donate here.

John Scalzi, who is a terrific writer with really good ideas, is auctioning a copy of a very limited edition ARC of his newest novel here to raise money for the fund. It's already up to $390.

I think this is such a brilliant idea I want to do it too. I don't have any valuable ARCs, unfortunately, but I can do this.

For anyone who donates $25 to the fund and emails me a copy of their e-receipt (to bluejo@gmail.com), I will email you a copy of my unpublished and probably never to be published drabble -- exactly 500 word story -- "Cedric the Allosaur".

For anyone who donates $50 likewise, I'll send you four unpublished drabbles, including "Cedric".

For anyone who donates $100, I will put your name into a book. If your name works as Greek, Latin, Carthaginian or Lizardman, then into Our Sea, otherwise into Half A Crown.

Or, if you prefer, I can translate your name into Greek, Latin, Carthaginian or Lizardman. (I already translated most of your names into Dragon already.) I'd also be willing to put your LJ name into a book, if you prefer that and it doesn't already come from somewhere.

And for $250, I'll write you a poem about anything you want in any style you want. I can't guarantee the quality, but it'll be as good as I can manage. So for those who have been asking for more Norse fairy-tales, or whatever, this is your chance.

None of these are one-off offers, I'll do these as many times as people want. Email me your e-receipts.

Looking round the apartment for anything I have that might be rare and worth auctioning:

I have one leatherbound edition of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Realms of Sorcery by Ken and Jo Walton. This was a limited edition of 500, all signed, and I'd be prepared to sign and personalise it further. I'll take bids on this in comments, starting at $100.

And -- I had six copies of the Chinese edition of Tooth and Claw, with the incredible pink dragon cover, and the list of character names in English and Chinese. I gave three of them to Chinese friends. I want to keep one. If you wanted one because you read Chinese, you'd have bought one already, but if you'd like one of my two spare copies, as one of the only five currently personally autographed copies of this book in the world (what are the odds of Chinese readers asking me to sign it -- but if they did I would), and because it's cool and weird and you want to support a good cause, I'll entertain bids starting at $20 in comments. If bidding goes over $60 I'll throw in a copy of the first edition of the US edition as well.

And I have a copy of "Ad Hoc", a Cambridge events guide with my first professionally published story "Dancing Time". It's a drabble. I have the story on my hard drive, not to mention in my head, but this is the only print copy there is. It's possible someone else may have saved a copy, but not all that likely. I'm prepared to sign this and sell it as well, again with bids starting at $20.

If bidding in comments, please state what you're bidding for.