On Gaiman

FAQs  |  On Gaiman

How do you pronounce your last name? Is it gay-man or guy-man or something else?

It's Gaym'n.

Where is a list of your works?

There's a site, www.neilgaimanbibliography.com, courtesy of one of our Message Board moderators, GMZOE.

What are your tour dates?

You can find Neil on tour in the WHERE'S NEIL section…

Or you can also learn about where I am and what I'm doing from the journal.

Do you post at really strange hours?

Yup, the time on the blogger is always in Pacific Time, wherever I am. So if it says I'm posting at 1.07am, I probably posted it at 3.07am...

  Dear Neil,

There is a question that I would greatly appreciate having answered (it was bugging me today) concerning how much money you make on each of your various publications.

*By the by if you feel it would be inappropriate to answer this question in the journal or FAQ page please send a private reply*

Over the years I have picked purchased your comics, stories, books, statues, and audio offerings from a variety of locations and establishments. I am personally very concerned with making sure that the artist I am supporting gets the largest percentage of my money possible (ala purchasing concert tickets via tickmaster or mail-order directly from the artist's company).

So my question - finally- is; Where do you receive the most monetary reward for my monetary expenditure? Through Dramhaven and neilgaiman.net, or someplace like Barns and Nobel?

Thanks for your time and superhuman efforts,

It's all much of a muchness. I get royalties from the publisher, not the store, and even if publishers have special discounts or deals with the Barnes and Nobles of this world (I'm not saying they do, although I assume they must do, just because of their size, at least on some things) I still get my share of the cover price.

The Dreamhaven neilgaiman.net store doesn't exist to make me money: it's there because I got very tired of saying "Dreamhaven Books," whenever people asked where they could buy things that were a little out of the ordinary, and because I got tired of seeing people paying hugely inflated prices of ebay for things that were still at Dreamhaven for cover price. I owned the website, so passed it on to Greg Ketter of Dreamhaven Books. Greg makes money by selling people what they want, I have happy readers. Or listeners.

If you want to make sure that I'm getting a slice of whatever you're reading, then buy a new copy of it, rather than a second hand one. But I fear something like that could be taken the wrong way: in the big scheme of things I'd rather have the books in motion. I'd rather the books were owned and loved than sitting on a shelf in a bookshop. I want people to lend other people books of mine they think the other people might like, and I'd like people to make other people understand that the books and stories aren't all the same: someone who hates Stardust might love American Gods, and vice versa. And people who loved both of them might hate the next thing I write, and love the thing after that. I'd like it if people who read prose but wouldn't read the comics jumped in and started Sandman or Mr Punch, and I'd like it if the people who only read comics picked up Smoke and Mirrors or some of the other prose stuff.

And then I want them to read lots of people who aren't me, living and dead. I want them to read lots.

Sooner or later a whole new golden age of peace and prosperity will arise, I just haven't figured out the details.

In choosing from the myriad e-questions you no doubt receive each minute, how do you decide which ones you will publicly display a response to? Submissions which 1) sound quirky and strange (without being disturbing) 2) with opportunities built in to further publicize your work, and which 3) ask questions you have always wished someone would ask you in formal interviews? (Just guessing) What are 5 questions you would love to be asked in an interview but do not tend to hear?
Mike Moore

None of the above, really. Mostly I pick ones that either seem to need answering, haven't been answered somewhere else on the site, or pass on interesting information. Sometimes it's just what catches my fancy. When the FAQ line was up and working we'd normally get between 30 and 50 a day (26 in so far today, and the day's not half over) so answering them all is nearly impossible. I leave it to chance and whim. It's not fair as it means lots of good questions don't get answered, but (shrugs) there's only so much time. And there are books and scripts to write.

As to what questions I've love to be asked but never hear.... I'm not sure there are any, really. Interviewers are pretty inventive, and you lot have now asked about 9,000 questions on the FAQ line -- leaving aside the mousecircus.com FAQs, -- so I've been asked questions ranging from the obscure and erudite to proposals of marriage to people wanting to know if I can recommend good sushi in (town of choice). I've been asked what I've got in my pocketses and questions about the wing velocity of the laden vs. the unladen European swallow... I just blink, and answer, or don't, and carry on. Does that help?