Something I'm selling: Older Skylanders

The Skylanders franchise is coming up on its fifth game.  September 20th Skylanders: Superchargers comes out.  The games have no set player character, instead you can play as any Skylander by placing it on an NFC device called the "The Portal of Power" it reads the chip in the toy figure and lets you play as the character in game.

Each game is backwards compatible with figures from the previous games so a figure from the original will work in every single game, a figure from the second will work in all but the first one, and so forth.  It's mildly more complicated than that because some figures from later games will work in earlier ones if they're a version of a character used in the earlier game, but in general a figure from game N will work in games ≥ N.

A while back I discovered that elder weasel had all current Skylanders games, and had played them to completion, except the earliest one.  Munchkin weasel has been similarly limited as they share their games (sometimes with acrimony, but generally well.)

So, I set out to rectify this.  Since it is the first game, it's compatible with the fewest figures, and since they don't have the first game the only first game figures they have are three that were picked up at a yard sale.

The practical result of all of this is that I have a Christmas present for the munchkins, though I may well decide not to wait that long (I could just give it to them the next time I see them, but there's not really an occasion) but also, because buying firgures to go with the game is incredibly expensive if done one at a time (the problem is mostly shipping, shipping sucks) I have a number of duplicate figures to get rid of.

The Skylanders games are:

• Spyro's Adventure
• Giants
• Swap Force
• Trap Team
• Superchargers

Trap Team is recent enough that not many people were throwing them into "Random lot of figures" though I think I do have a couple.  I definitely have a one armed Christmas lobster called "LobStar" with a throwing star from Trap Team, which might be worth something if not for the fact that it's supposed to have two arms.

Superchargers isn't out yet.

Other than that, if you want or a child you know wants a figure or figures from the other games (Spyro's Adventure, Giants, Swap Force) send me your wishlist and what you'd pay for the items on it, along with your postal code so I can figure out shipping.  There's a non-zero chance I can help you out.

My email is: cpw (at) maine (dot) rr (dot) com

Link to email. (Assuming neither I nor blogger fucked up the link.)

I can't give the excess away free out of the kindness of my heart, but I can probably do better than you'll find elsewhere, and probably also better than whatever prices I post to my ebay account once I've done the math to figure out how to price them.

Also, this is where I really go into no-scruples sales mode, if you've never tried Skylanders and want to start with the new game, consider that every currently existing figure is compatible with it so you could go here, pick out an entire roster of ones you'd like in the new game, send me a list, and (depending on how your list compares to what I've got) get yourself a decent little army to throw at said new game when it comes out on September 20th.

I'm selling copies of the "The Princess Who Saved Herself" book at 75% of the cover price

Through mysterious and esoteric means (I bought a bulk lot of 20) I have come into possession of a bunch of copies of the book The Princess Who Saved Herself, which is based, somewhat loosely, on the song of the same name:

This is the kickstarter that got the book funded.

I know a kid, maybe two, who could use a copy.  I might look into how to donate one to the local library, or a local school, but that still leaves me with a bunch I have no use for and I was hoping that I could sell them.  The price of buying the book directly, not including shipping, is 20 USD (United States Dollars).  I got it in bulk, thus didn't have to pay that much per unit, and was thinking that $15 would be a reasonable price.

If I understand media mail correctly, domestic shipping (to anywhere in the US) should be less than three dollars.  (Though buying direct has a shipping price of $4, is there something they know that I don't?)  International rates I do not yet understand, so if you're not in the US and want to buy a copy from me you'll either have to wait for me to figure it out or help me figure it out.

But, that's the gist of it.  I've got these books, I want to sell them, I'm giving readers of Stealing Commas first crack at them.

To order, make a donation of appropriate amount ($15 for the book plus $3 for shipping is 18 which is, as I said, 75% of what you'd pay to buy direct) and attach a note to the donation saying you made the donation to purchase a copy of the book.  (Without said note I might mistake it for an ordinary donation, though $18 is an irregular figure so maybe not.)

As always, the donate button is on the right side of the blog at the top.

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Here are some pictures:

This is my copy of the book (you didn't honestly think I'd just give the ones I'm not selling to children, libraries, and schools, did you?) and it's already a bit dinged up.  The book is white, not off-white.  I had to darken it a little because the original version of the picture had the colors washed out a bit.  I thought having the right color for the colors in the picture was more important than the plain background being just right.

Anyway, we can see some similarities to the song right there on the cover:

She never wore her socks, she had a pet snake
She bought a red guitar (and yes she did eat a whole cake)

(but not in that image)

And they started up a band and the dragon played the bass.

This is the back cover:

That is Gloria Chen Epstein Takahara de la Garza Champion beginning her epic quest to eat a whole cake.

If you look closely you can also see that the list price is indeed $20.00

Here are some inside pages where we see one of the various differences from the song:

The giant bee is in no way part of the song.  Where did the bee come from?  You'll have to buy the book to find out.

Actually you can look online because the bee's origins are part of the free sample pages released before the book was ready for sale.  But I'm trying to move merchandise here, buy the book.

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At first I was disappointingly underwhelmed by the book.  I wasn't sure what was wrong, but something wasn't right.  Then I realized I was reading it with the wrong cadance.  Rhythm matters so much in spoken word, and children's books are made to be read aloud.  Once I read the book with the proper rythm ... it's fucking awesome.

So I do honestly recommend the book, even if you're not going to buy it from me.

But if you are, remember: donate button at the top left, $18 (15 for book, 3 for shipping), and make sure to tell me that the money is for the book.  I'm pretty sure Paypal will automatically give me your address, but just in case, it couldn't hurt to include that too.

Oh, one last thing.  Why does this book have a list price of $20 in the first place?  It's hard cover which makes a lot of sense because it's a kids' book and thus needs all of the protection it can get.