The holidays are coming up – as they seem to do every year — and once again I am teaming up with Jay & Mary’s Book Center, my local bookseller, to sign and personalize any books of mine that you want for your favorite gift-giving holiday of the season. It’s my way of helping you give a special gift, and helping out a local business. Everybody wins!

So: Want a signed and/or personalized Scalzi book for yourself or someone you love/like/are in some way obligated to? Here’s what you do:

1. Call Jay and Mary’s at their 800 number (800 842 1604) and let them know you’d like to order signed copies of my books. Please call rather than send e-mail; they find it easier to keep track of things that way.

2. Tell them which books you would like (For example, Redshirts), and what, if any, names you would like the book signed to. If there’s something specific you’d like written in the books let them know but for their sake and mine, please keep it short.

3. Order any other books you might think you’d like, written by other people, because hey, you’ve already called a bookstore for books, and helping local independent bookstores is a good thing. I won’t sign these, unless for some perverse reason you want me to, in which case, sure, why not.

4. Give them your mailing address and billing information, etc.

5. And that’s it! Shortly thereafter I will go to the store and sign your books for you.

If you want the book shipped for Christmas, the deadline for that is December 12. That way we can make sure everything ships to you on time. Hey, that’s a month; more than enough time for you to make your selections.

Also, this is open to US residents only. Sorry, rest of the world.

What books are available?

CURRENT HARDCOVER: Redshirts, METAtropolis. Also, there might be some copies of The God Engines left out there, but I can’t guarantee it; you can ask.

CURRENT MASS MARKET PAPERBACK: Fuzzy Nation, Old Man’s War, The Ghost Brigades, The Last Colony, Zoe’s Tale, The Android’s Dream, Agent to the Stars, The New Space Opera 2 (anthology; my story “The Tale of the Wicked” is in it).

CURRENT NON-FICTION: Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded (essay collection, Hugo winner), Book of the Dumb, Book of the Dumb 2 (both humor books), The Rough Guide to the Universe, second edition (Astronomy), The Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies (film). All my non-fiction is in Trade Paperback format.

If you have any other questions, drop them in the comment thread and I’ll try to answer them.

Happy shopping and especially thanks for supporting my local bookseller. They’re good people and I’m glad I get to work with them. And thank you!

Specifically, to the white men who have spent the last week freaking out about the fact that Obama won a second term without the majority of white men voting for him.

1. First off, relax. A rainbow coalition of gays, women and minorities is not coming to your door to take your guns or your freedom. As difficult as it may be to believe, when anyone else votes, they’re usually actually not ever thinking about how their vote is going to have an impact on you, the white man. Consequently, in the aftermath of the election, they’re generally still not thinking about you. You’re just not that interesting or important to them.

2. Second, stop believing that the problem was that Romney didn’t sell the message. He sold it just fine. So did Paul Ryan. So did the GOP candidates you favor. So did hundreds of millions of dollars worth of ads funded by SuperPACs. The problem isn’t the selling of the message. The problem is the message. Everyone else got the message. They just said “thanks, no,” to it. Stop being the guy who thinks the message will work by restating it again in a slightly different, often louder, way. That says “You’re stupid enough not to notice I’m selling the same message.” This is not a good way to convince people.

3. If you’re going to “go Galt,” now really is an excellent time to do it. Please, go Galt! We want you to go Galt. It’s probably best for everyone if you do go Galt. I feel compelled to warn you, however, that as you don’t actually live in an Ayn Rand novel, your self-deportation to the Galt’s Gulch of your choice will not, in fact, collapse society into a wailing socialist pancake of misery. What will happen is that someone else in our nation of 300-some-odd million will slot into your position, albeit with probably less strident personal politics, and things will go on more or less as they did before. This is something Ayn Rand got wrong.

4. Speaking of Ayn Rand, I realize that many of you are still using her terminology and trying to blame Mitt Romney’s defeat on a coalition of “takers,” or, like Bill O’Reilly, really believe that tens of millions of your fellow citizens voted for “things” and “stuff.” I understand it makes you feel better to say “takers” rather than, say, “people who believe that the overall benefits of a pluralistic society should be less obviously tilted to the tiny minority at the very top of the income pyramid,” but be aware that a) not everyone (and by “not everyone” I mean “almost no one but you”) sees the two as synonymous, b) you’re not helping yourself by continuing to assert that they are. This is another thing Ayn Rand got wrong.

5. In fact, as a general note going forward: Ayn Rand? Got it wrong. On pretty much everything relating to humans. Yes, I know. It was hard for me to believe it too, for fifteen minutes when I was teenager. But I struggled through! And so can you.

6. While you’re at it, consider widening your diet of political thought and reportage beyond the holy trinity of Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and the Drudge Report, and their various lesser cognates. They stopped modeling reality and started just saying what they think should happen and called it “reality.” Political scientists call this “epistemic closure” but I call it “NYAH NYAH NYAH I CAN’T HEAR YOU AND DON’T WANT TO KNOW.” I’m not saying don’t listen to them; you’re going to do that anyway. But you might double check the things they say against a source that doesn’t make its money, as I’ve noted before, terrifying aging white people.

7. Finally, relax yet again. There are still tens of millions of you. Your political concerns are not going to go away. You still have a seat at the table. The politicians you favor are still going to win lots of elections, especially at mid-terms. Heck, your favorite politicians still have the House of Representatives! That’s half a branch of government right there. You’re going to be just fine. You’re just going to have to get used to the idea that you won’t always get your way. Which makes you like everyone else. I know, that’s not what you’ve been led to expect. But it is fair.

Update, 11/13: Liberals and or Obama supporters! I have notes for you too.

The German version of Redshirts, called Redshirts, is out today. If you’re in Germany and reading this (and several of you are, Germany is this blog’s biggest readership outside of native English-speaking countries), you can buy it off Amazon.de or, presumably any bookstore that has a reasonable science fiction section. If you would like to read a bit first, there’s an excerpt on my German publisher page (and of course off of the Amazon page as well).

I’m also delighted to see that in the first couple of hours of it being for sale, it’s already number five on Amazon.de’s science fiction list, behind three Perry Rhodan installments and a George RR Martin book (which is fantasy, but never mind that). It’s also at number eight, for the Kindle edition. It’s a nice way to start a day. It’s also got its first one-star review, which is not about the book, but some dude griping about the publisher. I hate that shit.

I’m very excited regardless. I sold the book last year when I was in Germany — my publisher there announced he was buying it at one of my events, which is one of the nicest ways to find out you’ve sold a book, I have to say — and this is the first foreign-language version of the book that’s out (it’s sold in several other languages too, at this point). It’s fun to see it on its way in the rest of the world.

The next country Redshirts is coming to: The UK! This Thursday! You know I’ll let you know about that, too.