Journeyman

In search of -- searching

2008-05-16T14:47:19Z

Here's a something to do on your coffee break:

Everyone, or almost everyone, uses Google. Sometimes, though, Google wears thin. So are there other search engines you'll use from time to time?

Here's a couple I've played with ...

Ms. Dewey is one ...

but wait, there's more! Don't use Ms. Dewey until you turn down your speaker just a bit, just in case...
and for some offices, she might draw a frown if a boss is nearby.

http://msdewey.com/

That's because Ms Dewey has been known to break into song, just because you've requested a search...and yes, sometimes she's a bit ... brazen. You can practice on "Liaden, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller" if you like

http://kartoo.com/

kartoo is a different kind of graphic search engine: not as noisy, and you've got to be willing to interact and make choices. Again "Liaden, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller" is a good first search...

Also, an interesting Google result:

Use Google, type in" saltation ... click on the first Lee and miller story link you find...

ah, I'd also suggest James Hetley, Lawrence Schoen, and Clarion West as potential kartoo searches...

And now, I ate my pumpkin donut, finished the day's second cup of coffee, so it is back to work.

Feeling our oats

2008-05-13T14:09:46Z

Feeling our oats...

Actually, that's oat cereal. You want to write good books you gotta eat good food. Or something like that.

It looks like the (Complete brand?) oat cereal we'd been eating has disappeared from the marketplace, as things will from time to time. So, we've been experimenting ... getting a somewhat passing grade so far are Barbara's Shredded Oats and Mother's Tasted Oat Bran. We use Cheerios from time to time, and now have Oatios to try. Displeasing to the point of feeding half the box to the birds -- Nature's Path Organic Mulitgrain Oatbran Cereal.

Chess last evening was disappointing; I played two rated games and lost them, though I wasn't blown out of the water, then I played a bunch of unrated games where I was ... really not sharp. Even the last one where I had a huge advantage .. and let my opponent get a stalemate. Got to slow down, looks like.

And looking ahead, I'm probably going to declare another break in Saltation, as in no Saltation next week, as I reread and go over the existing Longeye portions so we can rectify two plot problems we've just spotted before they bite us in the last chapter.

And so ...

2008-05-12T19:01:57Z

I hate it when software insists on updating itself when I'm in the middle of a project. Convenient? No.

I also despise APPLE for their sneak attack Safari-dumping. No Macs here, no IPhones, no silly little music boxettes, OK? My ears are clear. Safari is *not* what I want. I have Firefox 3 beta 5 running, I have the newest Opera running. Take a hike, Safari!

So, that said, I did manage to finally get the Saltation chapter up today, about an hour late. Even if it isn't as clean as it ought to be. Some drafts are like that.

Chess tonight. Maybe I'll get to try out my new digital clock. I kinda dislike digital clocks, which are hardly as readable as analog for someone who has been playing chess with *real* clocks for 43 years, but I'll need to have some experience with them if I want to TD these days. Progress.

Soon we'll have more info for you about the Write-a-thon for Clarion West. Wheee....

We see that Sony's online e-book store admits we exist:

http://ebookstore.sony.com/search/ebooks.htm?searchtype=q_author&searchtext=sharon+lee&q=&q_author=sharon+lee&q_title=&q_isbn=&x=23&y=10

A cute thing is to try searching on Steve Miller ...
if you find that page with a photo of a guy with no beard? That ain't me.

Hokay, away we go!

Birds and then books

2008-05-11T18:37:18Z

Birds today:

Multiple white-crowned sparrows, chickadees, blue jays, grackles, sparrows, yellow finches, purple finches, cowbirds, indistinguishable hawks, doves, red wing blackbirds, some kind of distant swallow...

Longtime reader adamek.... saw this at Librarything and put it on his LJ and I brought it here with a slight twist ... my twist is that I double-listed anything I read for myself before I had to read it for class...

What we have here are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing’s users. As in, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded. Bold the ones you've read, italicize the ones you read for school, underline the ones you started but didn't finish (or are on the shelf waiting for a free week).

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984
1984
Angels & Demons
Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon (reviewed, new,for Baltimore Sun!)
Oryx and Crake
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield

And so this gives me an idea for list or poll of my own ... watch this space in the next week or ten days

Power to the people

2008-05-10T16:00:54Z

Power to the people, except when it affects Bill Gates and his tax on the computer users of the world.

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/145719/microsoft_to_limit_capabilities_of_cheap_laptops.html

That's all.

On The Road Again

2008-05-08T12:55:05Z

Some things are happening, and some more things are happening...and after that, there's more to do...

Still gotta get the rest of the trash out.... and then, closing on the refi, which will take a few hours out of the day, which means I gotta get my act in gear and get out of here to get to Augusta on time. Wheee....

After this is out of the way, need to pack about 20 SRM Publisher orders by the weekend. I'm working on it.

Also, the SLBF2008 coupon on SRM Publisher's catalog goes over very soon, the day after Mother's Day.

Please see that comments on the following properly go elsewhere. Thank you, this is a recorded announcement. Nothing can go rwong.

Ok -- The beta for the new Fledgling page is up at http://www.korval.com/fledgling/index.php ...

we're taking comments on it at: http://community.livejournal.com/theo_waitley/59335.html which is part of the Fledgling community... thank you.

Now that the work on the Fledgling and Saltation stuff is proceeding I'm also going to be needing eyes and ideas for the rest of the Liaden and Lee&Miller stuff that's been allowed to get a midge behind the times.
Don't *do* anything yet, just think about it and then we'll get things moving ... perhaps on the FoL mailing list. Maybe on the Liaden spoilers list, if I can find that link... but not at the moment...

We're closing in on arrangements for a Friends of Liad breakfast at Worldcon. We'll need a central person/place to help with this, this time around, so we can coordinate space and time with the con committee to make this an official con-type event. In the past we coordinated a lot of these things through the Meisha Merlin table and network; that's gone. Do we have enough people planning on attending to put together a Friends of Liad fan table? We're still waiting on news about the party suites, alas.

Zoom ...
catch you all in a bit ...
and do cross fingers and toes, light candles, and think good thoughts for Jay Lake, who has cancer surgery coming up RSN:
http://jaylake.livejournal.com/

Random Ketchup

2008-05-06T14:53:06Z

Chugging right along:
Did you know that May 10 is National Train Day? Is. See http://www.nationaltrainday.com/
News in Maine is that the Downeaster gets closer to Downeast! http://www.sunjournal.com/story/264124-3/MaineNews/Downeaster_may_expand_in_Maine/
... and so if the Downeaster comes to Brunswick, that'd make our trips south another 1/2 hour smoother.

Managed to get something up for Theo on Saltation yesterday, yay, team. At the time that was getting online I was making multiple trips to town, having gotten all the way to the driveway of the hospital for a bloodwork appointment before realizing I'd forgotten paperwork I needed to bring with. I was already feeling out of order because of the thick air, I guess. I have several routine doctor appointments this week, and .. .well see the end of the post.

Last night was chess night, which I went to despite still feeling under the weather, or under the pollen, at least. Arrived a little late, to find all available players in games. I waited, staring at other people's games, wondering why I was still there because my snuffle seemed suddenly well on way to sinus headache. Eventually a game ended, and it was my turn for some short games. In my first game...I let a won game wander away; changed my glasses from reading glasses to prescription glasses in middle of it but by then it was too late. Second game I won, almost accidentally, when my new opponent misread the motive for my early pawn spike and castled into my attack. Despite fierce resistance... and a blunder on my part ...I managed to pull that one out. My third game, I won on time. My opponent tried to show he had a won game (if the game had gone on) but... I don't trust instant at-board postmortems and besides that, I'd won, so I took the game and then went home very early, headache winning out over chess. Once home a quick snack and to bed fighting the headache, which mostly won. I did get a few hours sleep and slept right through breakfast as Rolanni got herself together and out to work.

Today is a high pollen count day, too, lucky me..and tomorrow looks to be as well. Wheee....

Meanwhile, we (as SRM) did manage to get in a few cases of books from the latest and last rescue of Meisha Merlin stuff. Some of the recent arrivals are not in as good shape as we'd like, looking like returns or warehouse age, since the warehouse was in some disarray there at the end, I gather -- watch for some specials!

And so it can be rumored...looks like our Credit Union mortgage specialist has managed to cut through some red tape we couldn't figure out and we'll be going to closing on our refi in near record time, all things considered. Given the labyrinthine path we've taken to get here --- I think we've worked through six government agencies and seven or eight or nine addresses as they merged, emerged, remerged, and renamed themselves since we first applied for the original mortgage ... so much for stable government, eh?

So, (thank you Walter) if all goes well, we'll be closing on the new, non-government mortgage on Thursday, at the credit union office. I am *so glad* we joined the credit union. And after it all, the difference on our monthly payment will be about enough for us to go out to breakfast once every other month. Well, that's useful. Hey, this'll happen in time for us to eat breakfast three times at WorldCon if we save up!

In Case you didn't see Liaden Universe Infodump 68

2008-05-04T16:18:41Z

Liaden Universe® InfoDump # 68

IN THIS ISSUE:

Baen Buys Lee & Miller Liaden Universe® Duology
Coupon Offer from SRM Publisher
Liaden Universe® Companion, Volume One
Liaden Universe® Companion, Volume Two
Blogs of Note
Disclaimer

FLEDGLING DUOLOGY SOLD TO BAEN

short form:
Sharon Lee and Steve Miller have sold the online stories _FLEDGLING_ and
_SALTATION_ to Toni Weiskopff at Baen, through their agent Jennifer
Jackson of the Maass Agency. Excerpted from Sharon's blog entry of April
14th, with minor amendations to fill in what we've learned since:

The slightly longer form is that subscribers to _Fledgling_ and/or
_Saltation_ will receive their books as promised. Baen will supply a
portion of our advance in books, enough to cover the subscriptions, which
we´ll sign and mail from the Cat Farm and Confusion Factory -- that´s
1,200 volumes for _Fledgling_, and up to 1,200 _Saltations_.

The rest of the books will go into Baen´s regular distribution channel and
will be available from your favorite bookstore. For those who prefer
ebooks, both completed novels will be available through Baen
Webscriptions.

There exists the possibility - the language is in the contract - that Baen
will decide not to publish a trade paper edition. If they make that
decision, then subscribers will receive hardcovers.

Publication dates are not yet in hand; as soon as we have them, we´ll
shout them from the rooftops. Target date for Fledgling at the moment is
"summer of 2009." We´re very grateful to Toni Weisskopf at Baen, and to
Jenn Jackson, our agent, who both did master class piloting in order to
bring this one safely to port."

SRM PUBLISHER ONE TIME COUPON

the new catalog at http://www.srmpublisher.com is coming along nicely;
we're still adding books, but in celebration of Steve's talk on the genre
writing life in Second Life last week, SRM ran a $6.99 coupon -- which
would cover the cost of the book, but not the shipping, of the mass
market version of _The Tomorrow Log_. The coupon has now been expanded to
the rest of the world for a short time. Right: go to the catalog, select
your books, and enter coupon code SLBF2008 and you get a one-time $6.99
reduction. The extended coupon will be good until May 12, the day after
Mother's Day.

LIADEN UNIVERSE® COMPANION VOLUME ONE MASS MARKET

You told us you wanted this book in a mass-market sized paperback and we
went for a test drive and published one. Jury's still out on this; the
recent run-up in prices for paper and shipping make it impossible for us
to reprint this edition at $10 so the remaining 400 or so copies are the
last at this price. Please, if you wrote to me requesting we print a book
in this size, get it now. I'm already hearing of aftermarket prices of $15
for it, and that while you can still get it direct from us! Still $10 from
our catalog and select retailers.

LIADEN UNIVERSE® COMPANION VOLUME TWO

Meanwhile, having just done inventory, I discover several mis-stacked and
partial cases... and so the available hardcovers of LUC2 don't total 105,
they total circa 145, if sales continue the way they are we'll be out
around Christmas, I guess, instead of mid-summer. That also means there
are fewer tradepapers than I thought; we seem to be under 600 there.

MEET THE AUTHORS:
Conventions:
Sharon Lee and Steve Miller will be at the following conventions:

Denvention, the 66th World Science Fiction Convention -- August 6 - 10 in
Denver, Colorado -- http://www.denvention3.org/

Albacon, October 10 - 12 in Albany, New York.-- http://www.albacon.org/
Anne and Todd McCaffrey, Guest of Honor!

Steve Miller, in his SRM Publisher hat, is looking at attending several
other New England conventions; watch for details.

*Independent Bookstores we know and love:

Uncle Hugo's http://www.unclehugo.com/

University Bookstore
http://www.bookstore.washington.edu/services.taf?dept=about&category= loca

Pandemonium Books http://www.pandemoniumbooks.com/

Missing Volume http://www.themissingvolume.com/

Borderlands http://www.borderlands-books.com/

Dream Haven http://www.dreamhavenbooks.com/

Flights of Fantasy http://www.fof.net/
All of the above folks do mail order and take want lists.

BLOGS OF NOTE
Theo_Waitley is the discussion group for readers of _Fledgling_:
http://community.livejournal.com/theo_waitley/

Steve Miller's blog, Journeyman: http://kinzel.livejournal.com/

Sharon Lee's blog, Eagles over the Kennebec:
http://rolanni.livejournal.com/

*Disclaimer Stuff*
This InfoDump is a product of the Liaden Universe®, accept no
imitations. You have received this message because you asked for it.If you
wish to subscribe to the Liaden Universe® email list, go here:
http://www.fireopal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/liadenuniversenews

Here's news ...

2008-05-03T14:02:40Z

Sometimes I can't get to Locus immediately; I guess yesterday I should have because we were getting together Liaden Universe® Infodump #68 and you never quite know what news you need.

So I hadn't looked, and the Infodump went out. Later in the evening we sat around after dinner browsing the words we hadn't managed to clear off the table.. and there was Locus.

Sometimes I get grumpy because there's not much in it for me, but this time, there was. In this case, while patting ourselves on the back very gently when spotting the news that Lee & Miller had sold another Liaden book to Baen... always good to get ink! ... when we stumbled across the *fullpage* ad for Duainefey, which is coming up in September. Well, that was pretty cool!

And then, as I was reading along, I glanced at the Locus bestseller list, looking for works of friends and acquaintances. Wow -- a good month, with Anne and Todd McCaffrey up there on one list, Elizabeth Moon up on two...and all together I've been on panels with or otherwise met and spoken with or know around a dozen of the folks with books on the list this time.

Being in the business, as it were, I also look beyond the Top 10 or Top 5 and read the small print. This time I saw the small print there under trade paper and saw that there was a tie for runner-up and hey this is where the drama happens, where the books that almost made it sneak out! Right, and there was this tie for runner-up: China Miéville's Un Lun Dun from Del Rey was tied for 6th, as it were with Dragon Tide by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller ... from SRM Publisher.

Yep, that what it says, and you can mosey on over to Locus Online to see it for yourself:

http://www.locusmag.com/2008/Issue05_LocusBestsellers.html ...down in the fine print.

Coulda knocked me over with a bookmark.

Thank you, reporting specialty stores. Thank you, readers and fans. A tie for sixth ain't bad if you never even thought you were in the race...

Reporting in

2008-05-01T16:10:59Z

So yesterday we went to the B&N in Augusta, where the turnout for the educators day was modest at best; we sold a book or two, and proved to ourselves that the B&N cafe is not the ideal space to read.

Later we were much disappointed with Panera... the meal we had was good, but they were, for chef's sake, out of Swiss cheese and some other of what we'd call staples of a deli. On top of that, the crew was restless, as if some of the info -- like we've been out of Swiss cheese since 4 PM -- wasn't gettin relayed and this was causing additional problem. Very unlike the usual mode for the Augusta Panera, yessir.

Meanwhile the coupon SLBF2008 will be $6.99 toward an order at SRM Publisher catalog at srmpublisher.com for a few more days .. .but that's a one-use coupon per customer.

In other notes:
photos from the Nebula Awards 2008 ...
http://www.midamericon.org/photoarchive/08nebs00.htm

And looks like a heavy writing schedule this weekend...

Book coupons and the usual chess news, too

2008-04-29T14:32:35Z

So, over there at at Second Life, I gave about an hour talk on Saturday, as part of the Second annual Second Life Book Fair. The talk went well, with only a minor bobble on the voice stuff in the early going, and if you visit Publishing Island you can find both the "regular" SRM Publisher store as well as the booth Shawna and Anhayla were kind enough to put together for us for the fair. I hope those of you in world will take the time to drop by and visit.

The booth has images and links to a bunch of our books and online stuff, and still has a note about a coupon... good at the srmpublisher.com.

So, for the advertent, the coupon code is SLBF2008, and it was originally meant to be used for a free copy of The Tomorrow Log -- that is, free as in beer -- except that you still need to pay the postage. We still have some copies of The Tomorrow Log available, and at checkout entering the code ought to bring you a $6.99 discount. The trick is that I have expanded the coupon so it's good this week for a $6.99 break on anything on the SRM catalog, except postage.

Meanwhile, my morning check of things shows that we've got about 400 copies left of Liaden Universe Companion, Volume 1 -- mass market sized -- and with the costs of paper and shipping going up so rapidly I think the next printing, if there is one, will have to go to $12 to be practical. It's currently at $10, and since it carries within stories that took some folks years to accumulate in chapbook format, it's a great buy for readers catching up.

As a side note, with the recent hoorah about the Meisha Merlin warehouse close to mind, we have around 100 copies left of Partners in Necessity, a couple cases of The Tomorrow Log, and some Plan B trade paper and hardcovers, along with a dwindling supply of Crystal Soldier and Crystal Dragon, in trade size. Better buy it while we got it...

As for local stuff, it is raining hard at the moment -- it started last night while I was off at chess, making my ride home an adventure what with water-filled potholes and intermittent fog. As for chess, I lost my first few games but by the end of the evening was on a roll; I think it's been awhile since I've had multiple rated wins against Reverend Ed on the same night.

Tomorrow we're set for a gig in Augusta at B&N, around 5:30. There are door prizes for educators, and since the rain is now expected to continue only until midnight tonight it may be a great time for some lucky Liaden fan to come on out in the spring weather and win. We'd love to see you -- and if you read this blog, *do* introduce yourself!

Finally, I'm going to be participating in a fund-raiser for Clarion West. All details aren't set, but basically they have a write-a-thon where writers challenge themselves and ask folks to support the effort, with Clarion West getting $bucks to help the Workshop continue. My plan is to write a more or less hard sf story in the mode I was using when I started selling to Amazing ... who knows, it might work! Watch for details.

A blip and prep work

2008-04-26T17:20:16Z

And so I was catching up on some needed net work around here and suddenly and without warning my internet connection went blooie ...

Not good, considering I'm on stage at 5 PM Eastern time over at Second Life's Publishing Island....
after 18 minutes of reboots and wire-checking and the like we're back online ... haven't had this kind of commotion in more than a year, I think.

Meanwhile, we're still go for the Barnes and Noble shindig next week -- a little road trip for us --
http://storelocator.barnesandnoble.com/eventdetail.do?store=2742&event=22714016 ... which is a *Be there or be square* event, fer sure. We'll be reading from Crystal Soldier and Crystal Dragon, and also talking about using science fiction in the classroom... If you're close enough in Maine, come on by, and if you know teachers, fans, or just plain readers who might be interested, drop them a note. This B&N has a brand new community relations manager and we'd love to see her get things moving in the area again.

Still working on --

2008-04-23T23:30:23Z

Still working on --

my chess. Monday night I had 4 interesting games with a guy who used to be ranked in the Top 5 in state...
I lost 4 games Monday night. Me, I'm hoping to get back into some tournaments this year and make it into the Maine Top 100 someday soon. Also still working on getting more chess club flyers out and about the greater Central Maine area...

Still working on --

That home refi thing. Wheee... the appraiser was here and liked our neighborhood. I'm told that papers are on their way to Washington (or wherever else the headquarter those things these days) and that we may have just about enough equity here to make this work. ..still working on crossing fingers nad toes on that, you betcha.

Still working on --

the upcoming Second Life appearance on Saturday .. that'll be at 5 PM Eastern, 2 PM SL time, at Publishing Island. Look for Elan Neruda ... let's see... yes: *Paying the Bills While Paying Your Dues: a partially practical guide to writing genre fiction for a living*

Oh, and Shawna and Anhayla have done a good job getting a snap booth set up for me -- many thanks! That's also on Publishing Island --

Still working On --

that revamp of Korval.com. How could I have had *that many* sets of old web pages from 1998-2003? And geesh... all those directories...I'll learn the ways, surely I will.

Still working on --

the srmpublisher.com catalog. I *do* intend to get the ISBNs on everything, yessir.

Still working on --

Saltation for next Monday...

Still working on --

avoiding today's writing!

**Edited to add**

Still working on --

where I'll put those books. Sean reports from the old Meisha Merlin warehouse that there were still a few Lee and Miller books there, and he'll mail us a couple cases. AFAIK this should absolutely close down the MM story.

So now:

What are you still working on, or avoiding working on, anyway?

Sightings --

2008-04-15T21:38:27Z

Today we saw a couple of pairs of grosbeaks on the deck ... our first of the season...

Today I saw (and acquired a copy of) Entertainment Weekly #987, the April 18 issue. Congratulations to Uncle Hugo Bookstore of Minneapolis, who supplied the Top 20 list of current science fiction there on page 69. Kudos to The Copy Center Plus, who printed two of the books in that top 20. Book #13 and Book#20 ... are Liaden Universe Companion #1 in mass market and Dragon Tide, respectively. Cool! Thanks to several sharp=eyed readers for bringing this to our attention.

Sharon saw a deer yesterday, and I saw the hawk down the street. Today, I saw but couldn't get a photo of an eagle in our backyard. I also saw the pan I was cooking in when the eagle grabbed my attention. Do not try getting photo of eagle in backyard while cooking -- repeat, do not try this at home.

In case you haven't heard

2008-04-15T10:10:04Z

As reported elsewhere.

Attention: Subscribers to Fledgling and Saltation, Fans of Theo Waitley, Friends of Liad, and All the Ships at Sea

Now it can be told.

Baen Books will be publishing the dead tree edition of Fledgling and, when it’s ready, Saltation. That’s the short form and it is Wonderful News Indeed.

The slightly longer form is that subscribers to Fledgling and/or Saltation will receive their books as promised. Baen will supply a portion of our advance in books, enough to cover the subscriptions, which we’ll sign and mail from the Cat Farm and Confusion Factory – that’s 1,200 volumes for Fledgling, and up to 1,000 Saltations.

The rest of the books will go into Baen’s regular distribution channel and will be available from your favorite bookstore. For those who prefer ebooks, both novels will be available through Baen Webscriptions.

As with any negotiation, there was some give-and-take involved. Part of this negotiation revolved around the form in which the books will be published. There exists the possibility – the language is in the contract – that Baen will decide not to publish a trade paper edition. If they make that decision, then subscribers will receive hardcovers.

Publication dates are not yet in hand; as soon as we have them, we’ll shout them from the rooftops. We did want to give this wonderful news to everyone who supported us and our work as soon as we were certain ourselves.

We’re very grateful to Toni Weisskopf at Baen, and to Jenn Jackson, our agent, who both did master class piloting in order to bring this one safely to port.

Me and the governor and other mixed news

2008-04-11T13:07:30Z

Me and the governor were in the same room yesterday ...
but I doubt he knew it.

The literary tea celebrating national poetry month was a hoot anyway; I met the state's two First Dogs and they were polite and attentive. The poetry we heard was good, and I got to be a participant by chanting along with several poems (I was one of several people invited to be a chorus for these) and I also met a man with a mission: Ron Watier ... see

http://www.watier.org/Ron/goldenraven.htm

and so .... if you have room or your land for a storyteller's circle talk to or email Ron -- he's looking for people to help build a nationwide network of storyteller's circles. Be a link in the chain ...

Elsewise I stopped at B&N on the way home from the poetry stuff and ... it looks like we've been invited to participate in an upcoming event there in Augusta. News as that unfolds.

This just in and a question

2008-04-10T12:31:16Z

First, an amendment:

These just in ... as in these 328 plus page-proof pages of Duainfey. On my plate for the next few days, yes.

Meanwhile, how do you guys do this? I mean, historically we've had a habit of rereading our previous books when getting ready to write the next one if there's been a break in the writing process ... and since we're contemplating the follow-on to Scout's Progress, which is sort of out-of-story sequence for us, I'm in line to reread ... um ...1.5 or 2 million words? Even at a leisurely book every other day that's a month! And we hear from some of you that you reread the series at least once a year... and have real jobs, too!

Second one today ... don't miss earlier post ...

2008-04-06T16:41:19Z

Right ... the second post today is this one -- it consists of a link to Liaden Universe(R) Infodump #67
on Rolanni's blog. A LOT of news there...

http://rolanni.livejournal.com/331385.html

If you're interested in the upcoming Worldcon, please see my earlier post.

Worldcon updates, Denvention ...

2008-04-06T14:30:09Z

If you've always seen science fiction conventions as something "they" do, you may be surprised that the process actually can involve you. You can have input in terms of programming ideas, you can, really --

Go here and fill out the survey --
http://www.denvention.org/programming/member_survey.php

Want to be on programming? There's a really useful FAQ here:
http://www.denvention.org/faqs/faq_program.php

Did you know that Denvention is already posting some bio stuff here? --
http://www.denvention.org/programming/bios.php

here's mine ...
http://www.denvention.org/programming/bios2.php#miller

More from me later today or early tomorrow

Next week, tea at the governor's mansion

2008-04-04T12:46:23Z

I accepted the invitation and I *will* be attending a literary tea next week, down in the state capital, at the Blaine House ... an old Maine building that passes for a "Governor's Mansion". Got to remember to take my sweater... them old buildings stay cool all day.

One more little thing...and an update!

2008-04-03T21:10:12Z

We like to have our train tickets in hand before we head out for the station: an old habit. So today I ordered the tickets for our trip to Denvention, figuring that, with other convention in town that week and operatives moving in ahead of time for the Democratic Convention (which is in town a couple week after us), room on board might get tight.

So I went through with the deal and found space on-board... and discovered that AMTRAK will permit us to pick up the tickets at the station or ... they will charge us $15 for Express Mail delivery. Got to be someone here to sign for them -- Priority isn't good enough... sigh. I feel so secure.

I am not pleased. On the other hand I'm not driving 2200 miles (each way) in high summer just to object.

So far then: we have ordered tickets. We have reserved rooms. We have put in motion requests for party space. We're looking to have a Friends of Liad breakfast. We have each sent off a bio. We have made preliminary arrangements for cat sitter. We have each sent of a photo, we have begun planning what me might read since ... Duainfey will come out at the end of August (or early September) and not the beginning.

I was also going to start my walking tomorrow, so I'll be in decent shape for the Mile High City. On the other hand, there's snow in the forecast, so I did a short walk today, and rescued Santa Claus to boot.
==========================================

Amended to add: It looks like, given baggage limitations, that I may need volunteers to bring some items with them to Denvention. If you are going to be driving to the con
and might have room for a box or two around 10X18X11 or 12X12X10 (approximates)and under 30 lbs... let me know. Thx!

version 2

News of the old school

2008-04-01T19:31:01Z

So, as mentioned in Rolanni's blog today, 30 years ago today we moved our cats and us into the same house... a townhouse, actually, at Bright Meadows, in Owings Mills, Maryland. We lived there for around 8 years before finally moving into Public Storage, in Randallstown, Md, where we had an on-the-property house carefully disguised as a bunch of storage units.

I'd felt funny about moving to Randallstown because that's where my childhood school (after moving from Baltimore's Pimlico_ in second grade) was. I'd have been seven then, IIRC.

That house in Randallstown had begun feeling ... vulnerable... to us before we moved: we were on a road that was over-crowded and getting more so daily, and friends who worked in the local convenience store found it a good month when they weren't robbed at least once. There'd been a shoot-out in a local school, and then a horrible accident on the verge of the property we managed, where a teenager managed to flip a stolen Corvette into the upper branches of a 60 feet tree in a crash we heard one night. We'd planned on moving "with the company" to a new PS in New England, and we'd started prospecting New Hampshire and Maine in pursuit of that when the company changed the housing policy and pay details drastically... but by then we were thinking Maine, anyway.

So, that hidden house in Randallstown, was our final home in Maryland ... and in fact later this year -- long about AlbaCon, -- we'll be celebrating 20 years in Maine.

So, about the old school, the one I went to around the start of the Space Age:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/04/01/school.guns/index.html

What a world we live in. Guess the kid's lucky to be expelled instead of dead.

Goose down? No, geese up...

2008-03-31T14:24:34Z

Pilot reflexes indeed...

caught something moving out of the corner out my left eye and nearly fell out of the chair -- two geese were flying by, laboring into the wind at a little above eye level --- and between me and the birches growing just beyond the tiny pine grove which is our bird sanctuary. I'd say they were 25 feet away or maybe 18 and 23 since they were flying side by side and ... wheee.... by the way, with yesterday's warm weather we're probably down to 90 percent coverage....

Between travel and chapters and catalog updates and an interview-by-email in progress and various behind the scene things like checking in with conventions and bio sending ... the weekend was full. Now thew week is prepping to be full.

The Saltation tease is up: http://community.livejournal.com/fledgling_tease/

Elsewise, someone's noticed something, because the new srmpublisher.com catalog has been getting a visit about once an hour and an order about every four hours since Friday. At this rate we'll be able to pay the train fare to Worldcon, RSN. Always a relief to get those tickets in house.

Chess tonight, with luck. Of course there's a weather forecast ....

A slight chance of snow this morning...then snow and rain this afternoon. Snow accumulation up to 1 inch.
Tonight ...Snow...rain and sleet likely in the evening.... Areas of fog and drizzle. Snow and sleet accumulation around an inch ...

And there you go

2008-03-30T12:36:05Z

The trip to and from Newport yesterday was considerably enlivened by wind and brief bursts of snow; in fact the meeting with Jim Hetley was a little late since he waited out a snow squall that would have left driving sight-distance at about ten hood-lengths.... By the way, despite the lack of 9000 motels, I finally realized that the Newport-Palmrya offramp region reminds me of Breezewood, PA. I haven't been to Breezewood in some years...

Else, fairly domestic yesterday around some writing and technical things for the new srmpublisher.com catalog ... need to change the SKUs on a bunch of things before it becomes onerous, might change some catalog settings. Still learning the new back-end for SRM, which is capable of some very useful imports, reports, and exports. Oh yeah, am pleased to report the catalog will have some more *signed* Jim Hetley books up RSN.

Also domestic ... Elan bopped about Second Life for an hour or so while other things were going on here (got out the cat-eating machine for a quick run around the kitchen, living room, hall, and my office, used some baking soda on the co-pilot's chair, brought boxes of books in from the car... and Elan finally found himself a stud earring that he could modify to the proper shade. So there. If you need a modable stud earring in SL, IM Elan Neruda and he'll send you to the spot...

Coffee -- I haz it. Fud -- I needz it.

version 001B

Up early for the road

2008-03-29T11:44:43Z

Up early today to take care of some SRM Publisher business ...we put it off from yesterday because of the traveling in snow stuff... and of course it snowed well into the evening, so our road, at least is well covered and the potholes are lurking. I'll be meeting up with fellow SFNovelist Jim Hetley, at Timmie's ... you know this is Maine when you see the "reserved for snowmobiles" parking section...

Coffee is made.

Sun on the horizon, or at least threatening to come up behind the stand of snow-coated trees. Moon has a section of sky with no clouds. The birds -- blue jays and doves and chickadees are all looking for breakfast, and to tell you the truth, I've only got about 5 lbs of really cheapo birdseed left. Who expected to be feeding this much this late? It doesn't help that the grackles and red wings are in town.

We're making plans to do another in-world Second Life appearance toward the end of April -- hope you can make it. Once I get the SRM Publisher catalog and korval.com rebuild finished (gie me a month or so for it all) I hope to start a weekly writer's coffee hour at the Friends of Liad Park. The park has been open for several years and features a horseshoe-shaped meeting area that lets you sit and talk without losing track of your your avatar or your audience. There's also an SRM Publisher "store" on the lot next door -- take a look.

Also -- if you're in Second Life and you haven't participated in the Sunflower growing, it may be worth a visit to Intel Island. Me -- as Elan Neruda -- I got my seed packet from Shawna Montgomery and thus every time I plant a sunflower in Second Life (with a chance to win a super gaming laptop!) Shawna also gets credit toward being top planter ... and each sunflower also goes toward an Intel donation to a conservation fund. If you're interested in participating in-world, drop Elan Neruda a note andI'll try to send to send you a Shawna seed-pack copy, or else track down almost anyone from Avalon in the Tiny Empires in-world game.

Me for breakfast!