The Final Calling was the working title of the eleventh novel in the Ethshar fantasy series, which will be published as The Unwelcome Warlock. The series started out at Del Rey, moved to Tor, but the last few have been written as on-line serials. The Final Calling ran forty chapters and an epilogue, posted beginning June 2010 and ending March 2011.

The serials have worked like this:

• I post a chapter.
• If readers like it, they send me money.
• If I receive enough money, I post the next chapter.
• Repeat until the novel is finished.

You can read the first two posted chapters for free, as a teaser, but the remainder of the novel has been removed at the request of the publisher, Wildside Press, in favor of the finished novel's impending publication.

If you still want to send me money, you can -- until further notice, at least through the end of March 2011, everyone in the United States who sends me $25 or more will receive a printed copy of the book; in Canada it'll take $30, and for the rest of the world it's $35.

In the past, since the finished books had a cover price of less than $25, donors have also received extras of one sort or another -- chapbooks, for example, or maps, or access to bonus materials in private areas online. Since this novel came out much longer than previous serials, I'm not currently planning anything like that this time around.

And why would you want a printed copy, when you can read the story online? Well, the online version was first draft only. The final version will be longer, more detailed, and more polished -- typically, my final drafts run 3,000 to 10,000 words longer than my first drafts.

For another thing, you can't read it online for free anymore.

So that's the deal. I've done four serials now; in all four, I did finish the novel, and donors got copies, though with the third one, Realms of Light, which wasn't an Ethshar novel, it got slow and complicated.

That's the set-up, and I hope you'll enjoy the novel and send me money. Below are a few common questions and answers, if you want more details, and I post progress reports on a blog called the Serial Box. Feel free to e-mail me with other questions.

Although the novel is now complete, I still accept donations.

Q&A

Did you have the whole novel written in advance?

No. I tried to stay at least three chapters ahead. I don't always manage it, but on this novel I think I did -- I was often five to seven chapters ahead. I did have a complete working outline all along.

When you say "a chapter," what does that mean?

I do the actual writing in standard manuscript format, in Word Perfect 10, in Times New Roman, and a chapter is at least ten pages in that format -- typically, about 3,000 words. If for some reason I have a chapter that's less than ten pages, as sometimes happens, especially right near the end of a novel, I throw it in free, or count it as a half -- you'll always get at least ten pages of story.

This doesn't look all that rough; what sort of changes do you make when you revise the first draft?

Here's a comparison from one of the previous serials.

Do you have any other fiction online?

I sure do; see Misenchanted Tales for links to it all.

Is there other stuff you aren't telling us?

Yes, lots; most people don't care about every fiddly little detail, and I don't want this webpage to be a dozen screens long. I'll be happy to answer questions in e-mail me, or in the comments on the Serial Box.