Chapter Twelve has been posted

Chapter Twelve has been posted.

Chapter Thirteen is about one-third paid for.

Chapter Fourteen is written; Chapter Fifteen is this close, but I keep thinking of little bits I want to squeeze in.

There was some good discussion in the comments two posts back. If you missed it, check out under “Chapter Five revised,” though absolutely none of it had anything to do with the revisions to Chapter Five.

Damned Spammers

Okay, I give up.  I had hoped to avoid blacklisting the words “Prozac” and “pharmacy,” since they might come up in actual conversation, but I can’t.  If you want to mention any pharmaceuticals in comments, you’ll have to find alternate phrasings.

The list of forbidden words is getting pretty long.  Sigh.

Technical Note & Apology

Some donors may have noticed that PayPal added a shipping charge.

This is because I’d added shipping charges on my “Books for Sale” page links, and PayPal has this bizarre policy of “If you add shipping one place, you add it everywhere.”

I hadn’t realized they did that, and frankly, I think it’s stupid to add shipping to a donation — I mean, they have a “donation” category and that’s how it’s labeled when the money arrives — but that’s what they do.

So I’ve removed the shipping charges from the account, and I apologize to everyone who got troubled by this glitch. If you order less than $25 of books from my “Books for Sale” page, though, you’ll have to add the shipping yourself — $3.00 for one paperback book, $5.00 for two or more.

Donations do not have a shipping charge. Neither do hardcovers.

Anyone who wound up paying more than you intended, drop me a note, and we’ll find a way to make it right.

Chapter Eleven has been posted

Chapter Eleven is up.

Chapter Twelve was about seven dollars short of being paid for when I sent out e-mail and posted notices elsewhere, but as I was writing this another donation came in, so it’s paid for and will be posted on November 29th.

Chapter Thirteen is written. Chapter Fourteen isn’t finished.

Latest word on The Spriggan Mirror is that it really is at the printer now, but there was another brief delay while Wildside tried to convince the chain bookstores to order more copies while there was still time to adjust the initial print-run. It may be out in time for Christmas, but I can’t guarantee anything at this point. I really hope it will be.

A happy Thanksgiving to everyone in the U.S. who’s reading this!

Chapter Ten has been posted

Chapter Ten is up.

Chapters Eleven and Twelve are written, but nowhere near paid for.

Chapter Eleven is written, and Chapter Twelve is almost done.

Actually, Chapter Ten only passed the $250 mark at about 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday — I hadn’t thought I’d be posting this tonight. Donations have definitely slowed.

Which is completely understandable, of course; most people who know about the project and are willing to chip in have done so by now. I expected to reach this point around now, give or take a few chapters.

So now what I hope readers will do is tell their friends — mention the project in blogs or newsgroups or MySpace pages, or anywhere else you think might help.

One thing I find interesting is that for The Spriggan Mirror, a few people made very large donations, some of them giving me hundreds of dollars. I hadn’t expected that, but it was part of how the whole thing got paid for.

This time, though, almost no one’s doing that. There’s only been one three-figure donation so far. Lots and lots of smaller donations.

I’m happy with that, really, as I felt a bit guilty sometimes accepting such generous gifts, but it does mean that more readers will be needed this time around.

So anything you can do to spread the word would be much appreciated.

And if you haven’t already read them, if you donated money last time around you should probably check out the comments on the previous post, about yet more delays and hassles with The Spriggan Mirror. Honestly, I’m doing the best I can; I turned around the final page proofs in a matter of hours, but Wildside is just slow.

I really, really hope this will be the last of these setbacks, and that the book will ship soon.

Thanks for your patience.

Update on The Spriggan Mirror

So I’d said The Spriggan Mirror should be out the second week of November, right? Which would be now?

Well, it isn’t. My apologies. It is, however, making progress — I finally have my last set of proofs to check over, and should have that done later today. It should still ship in time for Christmas, though just barely.

There’s another issue that’s come up, as well. I said it would include the short story “Sirinita’s Dragon,” but it turns out that would push the page count up into the next price bracket, which the publisher is very, very reluctant to do. So the current plan is to put that story online instead, and give the URL in the book.

I had told people who contributed $15 or more that they would get the short story, though, so I’ll also be printing a chapbook of it that will be included with the copies I send out to those donors. The chapbook will also be offered for sale through my website, details to be determined.

Thanks for your patience.