Chapter Twenty-Six has been posted

Chapter Twenty-Six is up.

The current system is that the remaining two chapters will be posted as soon as they’re paid for, and the epilogue will be posted with Chapter Twenty-Eight.

I have $65.95 toward Chapter Twenty-Seven; another $184.05 will do it. $434.05 will finish the first draft.

However, even if I finish posting the whole thing tomorrow (which seems unlikely), I will continue taking donations and counting them as advance orders through March 31st. $25 will get you a copy of the finished book if you’re in the U.S., and $30 will cover it anywhere else, and all donors of any amount will have access to the two bonus maps.

In other news, I’ve talked to the publisher at Wildside Press, and we have a verbal deal for Wildside to publish The Vondish Ambassador. This won’t be final until there’s a signed contract, of course, but it’s a start. We’ve also agreed that rather than me doing a privately-printed first edition, Wildside will do a small first edition (maybe print-on-demand) as quickly as is practical, and then release their regular edition next year — they really don’t like the idea of a non-Wildside edition existing, but they need about a year of lead time for their regular one. This means a lot less hassle for me, and I hope will suit everyone.

Wildside should also be offering their e-book edition of The Spriggan Mirror fairly soon; they have the rights now.

Thanks to all of you for your support!

Chapter Twenty-Four has been posted

Chapter 24 is up.

As I said two posts back, I’m no longer waiting for specific days or times — when enough money comes in, the chapter goes up, which is why I’m posting this before midnight.

I have $65 toward Chapter Twenty-Five. Another $935 will complete the novel. The first draft is entirely written.

And speaking of first drafts, you’ll notice there’s a note in this chapter about that; that obviously won’t be in the final draft.

I don’t think it comes up in this chapter, but there’s also a correction that’s been made to the manuscript but not the chapters I’d already posted — the Empire of Vond has eighteen provinces, not seventeen. I’d miscounted because I was working from a list of the countries Semma annexed, and it didn’t include Semma itself. D’oh.

Thanks!

Additional Notes & Comparisons

Some people have wondered whether I could justify charging 2.5 times as much per chapter this time as I did for The Spriggan Mirror; well, it’s only this past week that The Vondish Ambassador has finally taken in as much money as the serial of The Spriggan Mirror did. That first serial brought in far more than I’d expected.

Both serials came to about 82,000 words; The Spriggan Mirror gets that by rounding up, The Vondish Ambassador by rounding down.

The final draft of The Spriggan Mirror ran a little over 90,000 words; The Vondish Ambassador feels a little rougher to me than Mirror did, so I expect it to run a bit more than that.

Am I going to do more serials? I don’t know. Not right away; I need to concentrate on stuff that pays better, and I want to incorporate some lessons I’ve learned and not do such a rush job next time. I do hope to tackle more eventually, and not just Ethshar, but sequels to some of my other work where there are marketing reasons to not try to sell them through the major publishers — such as my science fiction.

Specifically, I’m considering offering serials of the third War Surplus novel and the second Carlisle Hsing novel — the working titles are respectively The Exile and the Empire, and Realms of Light. I also plotted a sequel to Shining Steel long ago that might be worth a shot, and a prequel to Denner’s Wreck.

And as for Ethshar, I know a lot of you want to see The Final Calling next, but I’m not sure how much I want to write it, so I am not promising it’ll be next. There are several other candidates.

Comments on all these subjects are welcome.

News & Updates

As of 5:00 p.m. on Monday, February 19, I only have $105 toward Chapter Twenty-Four.

The first draft is now entirely written — twenty-eight chapters and an epilogue, coming to very slightly more wordage than the first draft of The Spriggan Mirror.  The epilogue will be posted simultaneously with Chapter Twenty-Eight, whenever we get that far.

I see no need to drag this out; the remaining chapters will be posted as fast as they’re paid for, with no weekly schedule required.

I’ve made up a couple of maps — one of Ethshar of the Spices and one of the Empire of Vond and its neighbors — that I’ll be posting to a private website.  Donors will be given access.  The general public will not.  Donors will also, of course, be informed of each new chapter’s posting, and anyone in the U.S. who’s donated $25 will eventually receive a copy of the privately-printed first edition.  Foreign donors of $30 or more will also receive copies.

I don’t know when that first edition will be available; what’s being posted here is first draft, and it needs to be revised, rewritten, edited, and copy-edited before it can go to publication.  Not to mention acquiring cover art and getting the whole thing properly formatted.  I’ve made preliminary arrangements with a printer, but can’t finalize them until I have the cover art and final text.

My best guess is that the first edition will ship late in the summer of 2007 — assuming the online serial is done before that.  If the serial isn’t yet complete, I may hold off until it is.  Then, and only then, will I talk to small press publishers about doing a regular edition.

Thanks to everyone who’s supported this venture.

Chapter Twenty-Three has been posted

Chapter Twenty-Three is up.

I have ten bucks toward Chapter Twenty-Four.

Chapters Twenty-Four through Twenty-Six are written. I’m a couple of pages into Chapter Twenty-Seven.

My best estimate at present is that the first draft will run twenty-eight chapters and an epilogue, but that could still be off by a chapter or so either way. The epilogue will be included with the final chapter at no additional charge.

I’m likely to be away from my computer on March 14th, so there will probably be no post that week, and two chapters will probably be posted either the week before or the week after.

And incidentally, I’m getting about half a dozen bounces on the weekly updates to donors.  If you donated money and aren’t getting them, it’s because there’s a problem with the e-mail address you provided.

Chapter Twenty-Two has been posted

Chapter Twenty-Two is up.

I have a few dollars toward Chapter Twenty-Three, but it’s got a long way to go.

Chapters Twenty-Three and Twenty-Four are written; most of Chapter Twenty-Five is.

There will be at least twenty-seven chapters, though the last one may be so short I won’t charge for it; that’s the minimum. There could also be more than that, but I’d say there’s no way it’ll run more than thirty-two in all. At present I have no plans for an epilogue or endnotes, but I may eventually see about drawing up a couple of rough maps.

If there is a full-length Chapter Twenty-Seven, it may be delayed; that would be due on March 14th, assuming no missed dates, and I’m probably going to be away from my computer for much of that week.