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.
If you don’t get enough contributions to finish the serial online, what happens to the people who paid $25 expecting a hardcopy edition?
Oh, I expect it’ll be finished eventually; it just may take awhile.
If it really looks like the money’s dried up completely, I’ll look into other options — such as publishing the private edition and making it the only edition, and sending it to donors. The remaining copies would then be offered for sale at some outrageous price — say, $150 apiece — and that would be the end of it. That would be the end of all further serials, as well.
We are so close I expect it will happen.
I’m loving seeing the maps, as about fifteen years ago I sent you a letter (the only one I’ve ever sent to any author) asking about maps.
Now if we could just a map of the Ethshars, I could go back and read the books again with some newfound insight into the world layout.
Heck, who am I kidding, I’m already going to do that with these two maps. 🙂
Glad you like ’em.
May I presume that the $25 represents cumulative donations to the project?
You mean if you made several donations that add up to $25 or more? Yup, that works just fine.