Page proofs for The Gathering Edge hit the mailbox yesterday. This means that, today, I will set up station here on the desk, with our submission copy up on the screen, and the proofs in paper, compare one against the other, and mark any errors on the paper copy.
At the very least, this is a tedious process, and I enter into it with a strong sense of trepidation.
Most of you who read here are aware that the arrival of page proofs in our mailbox means that the release of the Baen eArc is not far away. We, personally, do not know the name of that happy hour, ‘k? So it’s no use asking us. Usually, we find out that the eArc has gone live because an alert reader drops us a note, which we do appreciate. So, if you notice that the eARC is up for download, do let us know, and we’ll help spread the word.
You will perhaps recall that, last year, Belle and I had a wager about how many Alliance of Equals eArcs we could sell. At that point, Belle was of the opinion that we wouldn’t sell more than 500 (which would have been about 150 more than the total eArc sales of Dragon in Exile). Sprite, who last year was too young to wager, had it as her Strong Opinion that we would earn out our advance on eArc sales.
Neither was right, though Sprite came closer to the truth. We exceeded Belle’s high figure by a factor of twelve, indicating that a lot of Liadens were into eArcs last year, but we did not earn out the entire advance.
This year, Belle is taking the position that last year was a fluke, and that no one wants to read a Whole Book about a Tiresome Kitten, anyway. Sprite, who this year can place a formal wager, has modified her position to Edge sales equaling sales of Alliance.
My position is that, with All the Uncertainty in the air, it could go either way. People could hunker down, and hold their purses tight, hoping that the storm passes them by, or they could figure wotthehell; a short life but a merry one.
And now, it’s time for coffee and the first shift of proofing.
Everybody stay safe.
Before I buy the eArc, how much difference is there between that version and the published version?
We weren’t asked for any changes, so, absent cosmetic alterations — fixing ugly sentences, misspellings and whatnot — the books should be substantially the same.
Best of luck! For my part, I will get the eARD as soon as it’s out.
AND the eArc is available three months-ish before the final version makes its appearance!!
I’m getting the e-ARC and the print copy. I did it for both Dragon in Exile and Alliance of Equals. I’ve not been sorry. 🙂
Come on Baen!! We need something to distract us from current conditions! Hurry!
Thanks to hard working authors such as yourself and Steve I can see a pinprick of light at the end of a four year long tunnel. It’s been so comforting having something tangible in my hands that have “worry, worry, worry” attached to it. Thank you both.
Meant to say “that DOESN’T have worry…” etc. Sorry.
Wondering how come still the tiresome manual process of human error-checking. Publisher and you each have an electronic copy of your submittal. Could publisher not send you electronic copy of their version, or do a compare program themselves? I’m sure there are a lot of “type-setter-type” commands in the publisher version, but could these not be ignored or filtered out by the compare program? I’m sure there is a business reason (I don’t know how to do strike-throughs of “logical” on my phone.), but wondering what it is.
Glad to know that my eARC purchases are significant, but saddened to learn that the total sales of them are so small. I know well how significant the numbers are — I’ve had books take several years to pay out and am glad that even one of mine is still in print (though paying less than $15/year now).
Eating cheese, parked by the mousehole, and watching!
That would have been something like sending us the copyedited doc, so we could see which changes were made in our copy. We didn’t get to see the copy edits; these are page proofs, the penultimate book, which incorporates all the changes made during the copyedit. So the only way to catch errors — such as the addition of a character’s surname in a line of text for no reason that makes sense to me — is to eyeball them. We’ll get there…
It seems to me that ebooks are updated on the 15th of the month at Barn (or the next business day if on a weekend).
Can’t wait for the next book. Already pre-ordered the hard cover, may try to get the eARC, too this time as I am getting rather impatient for something good to sink my teeth into.
On a side question, do you every get all 4 cats together? Poor Scrabble seems to be the odd cat out. She seems like such a sweetie, I love seeing pictures of all of them.
All four cats together is…difficult, though it does occasionally happen; usually when fresh food’s been put down.
The coon cats pretty much stick together, but Scrabble is a Reformed Feral who is devoted to Steve, and views anyone who is not-Steve with deep suspicion. This includes me. Trooper had launched a campaign to bring her over to the Coon Side, mooching up to her and talking, and trying to nap near her. He got a scratched nose and abuse heaped upon his head for his trouble. Now, he’ll chirp at her when she passes him in the hall, and make sure that he keeps out of the way of her punishing right paw.
I will be purchasing the eARC as soon as it becomes available. It’s nice to have something to await with anticipation. Thanks for working so steadily and well to share your (and Steve’s) amazing worlds.
the eArc is available at baen, was ordered, and will be read in the next couple of hours
It’s here! It’s here!
http://www.baen.com/the-gathering-edge-earc.html#
Hooray! Hooray!
eARC is out! you are doing soooo much business the baen e boooks site is very very slow.
The EARC is now live. Bought it and will be enjoyably reading this afternoon. I also have preorder for the hardback when it comes out so I’m a double dipper.
Anne in Virginia
my money is with Sprite’s, FWIW
I just get ’em all … eARC, hardcover, and Kindle ebook and I enjoy every darn one of them.