Year: 2011

Ghost Ship news

Ghost Ship, by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, published by Baen in August 2011, debuts at the Number 8 spot on the Locus Bestselling Hardcover List for August, which appears in the November issue. Other luminaries include Mr. Butcher, Mr. Martin, Mr. Stross, Mr. Goodkind, Mr. Cline, Mr. Brooks, Mr. Grossman, Mr. Palma, and Ms. Armstrong.

Ms. Donaghy, the Features Editor at Goodreads, kindly lets us know that Ghost Ship is included in the first nominee list for the Goodreads Readers Choice Award, and sends a link to all the nominees.

She also explains the process:
Readers have three chances to vote:
Opening Round: October 31 – November 13, 2011
Voting open to official nominees and write-in votes.
Semifinals: November 14 – November 20, 2011
We add the top 5 write-ins as official nominees. Additional write-ins no longer accepted.
Finals: November 21 – November 30, 2011
The field narrows to the top 10 books in each category.
Learn more: http://www.goodreads.com/blog/show/314

ABOUT THE NOMINATIONS
We analyzed statistics from the 87 million books added, rated, and reviewed on the site in 2011 to list 15 books in 22 categories–that’s 330 nominations. We did not consult a panel of experts or form a secret committee of publishing insiders. Readers know what’s good and what’s great. These nominations are based on a book’s number of ratings and average rating as pegged by the more than 6 million members on Goodreads. So a nomination is truly an honor because it comes from your readers!

Ms. Donaghy asks us to do what we can to get our readers out to vote. So! If you are moved to do so, please vote; a bunch of worthy books have been nominated, so going over to take a look is worthwhile, if only from the point of view of compiling a list of books to read.

Goodreads does, I believe, insist that you register with Goodreads in order to vote.

House news

The painters were here this morning at the crack of dawn. They knocked off about noonish, with promises to return tomorrow at the same unnatural hour. The ceilings have been painted, and the walls in the hallway and the living room; and the trim has been wiped with stain. The whole effect is very nice and clean.

The painters were still at it when the guy who’s replacing the deck appeared with his crew. As of this writing, we have no deck. Hopefully, this condition will rectify itself within the next few days, though we’re told that the roof will take another couple weeks, due to our guy’s having gotten a big remodeling job at one of the restaurant’s in town that has to be done — wait for it — before Thanksgiving.

Just when we thought things were settling down, the guy called about the floor (you remember the guy about the floor), with three estimates: on-the-cheap, mom-would-be-proud, and the-one-percent. We’ll be seeing him on Friday or Saturday, I guess, to fine-tune what we want, and, if all goes well, we’ll have new floors in the front of the house by Thanksgiving, to go with the new paint and the new deck.

Does the woman never work? news

Got some words done on “Tinsori Light” this morning; gonna go get myself some more, as soon as I hit “post.”

 

Thanks to everyone who spoke to the question of the ancient disk.   A Plan has been put in motion.

Today?  Was errands in town.  We finally got the gym memberships squared away — our fault, not the gym’s — and I hope to start in with the exercising on Friday.

Why Friday?  you ask.  Why not, oh, tomorrow?

Because tomorrow, at the theoretical hour of 8:30 AM, the painters will arrive.  The guy who’s doing the deck also spoke fondly of a Wednesday start-up, but he won’t be by until noon.

I’m pleased to announce that the entire moveable contents of the kitchen and the living room (the Front of the House) have been relocated to my office, Steve’s office and the bedroom (the Back of the House). The painters will need to move the heavy furniture, which I can’t shift, and which wouldn’t fit down the hallway anyway, into the middle of the rooms and throw a tarp over the whole bidness, but the boss-lady assures me this will be no problem.

Tomorrow, I will be locked in my office, avoiding painters, music on to drown out the merry sound of the chainsaw chewing through the existing deck.  My hope is that I will have a working draft of “Tinsori Light” by the time the painters pack up and leave us, on Thursday.

Wish me luck.

In other news, have you perhaps seen Lemony Snicket’s 13 Observations on Occupy Wall Street?  If not, it’s here, and worth a look.  I’m particularly fond of #11.

 

How to save money on books, and! defeat the Evil Publishing Empire.

All of it.

It was snowing when we went to bed last night. This morning, we woke to the plaintive beeping of UPS units, which was our first clue that the power had gone out.

We lay abed a little longer, hoping that the power would reassert itself — it didn’t — then rose reluctantly to greet the day. Happily, we have a gas stove, and after a brief search for matches, I heated water for tea while Steve made up a scrambled egg breakfast.

After breakfast, I used the snow shovel Steve had foresightfully brought up from the basement yesterday to push the collected precipitation off the deck and the outside stairs. We got maybe six inches of Very Soggy snow, which spent much of the day returning to its natural, more liquid, state. I’m supposing this means black ice and treacherous driving tonight, so everyone stay safe.

After doing my duty to the Goddess of Snows, I pulled out a pen and a yellow pad and started working on “Tinsori Light.”

The power came back around 1:00; Steve made us a wonderful turkey dinner with mashed potatoes and gravy, then we both went back to work.

“Tinsori Light” wants to be written out by hand, which is OK by me — and OK by Mozart, too, since writing out by hand means sitting on the couch with the floofy blanket and the lap desk. Mozart is highly in favor of floofy blankets and the couch.

I’ve transcribed what I wrote, and am pretty happy with what I have. I hope to continue tomorrow, but that’s not as certain as I’d like it to be, due to the rumored arrival of the painter, bearing color chips. Further rumor has her beginning to paint on Tuesday, which means tomorrow will be all about shifting the damn’ kitchen…into the bedroom.

Erk.

The good news is that the painter thinks she can have everything done in one day. If I could hear from the guy about the floors, my life would be complete. For values of complete which include going completely bonkers.

And, may I just say, apropos of nothing much, that I love, love, love, my new pastry mat? I’ve never had one before, and man! does it make kneading dough into a dream.

Hope everybody is safe and warm in the aftermath of the snowstorm.

Progress on “The Space at Tinsori Light”
1,041/8,000? OR 1.0% complete

Space is haunted.

Edited to Add:  Actually, it is snowing.

Progress on Necessity’s Child
74,260/100,000 OR 74% complete

“‘nother child onna street for ya, Miz,” the patrolman said. “Big enough to be workin’ at sumpin, you ask me. Ain’t though, and he’s under years for bein’ idle.”

Dear Friends of Liad and all the ships at sea.

Following Saltation’s lead, Ghost Ship has sold out its hardcover run from the Simon and Schuster warehouse.  This is very, very cool — but it’s not why we’re writing to you.

No, we’re writing to let you know that, because of the sell-out, the Ghost Ships that are now in stores (and in the warehouses of the superstores) — are all that’s left.

In other words, if you were thinking about giving the gift of Ghost Ship for Christmas, you might want to be buying that now.

Mr. Blyly tells us that Uncle Hugo’s has about 70 SIGNED copies of Ghost Ship in hand.

Ms. Nagle at Constellation Books in Reisterstown, Maryland says she has two UNsigned copies of Ghost Ship on the shelf.

Ms. Richmond at Children’s Book Cellar in our very own Waterville, Maine (kidsbookcellarATmyfairpointDOTnet or 207.872.4543 has several copies of Ghost Ship in the store.  Children’s Book Cellar is our “home” store, and we can arrange to stop by and sign books there.

Ms. Hart at Mysterious Galaxy has seven UNsigned copies of Ghost Ship between the San Diego and the Redondo Beach stores.

All of the above bookstores do mail/email orders.

The mass market edition of Ghost Ship is scheduled for August 2012 release, with Dragon Ship scheduled to appear in September.

And!  Don’t forget that electronic editions of all Lee and Miller novels (except Sword of Orion) may be purchased from the Baen Books website

DISCLAIMER STUFF
This InfoDumpling is a product of the Liaden Universe®, accept no imitations. You have received this message because you asked for it. If you wish to subscribe to the Liaden Universe® email list, go here: http://www.fireopal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/liadenuniversenews

–30–

Progress on Necessity’s Child
72,934/100,000 OR 73% complete

“Anna’s sweet on you,” Rodale said, and nudged him with his elbow. “How ’bout that?”

Baen has confirmed that the hardcover edition of Ghost Ship has sold out.  This means that — the stock that’s now in stores?  Is all that’s left.

If you were thinking about giving the gift of Ghost Ship for Christmas, you might want to be buying that now.

Mr. Blyly tells us that Uncle Hugo’s has about 70 signed copies of Ghost Ship in hand.

Ms. Nagle at Constellation Books says she has 2 copies of Ghost Ship on the shelf.

Any other indies within the sound of my voice have Ghost Ship on the shelf?  Sing out and I’ll add you to the list!

 

So, back in middish-September, Teh Intertubes (and we here in this blog entry, too) had a talk about a buncha university libraries calling themselves HathiTrust, which had just sort of decided that copyright was really inconvenient, and digitized a hundred or so books that, in the sole opinion of HathiTrust were “orphaned.”  The Authors Guild pretty quickly filed a lawsuit against the trust, and took a lot of heat out there on Teh Intertubes (we here were polite, though we did not always agree)  for Being Mean to libraries.  Words like “anti-intellectual,” and “anti-education” were tossed about, with a fair number of folk sticking their fingers in their ears and yelling laLAlaLALA at the top of their typing speed.

So, the libraries maintained that they had used “due diligence” in searching for the rights holders of the books they coveted, and the Authors Guild said, If you used due diligence how could you have  missed finding this guy who we found in a four-second Google Search, and he’s plenty mad at you for digitizing his book without asking — or paying?

Well…it turns out that the libraries, being, yanno academic libraries, Just Naturally Assumed that the rights holders would be. . .

drum roll, please

. . .the publishers.

*bangs head on desk*

Read all about it, and more.

So,the gentleman who was supposed to come measure the floors this morning got caught up at another job, and rescheduled for tomorrow morning.

The great shifting of the front of the house to the back of the house continues. I am, unfortunately, down to the kitchen. Where in ghod’s name am I gonna put the stuff from the kitchen? Normally? I’d put in the living room. Not an option this time, obviously.

Made bread — that makes for two loves in the freezer, so that’s all good.

We’ve — actually, that would be Steve — got the first batch of SRM stock into the mail today, headed for its new home.

Put the trash out, did dishes, wrote.

The thrills just go on forever, don’t they?

For those who read here, but not there (I don’t imagine there are that many, if any), there is a poll in progress at Eagles Over the Kennebec. Please take time to participate — or to comment, if you’re not able to do the poll itself.

And now? I’m beat.

See y’all tomorrow.

Progress on Necessity’s Child
71,848/100,000 OR 71.8% complete

“You know what my cat does?” Tansy asked from down-table and opposite. “He sits on top the door ’til somebody comes through, then he jumps on their head!”