PSA – Page 4 – Sharon Lee, Writer

Changes in Kindle delivery from Baen Ebooks

This came in email; I assume it’s been sent to all Baen .mobi customers

Dear Baen Ebooks customer,

Starting on or about June 10, 2015, Baen Ebooks will no longer be able to provide automatic delivery of the .mobi format to a Kindle device via the “Email book to my Kindle” feature. We have just learned that to comply with Amazon’s Terms of Use, Baen Ebooks cannot use Amazon’s Personal Documents Service to deliver paid content.

Baen Ebooks will still offer the “Mobi/Palm/Kindle” format with every Ebook we sell. If you want to read that format on a Kindle, there is only one change: You can no longer send the Ebook directly to your Kindle from our site. You can, however, still email your .mobi Ebook to your Kindle by following these directions:

Log in to your Amazon Kindle account and Amazon Kindle Manager.
In Amazon Kindle Manager, add your personal email address to your list of approved senders under Manage Your Content and Devices Settings.
Log in to your account on Baen Ebooks and navigate to your purchased Ebook’s product page.
Click “Email book to my Kindle.”
Enter your personal email address into the email address box.
Press send.
Check your email. You should receive an email from Ebooks@baenebooks.com with a .mobi file attached.
Forward this email to your Kindle, making sure the .mobi file remains attached. Within 15 minutes, your Ebook should be on your Kindle.

For more information on how to load Baen Ebooks onto your Kindle device, check out our Ereader Instruction page: http://www.baenebooks.com/t-ereaderinstructions.aspx#kindle If you have any questions about how to access the Kindle Ebooks you’ve purchased from Baen, please email us at baensupport@principledtechnologies.com.

We are very sorry for any inconvenience this change causes. Thank you for your patience and support of Baen Books.

Regards,
Baen Ebooks Web Team

In which boxes are packed

Ten boxes of Writerly Stuff will leave the Cat Farm and Confusion Factory tomorrow bound via UPS for the Northern Illinois University Library archives. I’m feeling slightly conflicted about this, but mostly happy that I don’t have to schlepp those ten boxes of Stuff to a new house.

The packing of boxes has allowed me to learn that Spite is not at all terrified by the tape gun, as Mozart was. She slept through the whole packing operation.

So, that.

Thanks to everyone who found Old Liaden FAQs on the Wayback Machine. That will be a big help.

I have been receiving Worried Emails from folks who wonder “how” Alliance of Equals “is going.”

Short answer: It’s going.

Longer answer: After the long illness Steve and I enjoyed after PhilCon, we returned to Alliance to find that it, too, wanted to be written in Chunks. I am not, myself, a fan of the Chunk Method of writing novels. However, it has certainly been done, is being done, and will doubtless be done again.

Among its many other character flaws, the Chunk Method makes it very difficult to know how much work has been done; how much remains to be done; and how to quantify any of that to people who are not me, or possibly Steve.

So, while it looks like I’ve Totally Spaced the fact that we have a book due at the end of May; the real fact is that work is going forth. Messy, tedious work, but — work, nonetheless.

For the last couple of days, for instance, I’ve been busying myself taking one scene from Chunk A, one scene from Chunk B, and one scene from Chunk C and braiding them together. I hope to finish the braiding of all available scenes today, and therefore achieve some idea of where we actually are, in terms of story geography.

See? This is why I prefer to write linearly.

. . .which reminds me that I may have failed to mention here that “Chimera,” a Liaden short story (actually, a Liaden novelette) has been submitted to Baen. If all goes according to plan, it will be published on the front page at Baen.com in mid-May. For the curious, “Chimera” was written linearly.

Also! PSA.

Yesterday, I had an appointment with my doctor, which has resulted in a second appointment, in a couple weeks, at the hospital lab. I am not Terrifically Happy about this, especially given the various choices of outcome cited as probable. This means that I will possibly be even more short-tempered and sarcastic than usual. Consider this your Fair Warning not to poke the author.

And now…Steve has made us a lovely lunch, which I will in a moment partake of, and afterward get back to work on the braiding.

Hope everybody’s having a lovely Wednesday.

Who’s that character? and! Hunting the elusive house

Several people have written to ask me this question; I am therefore posting the answer here in hopes that it will find others who are baffled by reading the sample chapters for Dragon in Exile. Which are here, free for the reading.

Rys Lin pen’Chala figures prominently in a novel entitled Necessity’s Child, published in February 2013 by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller. This novel is currently available from Baen, as a hardcover, a paperback, and an ebook. It is also available as an audiobook, from Audible.

If you gave Necessity’s Child a miss because it was only a side book, you will, yes, have missed Rys entirely.

* * *

So, yesterday, we ventured forth in the snow to do a spot of house-hunting with our agent. We went armed with three houses, one at the lower edge of our price range, one in the middle range, and one at the top of our range.

I had thought, going in, that the middle house would prove to be an acceptable compromise, despite it was an older house (most of the houses in this part of Maine are older houses; they built ’em to last, back in The Day). As described, it had much of what we’re looking for in a house, including a sun porch, two offices, a bedroom, and two baths.

Sadly, it quickly became clear that the middle house was. . .not for us. So much for my powers of precognition.

The lowest priced house had plenty of space, was wired for a generator, and had a backup heat source (belt-and-braces, a Maine tradition!). No sun porch, but a ginormous back yard, and what are reputed to be “extensive gardens,” which we couldn’t see, because — snow. It needs what our agent refers to as “updating”, but we could move in without, and then “update” around ourselves. The trouble with that being freelance income. We’re really, really trying to come up with a house that can run what it brung. This may not be realistic of us, but, really, trying to buy a new house isn’t particularly realistic of us, either, so why not shoot for the moon?

The high-priced spread was. . .very nice, indeed: Sunroom, dual furnace (oil/wood), fireplace with a stove insert, nice, workable kitchen, plenty of good cat windows, half-finished basement — everything goomeki. Except — at the top of what we can theoretically afford.

So. . .the hunt continues.

Today, I need to write one more scene for the as-yet titleless story, so it can sit for a couple days before we do a cold read. I should also pack some more boxes for the archive, so we can get rid of the pile at the end of the hall before Sprite declares it her summer fortress.

In other news, BN tells me that our copy of Tracker will arrive via UPS tomorrow.

In the meantime, the experimental $500 Patreon goal has, as of this morning, hit $1,166, via the kind subscriptions of 149 Liaden readers. Thank you all. (Here’s the link, if anyone would like to stare in wonder at that number.)

And, so — to work.

PSA: Dragon in Exile

Dragon in Exile is not — that’s NOT — a “Theo book.” I’m pretty sure we said that, several times, but apparently some folks missed school that day.

Alliance of Equals is also not — that’s NOT — a “Theo book.” Maybe if I start saying it now, people will catch on by the time the eArc comes around.

We now return you to your regularly-scheduled blog.

Well, no, actually, we don’t. Maybe tomorrow on the regularly-scheduled blog. I’m kinda tired, tonight.