Journeyman

Note the oneth:

Things move on: yesterday I personally visited several printers around the state while looking for new quotes for Liaden Universe Companion #2 ... yes, the book will mostly likely be over a month late. Forgive me, please. At one good-sized printing plant I happened to be met by the owner who was grabbing a coffee in the front office; his office manager recalled that we'd done other printing at their plant over the years. He looked at a sample of LUC 1, mused that the paper was ... likely "natural" at 50 or 55lbs. And he said, "this is laminated -- you want that, and these blank pages are on purpose, right?" Then he took my info and passed it on to his estimator (who had called for a detail by the time I got home.

At the other plant, it took the front desk person *5* requests and quite a few moments on the intercom to get someone to help me, and that person moved me to the "cold call" office and after a short while began slapping at his chest heroically... trying to shut his cell-phone off but not succeeding. He then excused himself and stepped out of the room and spoke on the phone for some minutes before returning to tell me my page count must be off, and that without a micrometer he couldn't be sure of the weight of the paper. I mentioned I'd several other bids out and gee, could he tell me about "the guy in Farmington" and he complacently said that yeah, they'd bought him. Young sales guy then promised to "feed this into the system" and promised me an answer, probably this week.

Sooooo....
wonder who I'd prefer to deal with?

note the twoth:

in house we have the first round of interview questions from a German magazine, phantastisch! ... and since these are email interviews it could take awhile before it appears. Apparently the rapid appearance of the German editions of Agent and friends is drawing some interest. One informant reports we're getting sandbagging reviews on amazon.de -- but how would I know? Anyone here speak German?

note the threeth:

originally meant to be a travel week ending up at TuckerCon/ARCHON/NASFIC, instead this is a recuperation week of sorts and though I'm keeping busy it certainly is not at the same pace as if I were off to the shadow of the Arch. I have shipped some fliers off to NASFIC ... and am hoping the reach Myles, who took over my room when it became apparent I couldn't go. Friends of Liad -- if you see Myles and haven't seen fliers, ask him: I sent two mixed packages. Meanwhile a repeat request -- if you know you're going to be at a convention, we can ship to you before hand to to your destination, but beware, some places charge absurd amounts for handing over a ream of paper. In any case, with luck, we should have some SRM and Liaden interest flyers. Cross fingers. And BTW, anytime you're at a con and it's closing time, Liaden fans are encouraged to pick up and take with them any Liaden flyers they see that appear destined to be tossed ... you can send them back to us media mail, share them with friends, take them to your next convention/book club meeting/family gathering....
we really prefer them to be used, once printed.

Note the four:

Somewhere around here: ... a blog of note ... especially if you are a writer or interested in writing process ... http://asterling.typepad.com/incipit_vita_nova/ ...
enjoy. If anyone asks, tell 'em Steve sent ya. Meanwhile, if you see a notable blog on a genre-related topic, feel free to let me know....

Note the fivest:

Sharon is apparently not going to Con*Cept in the beautiful city of Montreal this October, while I apparently am. I note Baen authors David Weber and Tanya Huff involved in GoH spots ... it ought to be fun, though I guess I'll have to see how or if my cell service works there...

Note sixish:

I do hope Friends of Lid will be able to put together an FoL breakfast or lunch or party at NASFIC, and if you do I'd love to have some (webbable) photos. I have to tell you that after four or five years of being on the road six to ten weeks for conventions I am going through extreme con withdrawal this year. Attention convention committees: the necessities of Sharon's work schedule these days means we need to plan *far ahead* ... if we win the lottery big-time we may be able to return to a more informal life-style, but the health insurance situation being what it is in Maine, we're expecting I'll be doing more gallivanting than Sharon. If you'd like to see us both, please ask well ahead.

Note the seven:

I have a feeling we're going to hit at least 45 chapters in Fledgling at the current rate, possibly 50. Might be able to get it done, rough, this year. We shall ... see.

Meanwhile, our good (and extremely patient!) buddy Sam Chupp of the Fledgling podcast reports on the order of 150 or 160 subscribers (I guess this is RSS feeds?) to his near weekly reading of Fledgling. Try a listen, do ... and this week, make an effort to tell your friends about Fledgling and the podcast...

Still here? Thanks for reading all this dense stuff! Visit often, tell your friends,
and enjoy!

Well... where to start? Fighting with connectivity again...gah.

Right .. .first, over there at Jim Baen's Universe the folks have posted the first half of the novella we sold them just the other day. The one that's due out in December. No grass growing under their feet, eh?

Oh look, my connection to the Internet *is* back .. .so here: http://www.baens-universe.com/articles/Misfits

(aside... the spellchucker keeps wanting to fix "Baen" to "bane" ... go figure.

Meanwhile, You've done it, really. You know that Liaden Universe® Companion Number One book we talk about from time to time? The one we rescued a couple more boxes of from Meisha Merlin there at the end? That SRM Publisher bestseller? Well there... those boxes are empteeeeeeeeee. I *do* have a couple shelf copies in reserve in case a copy that's in transit is lost or turns up under the wheels of a warehouse tractor.
Otherwise, we have a Sold Out sign up there on the catalog page where LUC#1 sits....that makes something over 1400 copies distributed so far, which isn't bad for a home grown.

Thanks, and if you were planning on getting one please hold on while we get other ducks more fully in a row, like Liaden Universe® Companion #2. I figure we're about two weeks behind where we should be on that, mostly my fault. I always assume that the 28 hour a day clock I want to use will become generally available... sigh.

Oh, back to the other thought: In Design CS2 and I are noodling at the small-size paperback version of LUC#1, but it'll still be awhile, sorry. I never got my office or staff together what with these other distractions, so it'll be a few...

Also, those Ace books -- Agent of Change, Conflict of Honors, Carpe Diem, Balance of Trade ...that we were selling signed? Sold out. Gone. I may have a back-up copy each of them to cover the books sold and in transit... but elsewise, gone. Thanks, sorry.

I note there's been a recent rush, what with the news getting out that Meisha Merlin was kaput and... the things hitting there at Baen.

Oh, right, and who knows what the Baen folks are doing *now* about those pesky short stories? I mean, they're talking one huge big bundle of 200000 words plus, a Liaden Universe® Big Bang ... to start. Down the road, we'll see how they do it. But there's time, there's time ... I think 8 days until that's due out, but who's counting? I think that'll show up under .... Webscriptions.... there at the Baen publishing empire.

About that rush.. Rolanni rushed down to Augusta yesterday to get a few more copies of Allies printed ... and a couple of the other chapbooks...and when she got home we had another wholesale order come in for Allies and Barnburner and Calamity's Child. I will mention that *many of you* have failed to order Calamity's Child or Barnburner this year, so you'll just have to go over to the the SRM Publisher catalog and make up for it!

Why, you might ask, was this written at 7:04 in the ayem? Well, Theo Waitley needs us to get some work done on Fledgling... since she's got a noon Monday appointment.

And one more thing ... need something to do while you're waiting for more Lee & Miller stuff? Have you been over to the quarterly free online magazine Helix SF? Yep, free as in Fledgling... if you like it, you can send them a few $$ and they split it up at the end of the quarter. If anyone asks, tell them Steve Miller sent you.

Later, in odd moments this weekend, I'll be putting some stuff on ebay....shhhh...

So sometimes there's plenty to do.

Today I dug a post hole in the cat garden, but still haven't set the post. Am trying to decide it it's deep enough, given the freeze zones here...

I fixed an egg sammich with cheese and ham, on onion roll, for breakfast.

I walked a little over 2 miles in a couple of quick between-things walks; on one walk I was entertained by the neighbor's menagerie who watched me walk by -- a small poodle-look gray dog, a black and white cat almost as big as the dog, and a black-and-white rabbit every bit as big as the cat.

I bemoaned the Orioles. Oh, woe again.

I also bemoaned the local "Planet Fitness" ... gah... it often gets far too buggy walking in Maine this time of the year, but I fell very much in dislike with Planet Fitness when I visited there. The hostess was all smiles about the bank of 15 TV monitors facing the exercise equipment... which thrills me none. Even if I *can* bring my own headphones, I have no use for 15 ad-boxes staring me in the face as I get sweaty.

Guess I'll just have to use the old treadmill downstairs...sigh.

I also set up a couple more eBay auctions, including the #8 of 50 limited edition sterling Liaden Universe pin (ref. 250128451809 ) and a copy of Pilots Choice (first edition, 4th printing!) Item number: 250128438119 ...

Lunch was a large salad, not Banichi.

Also on the plate today: layout work on LUC#2, the text lately back from our friend and excellent proofreader Elecktra. Am still not king, am still not fluent in InDesign.

Among others, was in touch with Sam Chupp, who reports progress on the podcast of Fledgling. It will be good to get mostly caught up there, which should happen RSN.

Also, mentioning Fledgling, Chapter 18 is in the works here. Must push just a bit, looks like.

Catch you all later.

sigh...
wanted to post this too:
reading for sf and fantasy professionals...
http://sfscope.com/2007/06/bea-wrapup-a-lot-of-books.html



version 1.11

Really, I guess someone's been talking about us, somewhere. This is good news-bad news situation, you betcha.

I guess that because while we were away for the weekend SRM Publisher's website was very busy; in fact as of now I am declaring both the Meisha Merlin Crystal Dragon and our SRM Publisher Liaden Universe Companion Volume One as unavailable. I may find some of each, and hope I do, but in the current cramped basement office of SRM ... I'm not confident that I have any more of either and the website may have taken more orders than I can fill of both of them. I still have about a dozen of the Hellspark's sitting in the last case, IIRC...but again, since we returned from the ocean I haven't had an opportunity to print all the orders out. So now things are printing, and with luck I won;t have to refund too many orders...

Oh yeah...

we did go to Old Orchard Beach, and I'm for telling you that as soon as we win that lottery we're for moving to the ocean. We got in a lot of walking, a bit too much eating, and a fair amount of lazing about... and a bunch of story-conferences and other conferences as well. You know, what-if things...

And so I'm suddenly and without much warning considering the advantages of an actual in-town office for SRM Publisher. This thought first struck me last Monday when I discovered that a small computer shop had gone of business, leaving it's quiet side-street location (see gone of of business above) empty. So I sat at the end of the street in question, looking over the Kennebec River as it flows under the Two Cent Bridge and drank a bottle of milk while I nibbled on a brownie bought from the bank's "Support The Food Pantry" bake sale.

Thoughts: SRM doesn't do much in the way or retail-walk-in type traffic, but we do need a certain amount of dedicated space, and we need it in a place that's not subject to seasonal wetness. A dehumidifier is, in the long run, not sufficient... sigh.

Thoughts: We could use a commercial address because that way we'd get shipments more consistently. Where we are in east Winslow there's a local seasonal road load limit that means we've had to drive as much as 300 miles (multiple car loads back and forth to Augusta) to pick up shipments. That limit is in force as many as 75 days. Hmmm.

Thoughts: The first three in-town locations I looked at averaged about 1/2 mile from the PO, and one I really like was 1/4 miles. Hmmm... So in gas alone we could save oh... $50 to $80 a month, not to mention the hours of drive time.

Thoughts: Then again, if we have a commercial location we might be able to get some help from the local business college, in terms of interns from the business programs. They have a firm, set in super-grade concrete ringed in barbed-wire policy that none of their interns will work with an in-home business. Since many of their students are people who are returning-to-school types, they represent an experienced and motivated resource that I don't have access to right now. Marketing help is good!

Thoughts: Of course, there's the cost. One place I looked at yesterday... is a one fee covers it all: Rent, power, heat, air conditioning, trash, water, sewer... and there's plenty of parking. Not sure if the tractor trailer loads of books could make it in directly .. but if they have to park on the street the distance to the office is about 25 paved feet instead of the 50 unpaved and sometimes mud that we have now.


Down side -- being away from the cats more. Up and down -- not being able to do laundry and dishes and such between things.

Potential: might could finally do the small writing group/s I've been thinking about... for which our house and location in the sticks are unsuited. How much is a two hour weekly in-person workshop experience worth? When I was tutoring one writing student (some years ago) she was paying $15 and then $20 a session.

Upside, reclaiming large living areas at home.

Comments welcome ...

For one thing, the Second Life Book Fair is nearly upon us...

and SRM Publisher (following link ought only work if you have Second Life installed...) has a fancy booth that 's ready for visitors there ... if you're into virtual worlds, please come on by! If you'd like to share that link with someone in plain text .... http://slurl.com/secondlife/Wallaby/208/49/53/

... if you're a Friend of Liad, a member of Science Fiction Rangers, or have other sfictional connections in SL come on by -- we may need folks to help stand around and look busy! You can volunteer to me (elan neruda in world) or to Shawna Montgomery for particular hours, too.

Also the link for the Hellspark order page ought to be working now...

And now off to other excitements!

Among the other excitements


New and Improved Version 2.2

While I'm searching for my rail trip icons I might as well use the official Liaden Universe(r) Trip jar image, even though we usually don't use it when traveling alone. Still, this trip is very much a Lee&Miller, Liaden Universe(R)thing, which will become apparent down the road.



This unscheduled tour is causing ripples in the rest of the year: we'll be dropping several weekends at the ocean, at least, and the NASFIC appearance is very much in doubt. Our trip jar wasn't meant to support renting a truck for a 1500 mile (11 miles a gallon?) hike up the East Coast -- normally we'd expect SRM to handle that kind of thing. SRM, however, is committed to getting Liaden Universe Companion #2 out on time, and the recent orders from LUC#2 are in a dedicated account to that end. Yikes and double yikes.

I guess the the first hard part will be tomorrow evening -- while I usually sleep pretty well on the train, when possible we get a sleeper (for one thing meals come with the ticket then and besides, there's much more room to spread out a laptop and work) -- but the haste and budget have prevented that so far. We shall see what we can contrive. Sleeping well would make starting a return trip Thursday much more possible.

The next hard part will be deciding when to get off the road. In general I try to plan well ahead; this time I'll be traveling with an eye to gas stations, attention span, and various discount motel coupons snarfed from the local truck stop's "truckers news" bin.

I was thinking I might have my younger brother as a co-driver for a portion of the trip, but he came down with viral infection that's blown his balance out and is likely
to stay home. Gah .. I just remembered that I won't be driving the Subaru with it's onboard automatic toll-payer. I'll have to stop for everyone of those toll booths...

I do want to thank the folks who've already written volunteering time and energy along the way, and those who understand the delay in Fledgling as well. If you've been wanting to help, tell a friend about Fledgling or drop a few dollars in the trip jar... we appreciate it!

Once upon a time lots of people were reading on their Palms, on their laptops, on their Rocket Ebook readers... but somehow the readers started locking folks out...

Here's a group trying to have a generic ebook reader built that will do what ebook readers should: let you read the public, non-proprietary formats favored by most of the ebook reading public.

Comment here if you like, but it might be better to comment there and get your name on their list. And take this news elsewhere -- are you listening, John Scalzi?

While some travelers headed to Boston are stuck in ice, we're sitting at work in our comfy Westin room near the bay, waiting for the refrigerator. Earlier, we took a walk through the hotel after breakfast, walking on ancient ferns -- or the impression of them -- on the slices of rock they use for flooring in the hotel lobby.

Also seen this morning was long-time traveling fan and Friend of Liad, Larry Conley. Larry, in the past, suffered through an 18 hour comedy-of-aircraft getting from Albany to ShevaCon to visit with us, and he reports this trip was much better. Got the wifi working and found Phil of the Friends of Liad (and an LJ member) was online on my LJ buddy list and we chatted via IM for sometime before a plot discussion took me AFK.

The refrigerator we're waiting for was also requested last night when we arrived at the hotel about 10:16, the AMTRAK bus having made remarkable-on-schedule-time in the face of tremendous and howling headwinds and sidewinds, arriving at a not-quite random Boston curbside at an on the dot 10:05.

AMTRAK bus? Well, yes.. while a new, non-commuter segment of the line is being worked on, the late weekday train has temporarily transmogrified into a bus. The ride was comfortable, remarkably uncrowded, and even the movie was not offensive. It was *not* "Along Came Polly" which movie assaulted us several times the last time we traveled by bus.

Arriving, we came through the automatic door just in time to see Parris and GRRM standing up from a table in the lobby and moving toward another. Shortly after we ran into a host of Boskone regulars including Tony and Suford Lewis, Martin Deutsch of the traveling east coast artshow crew...and a sudden
crowd of others: David Hartwell, Lis Carey, Bonnie,Ted, and Kurt of AlbaCon fame, and in full con-mode, the inestimable Hotel Liason SMOF, Ben Yalow. For some reason -- oh, it was the handing out of Fledgling business cards -- we ended up with several varieties of Get Out of Hell Free cards in exchange, as well as hearing part ofthe saga of Flamingo Montoya. Also, a Fledgling donation sufficient (it turns out) to cover a fancy breakfast, served on square plates.

A busy week it was, even before scheduling in the trip from East Winslow. Did an interview ... which turned into a 1500 word feature ... for the local paper as well as the ordinary of packing and shipping SRM Publisher books, getting the latest Fledgling chapter up within a few moments of scheduled time, and the like. Also shoe-horned in some snow shoveling, cat-belly scritching, and other such mundanities.

Today we're running at a comfortable pre-convention speed... I'll be walking down to the dealer's room in a bit, and Rolanni, who is working on a future chapter of Fledgling, despite being at con, is ready to do the same.

More later....

Still not king

Meanwhile, my presumption is that the holiday season will be a disappointment to Wall Street. At this point during the holiday stores are often frenzied. Here, I'm seeing quiet retail activity, few to no lines, parking lots with lots of empty space. Perhaps that's because Waterville has not grown into it's new "I am not a mall" shopping area. Or maybe not...

No chess Monday coming...sigh. Maybe I can find mty old Chessmaster 2000 discs...

Isn't it odd to see Microsoft handing out "Linux licenses"... come on -- just buy Novell and get it over with, will you?

Watch the skies.

Still no reasonable snow here. Colorado, you can send some our way!

I haven't bought by holiday sauerkraut yet. Guess I'll be a last-minute shopper. Oh yeah, need some cranberry sauce, too.

Will telephone tables disappear now that everyone packs a phone in their pocket?

I still miss my little S-10 sometimes. Oh for the joy of standard shift.

The downstairs office is making headway against empty boxes. I sill don't have a printing contract for a reprint or new-print of Liaden Universe Companion Volume One... guess I got to get on the stick there...

My oatmeal should have been ready 5 minutes ago -- I better go eat

... and my oatmeal was ready... but in the middle of the meal some traveling Watchtower missionary types came by to interrupt. I, alas, was not able to shake hands with the male of the duo, explaining -- rather briefly -- that I was at breakfast. Note to missionaries: never stop at my house by parking lengthwise across my driveway as if to block my exit again...

Do all appliances need batteries and brains? I managed to find, after a long search, a Bissell non-electric, non-battery powered floor sweeper. It wasn't easy to find. But a rechargeable battery powered back-up floor sweeper is another excuse to pollute, IMNSHO. This is lighter, and I can use it without sucking power from the grid.

I need to buy another 5000 to 10000 sheets of paper. Sigh. At least the paper isn't battery powered.

I will be glad when the Tim Horton's they're building in our neck of the woods actually gets here. When it does, I will begin pestering them to add scones to the stateside menu.


OK... we're now officially in the holiday. Have fun.

Well there...

I talked to our printer today... and he's supposed to be doing me a quote on a mass-market-sized perfect bound book... to see if we can go ahead with a small paperback of Liaden Universe Companion #1...

also... (hooray!)...

it appears we'll be able to start packing books (Allies) sometime Friday afternoon on Saturday morning. Cross fingers, do.

I haven't looked over the whole database for factoids (yet), but several I noticed in passing: Allies was pre-ordered by exactly the same number of people with Canadian addresses as with UK addresses... and 11 -- that's eleven -- different countries will be represented in the pre-order mailing alone. Cool.

Today was the second day in the row that the windshield wipers removed snow before I took Rolanni off to work. Then it got to 43F and gray again. A correspondent tells me "there's a chance of plowable snow this weekend!" ... said with big grin and lots of energy and a thumbs up, too.

Now, dinner is in works. Maybe a glass of wine with dinner... and biscuits... that's the ticket!