Sunday, November 18, 2007

Desperately Trying Not To Be Tacky

Let us imagine that information comes to me as a trickling spring--rather like an hourglass in a way--of quantum water. It comes slowly and isn't entirely sure whether it exists or not at any given moment. (Yes, I've probably just made a dozen quantum physicists weep.)

Nonetheless, charging right along.

To update information:
We ran into a hold-up with volumes 9 and 10. My original understanding was that they would be ready about the start of November so we could have the first print run done by December 15th and everybody could have a nice extra gift under the tree. (Our Christmas tree was always rather sparsely populated so the idea appealed to me.) As it stands, for reasons I won't go into unless everybody displays a particularly keen interest in the details, those won't be complete *until* the 15th. (9 and 10 are caught up in the transition between (edit)proofreaders and typesetters;* subsequent volumes will proceed at a production rate of about four a month with ten printed every two and a half months--add a couple of weeks either way for wiggle room.
Our choice has been to either go ahead and start with volumes 1-8 or wait for volumes 1-10. I must admit, I'm giving in to my personal sense of aesthetics here. By waiting for the first ten volumes to be finished, that gives us
a) time to have icons devised for the book. The icons will go on the spine and help identify each book at a glance.
b) We can start the new books with the new year and end with the closing of the year.

Also, somebody asked when we were planning on talking to all the subscribers about what's happening. We're going to send out another letter the week after Thanksgiving--as it seems a number of people didn't get the original, we're going to include a copy of that as well. In addition, the day we mail it, I will post a copy of that letter here. It will include the details of our new operating arrangements and the details for all original subscribers.

*I originally said "Copyeditors" here. I do apologize, I keep confusing the term "copyeditor" with "proofreader" and "typesetter."

4 comments:

Unknown said...

What is happening with the books as far as the image on the spine, the slipcovers and the refunds? I know a lot of ideas were going around, but nothing seems to be definitive.

Unknown said...

Could you or others at the Trust create a mailing list and/or use the original subscriber email addresses to start sending out weekly or biweekly updates?

It would be really nice to have regular correspondence, even if it's just to say "No definitive progress since the previous email, we're still working on X."

This blog is a good start, but I checked it regularly for over a month with no updates, then since I last checked there have been several updates. So far, I have not found a way to have this blog email me when it's updated.

You could also link to it from the as-yet-unreleased new website so that other can sign up as well.

Mailing lists are ridiculously easy to make and it shouldn't take much effort to send out a quick email every Friday or two.

Jim Bob said...

I hope that the corrections to Time Enough For Love include a revision of the horrible mess that was made of the Latin verse in "The Tale of the Twins Who Weren't". The original Putnam edition contained a small mistake ("omme" for "omne") but Meisha Merlin managed to transform the whole poem into incomprehensible gibberish.

krishna kashyap av said...

Very interesting and
worth reading..
Thanks for the post.
Work from home