I didn't quite make it to the posting stage on Monday and, while work is calling, I figured everybody'd be happy with at least a quick post to let you know I'm thinking of you. Yes, even you.

Upon realizing that our files for Time Enough For Love had no proper fonts embedded in the files--the reason for the Italics problem in that volume, a solution to which I've been chasing like my own tail, is that a, so far as I understand it, fake italic font had been created and so the printer's computers couldn't recognize it, substituted their own and that caused the spacing to go hay-wire--we're going to have somebody apply a new font--the one we'll be using throughout the books, will look the same--and go through to make sure there are no reflow problems as a result. That should take about a day or two all told.

I've been back in the office for about a week now and it's time to start keeping my promise of weekly updates. Every Monday, I shall set aside a little time to update everybody on the events of the past week and expectations for the coming week to make sure everybody knows about where we are.

Virginiaedition.com no longer looks like something that crawled out of the Atlantic Dead Zone. It still needs a little work on a few things, but it is looking rather respectable.

With a little snooping, I've managed to get hold of the font styles used by Transcontinental and applied to the Meisha-Merlin volumes and I'm double-checking to see if I can get hold of the exact ones Meisha-Merlin used when they created the original files. Thus we should be good to go in and fix the errors that have been noted in the originals without completely messing everything up.

The image at the top of the post is what we drummed up to be the official "Virginia Edition" icon, however we may have to change/replace it as it seems that one might not work particularly well with Transcontinental's printing.

I need to pick out the fonts for use for the text on the spines and covers of the books--I'm so excited, it's almost like picking out drapes!--and sign off on the layout. Once I have that done, we should be good to send the books for prepress and printing and I'll have a lovely little timeline for when the first books will be printed.

Work has also begun on the juveniles. I'll double-check to see where we are on the production for those and when we can expect to have them ready for printing.

We're nearing the February 1st deadline we set in the letter and while the majority of people have responded, we still have a substantial amount of people who haven't responded so I'm going to begin calling directly to make contact with these people.

This doesn't apply to many, but we don't have the email addresses for a few of those who ordered the Exclusive Edition. I believe we have phone numbers for all of the people whose email we don't have so I'll be setting time aside to call them, but, if you've ordered the Exclusive Edition and haven't received an email from me, please contact me as soon as you have a chance.

That's all I can think of at the moment so I will bid you all adieu, ad espera, ad astra (I don't speak Latin, cut me a break) while I go and make sure my home isn't destroyed by a gas leak.

I'm afraid that I came down sick and as a result have been rather completely out of the loop for the last week and a bit. Please bear with me as we resume normal broadcasting service.