Diane Duane's "The Big Meow"

"Big Meow" afterthought: of course people can still subscribe!

2011-02-16T21:10:00.003Z

Over the past few days we've had a bunch of people ask via email or my Twitter account if they can still subscribe to the project -- either because they want an early copy of the paperback, or just want to be a part of the project.

Well, sure, why not? So we've restored the subscription buttons at The-Big-Meow.com -- they're in the left-hand column, under the "search box." People who subscribe get immediate access to the online chapters (or can download ebook versions of the entire novel in Kindle / .mobi or Nook / iPad / ePub format) and will naturally have their names (or preferred handles or IDs) listed in the final print edition of the book as project supporters.

Also, the buttons have been updated for people who're already subscribed to the paperback version and want to upgrade to a hardcover, or want a hardcover with dustjacket as well. Those buttons are at this link.

Thanks again, everybody!

The Big Meow: Completion

2011-02-02T19:40:00.000Z

Friends,

This is to let the world in general know that the final chapters of The Big Meow, third and last in the Feline Wizards sequence, are now going online for the subscribers to the project. Beyond that bald fact, there’s a whole lot more to be said.

First of all, let me apologize. (And there will be apologies at the end of this, too, and some in the middle.) This project will doubtless be the strongest candidate in any possible contest for the worst-managed online novel publication project in history. If there’s any way to mess up such a proceeding that I’ve missed, even the kindest observer would have to be tempted to suggest that it wasn’t for lack of trying.

In particular, the lack of communication on my part was a major failing, and for this I’m particularly sorry. I just kept thinking that soon things would start to go right again, and I’d come out from under the rock and deal with it all then. But things didn’t… and the habit of being too embarrassed to tell anybody what was going on just got more and more ingrained until I didn't notice it was now running my life.

I don’t want to get too much into what my mother used to call “the organ recital” here – the story of what’s going wrong or what went wrong with me, physically, mentally, or emotionally, along the way during the last half-decade. Five years’ worth of recital would try anyone’s patience at this point. (Even mine, and I’m the one the stuff in question happened to.) All I can say here in my defense is that these last five/six years have been terribly trying in terms of physical health, mental health, emotional and work issues, and much else. It’s frustrating, when the crises start to hit one after another, to be weighed in the balance and found so very wanting, especially as regards what used to be the fairly straightforward business of getting work done. This is a situation I’m going to have to spend the next five years at least dealing with and trying to repair – if indeed it can be repaired. But I hope everyone will believe me when I say that had I had even an inkling of what was about to start happening to me, I would never, never have begun such a project as this at all. Or if I had… I would have written the book first and then serialized it. (And these words are now more or less branded on the inside of my skull: WRITE THE DAMN BOOK FIRST, DUMMY. SRSLY.)

Nonetheless there comes a time when more than apologies are needed, and you have to pull up your socks and try to get things straightened out. This is it.

A surprising number of people forked out seed funding for this project, either as challenge grants or in the form of straightforward subscriptions to the book proper. As regards the grants and donations: I will be refunding them all. I’ll be contacting all the people who made them, and we’ll privately sort out the associated details of hows, whens and wherefores.

As regards the subscribers: it’s been incredibly heartening how very few people have ever asked for a refund in the face of these terribly long delays. And subscribers who want their subscriptions refunded at this point will naturally get them. Again, when those folks hear from me over the next couple / few days as we kick the new subscriber mailing list into shape (the old one was based on one of those well-intentioned pieces of software that sounds like a good idea but in fact is almost impossible to operate without screwing everything up: we’re moving everything into MailChimp instead), I will sort the details out with them. For all the rest of you, who gave me the benefit of the doubt… you have no idea how much your trust has meant, and I thank you. You have been one of the bright spots in a long difficult period, though until now you might not have heard me say so.

For subscribers who want to continue being part of the project as it was originally planned: herewith a timetable.*

First of all: how to get at the final chapters of the book. Everyone will have been mailed a username and password at subscription time. There has been a change to the passwords that originally went out, as the YoungWizards.com hosting provider has changed its password protocols slightly. Emails will be going out to you soon to clarify the change: or if you’re in a rush, use the contact form at the-big-meow.com to get in touch with staff, who will mail back the new info to you.

Once the subscribers have seen the material, in line with the way we’ve always done it on this book, all the final material will go “free range” at the the-big-meow.com website for anyone to look at. This will happen ten days from now, on Feb. 12th.

After that, before it goes between covers, the book has to undergo a professional edit. I have the good fortune to have worked with a number of excellent freelance editors over the years, and I’ll be contacting one of these shortly to hire him/her and sort out schedules and so forth. It would be unwise to assume that this process would take less than a few months.

Once the edit is handled, the new draft of the book will go out to the subscribers again – this time in a single file package. (Yes, we’ll be doing it as an ebook in multiple formats, as well as hard copies, for those who want them. There’ll also be an omnibus ebook of all three of the FW novels, but that’s something to think about later.) Once the revised draft is out, it becomes time to go to print. Over the spring I’ll be looking into what artist will have the time (and affordability) to get involved in a cover – ideally a wraparound, to make the best of the dust jacket that will go with the hardcovers.

And after that, the books will be typeset, and will ship. So in terms of the timeline, we’re talking about late summer for the printed books that come with everybody’s subscriptions.

What happens to The Big Meow after that is still way up in the air. I’m going to be listening with some interest to the subscribers’ opinions of what the work is worth. Certainly it provides a satisfactory wrap-up as regards the main continuity line for the major feline YW characters. I doubt I’ll be coming back to them on their own recognizance, though they will (as previously) continue to turn up now and again in the main Young Wizards books.

To finish for the moment: again, everybody, I’m incredibly sorry for the all the trouble and annoyance that the delays in finishing this book have caused. I’m seriously looking forward now to getting it out there into the hands of those who made it possible.

My apologies again, all… and thanks to all those whose understanding has made this outcome possible.

All the best -- Diane

*I almost typed “Herewiss” there. Just a note: if I hear the phrase “The Door into Starlight” in any correspondence relating to this, I’ll probably run around the house for a while screaming. Just so you know.

Chapter Seven of "The Big Meow" now online for subscribers

2008-07-21T19:02:00.001+01:00

Friends,

It's up at last.

There are a lot of places where this notification needs to be posted, and a lot of explanations and profound apologies to be made... but for the moment it just seems best to get the news out.

Chapter Seven is now available online for subscribers: it's linked to from the normal TBM subscriber gateway page. The same old username and password that worked for previous chapters will get you in. (If you can't find your login info, email me and I'll send it out to you pronto.) HTML and PDF versions are there right now -- the mobile .prc versions will go up in due course, as soon as we receive the conversions.

If you're not a subscriber, the chapter will go public on the 28th of the month. Look for the link to its gateway page in the left-hand menu at the project page at http://www.the-big-meow.com. (And for those of you who might feel inclined to subscribe, the subscription button is at the top of the left-hand column, along with info about what you get.)

Once again, I'm deeply sorry for the immense delay. I'm going back on the old one-chapter-per-three-weeks schedule: Chapter Eight will be going up in mid-August. Additionally, the book has become a couple of chapters longer in the course of being restructured -- check the project schedule for the anticipated posting dates.

Thanks again, everybody, so very much, for your patience during this past crazed and difficult year. More info shortly.

Chapter 7 news and project update

2007-07-11T11:56:00.000+01:00

Dear folks,

Just a quick note to let you know that things are about to move into a considerably higher gear on the "Big Meow" project.

A word first about the health situation here, since it has been interfering in a big way, and some of you will want to know how things are. My gall bladder is stable at the moment, and though surgery is going to be a necessity shortly, the doctor has let me know that I should be able to keep going as I am without too much trouble for the time being. I am therefore taking the rest of the month of July off to deal with the task of finishing the book, so that it can go off for editing. (There are other circumstances affecting this, but more about those in a moment.) I want to also apologize for not having updated everyone on this situation sooner, but it kept looking like (each few days) it would be okay, and then (again each few days) something would go wrong again. I'm very sorry about this, all -- I'll work to be better about updates.

Chapter Seven is now nearly ready (after having been reworked a couple of times) and will be posted over the next few days, ideally on Friday. Other projects are all in a "quiet period" at the moment, so I should be able to get down to the business fo completing chapters Eight through Thirteen (and there may be a fourteenth -- I have to see how the structure starts acting in the book's final stages, as some new plot material has turned up that I wasn't expecting).

The only factor likely to interfere with this is one which some of you will already know about from Peter's blog at petermorwood.livejournal.com. His mother is in the hospital with an exascerbation of her longstanding heart trouble, and at the age of ninety, you'll understand that we both feel our place right now is up there with her rather than down here at home. We will therefore be heading up for Belfast today, and I'm not entirely clear how long we may be up there (though right now the plan is to stay, on this visit, only until Saturday). This relocation may slow down my work somewhat, but with the laptop and the speech-to-text software with me, I should be able to keep going at a good pace. However, not being home means I will not have access to the mail server software from which the chapter-is-ready announcements come -- so I'd ask everybody please to check the weblogs here and at the-big-meow.com for news as to when individual chapters will be going up. As usual, subscribers will be seeing their chapters ten days before everybody else does.

Thanks again, all. Keep an eye on the blogs starting Friday.

Best -- Diane

The Big Meow: Chapter Six is up

2007-02-02T13:59:00.000Z

Chapter Six has now gone freerange for those of you who're not subscribers. Enjoy, folks!

(Chapter Seven should be going up on Sunday for the subscribers. Check the Big Meow site for details.)

The-Big-Meow.com is up and running again

2007-01-27T11:40:00.000Z

The transfer to The Big Meow's new hosting provider at Lunarpages has gone smoothly, and the new installation of Drupal 5.0 is now up and running. Everything seems to be working OK, but if those of you who read this and venture over there should find anything strange going on, please register so that you can comment at this blog entry and tell us what's happening. ...Otherwise, there's still a little grooming-out and adjusting to do -- rewriting of old legacy links to the old PHP-based site, fixing-up of graphics and tweaking of CSS, etc -- but that's a matter of a few days' work on and off.

Over the next few days I'm going to start making my (online) research materials for the book available via RSS feed through the website, so those of you who're interested in any of the base subjects of the book -- the LA of the 1940's, etc etc -- might want to run through some of the material. (And some of you will naturally start to indulge in the inevitable guessing games about where I'm going with some of the stuff you're going to find. Have yourselves a party: you can all get together and swap conspiracy theories over at the new TBM discussion forums.)

The only hitch in the transfer process, BTW, has been that I was not able to directly transfer the old Drupal database into the new installation (not Drupal's fault: something went wrong with the MySQL database export from the old server. Those of you who were registered at the old site, would you please just register again?

Thanks!

(BTW -- for those of you who may be seeking a new hosting provider -- let me just plug Lunarpages here. I'm already very impressed with their support, and the one-click website / database backup via cPanel X is just delightful.)

The-Big-Meow.com is moving...!

2007-01-25T14:40:00.000Z

...to its new hosting servers at Lunarpages, starting today.

This means that the site will disappear for a while as the domain registrar passes the domain's internal change-of-address information (DNS) into the Net.

The site may take as long as seventy-two hours to reappear, so please don't panic if the absence seems to be getting prolonged.

The content of this weblog won't be affected. However, links to the main website in the left-hand column will not work until the domain change is complete.

Also, if you want to subscribe to the book, that function won't be affected by the website move, as the "subscribe" buttons speak directly to e-Junkie and PayPal.

Thanks for your patience!

Re "The Big Meow" domain host move: thanks to all who contributed!

2007-01-22T11:38:00.000Z

Thanks to everybody who hit the little ChipIn button to help change hosting for The-Big-Meow.com. The necessary funds were raised pronto: we're now sorting things out with the new hosting provider.

The move should happen later in the week. In the meantime, my apologies for the site still looking messed up. Something I did broke the CSS (site formatting language, for you non-techies) in a way I've had no luck fixing, and at this point it seems to make more sense just to wait until the domain's moved to its new home and then do a clean install of Drupal 5.0, pulling the necessary files and settings in one at a time to make sure the CSS behaves itself this time. (sigh)

Meanwhile, chapter 7 of The Big Meow is in process, and should be posted around the end of the week. Chapter 6 will go public at the same time (the database will be sending out a notification to the "general information" list when it does).

Thanks again, all!

The (technical) weirdness, it burns

2007-01-17T14:08:00.000Z

Those of you who may have been watching the progressive site revamp at The-Big-Meow.com should be warned that, while I was attempting to add some features this morning, some stuff got screwed up. It's not serious, but it affects the look-and-feel of the site, and may take a while to fix, as I'm still not entirely sure what caused the problem.

I was attempting to do two things, one fairly dull and one kind of neat. (a) was the addition of a custom "favicon" that would show up in people's browser tabs when the pages loaded. (b) was access, via a separate internal blog, to the research materials I've been using while writing the book. (I keep these materials under control using Onfolio -- once a stand-alone resource, now part of Internet Explorer since Onfolio was bought by Microsoft. Onfolio enables you to save entire web pages, even web sites, for offline viewing, and to publish the pages either as printed reports or as part of a weblog for personal use.) It occurred to me that it might be fun for interested people to see the "raw material" that I'm using.

Since I was working on both of these additions to the TBM site at once, one or another of them has caused the site's formatting to be screwed up for logged-in site members -- sidebar images aren't displaying, and text formatting has gone erratic: some is centered when it shouldn't be; some that shouldn't be centered, is. I've removed all the new material and done everything I can think of to return the site to the way it was earlier, but the problem persists, and I don't have any more time to spend on it today, as I'm supposed to be doing, you know, work.

Registered users, please excuse the problem for the time being. I am reluctant to do too much more about it for two reasons: (a) we're about to change hosting providers (see the message here) and (b) when we do, I'm going to upgrade the Drupal installation to the newly released version 5, which is much slicker and smarter than the v.4.7.4 we're using now. One or the other of these solutions will most likely fix the problem. (Which I privately suspect has something to do with the fact that our present hosting provider, GoDaddy, won't let Drupal have the database access it needs to perform correctly. This is why the site's search function is presently turned off.) Once the move to the new provider takes place, we'll be able to implement the discussion forums and personal blogs and so on (Drupal truly is a rich and wonderfully equipped website-building tool, with more bells and whistles than any sane person could reasonably desire).

(sigh) Sorry about this. (For those who were looking for the widget to contribute to the changing-hosting fund, here's a widget to replace the malfunctioning one over at the TBM page.)

Service disruption over at The-Big-Meow.com today

2007-01-12T14:36:00.000Z

Just so that everybody'll know: I've been moving all the content at the old TBM website into a new installation of the Drupal content-management system, which will make everything a lot tidier and cause things to run more smoothly (take a look at EuropeanCuisines.com to see how one of our other implementations of this system can work). Later in the day, when I actually start moving directories around, things are likely to get peculiar, so please don't be surprised at 404's and other strange manifestations.

If you're a subscriber to The Big Meow, please don't be concerned -- this isn't going to affect the chapter that's just been posted (see the blog previous posting to this one). The subscriber-only versions of the chapter are hosted elsewhere. (You should be getting a notification email around now as to the location, reminding you of usernames and passwords: if you don't get one, email me with the word PICARESQUE in the subject line and I'll send you what yoy need.)

Thanks!

Chapter Six of "The Big Meow" is up for subscribers

2007-01-12T01:01:00.000Z

Folks, I'm wrecked, so more about this tomorrow: but the new chapter's up for the book's subscribers. (It's a fairly plump one, at 18,000 words.)

It's in the same directory that Four, Five and Six were in for subscribers, and can be got at using the same username / password pair. The "mailing list" mails about this will be going out tomorrow morning. New subscribers will be going into the database at the same time (thanks to those of you who've been subscribing over the past month!).

More shortly...

"The Big Meow" Chapter Six update: a slight delay

2006-12-17T17:18:00.000Z

Folks, apologies. I'm having some hardware issues with the computer that are going to make it impossible to get this chapter up before (my) bedtime tonight: it'll be posted tomorrow. (mutter) Sorry about this.

Chapter 6 of "The Big Meow" goes up on Sunday PM

2006-12-15T14:27:00.000Z

Just for those of you who might be interested -- The Big Meow's sixth chapter will be going up for the subscribers on Sunday evening, the 17th of December. Subscribers, please note: the login location and username/password info for ch. 6 will be the same as it was for chapters 4 and 5.

Thanks!

Chapter Five goes free-range

2006-12-11T15:52:00.000Z

Chapter Five of The Big Meow is now available online for non-subscribers.
Chapter Six will be going online for subscribers around the 15th of December: check here around then for more details.

Also, please note that we're going to be redesigning the main website, and this weblog is going to be incorporated into it... so the blog will be changing its address in coming weeks. Both the new address and the old one will be active for at least three months after the addition of the new one.)

By the way, if you're a subscriber and you didn't receive a notification that Chapter 5 was ready, please either leave a comment on this posting or email me (assuming you haven't done so already) Please put the word PICARESQUE in the subject so I'll know what the message is about.
Thanks, all!

Chapter 5 now online for subscribers

2006-11-19T13:05:00.000Z

(sigh) After dealing with an incredible amount of local crap (which I'm not going to bore you with at the moment, but will, a little later, on the weblog and elsewhere), this is just to let everyone know that Chapter 5 is now available for "The Big Meow"'s subscribers. And my apologies for the long delay. (The chapter will go up for public consumption a week for today.)

Profound apologies also to those who emailed me about the long delay in chapter posting, and didn't get a response: the mail is just one more thing that's been very screwed up lately. I am working to fix that, as well as many other things. More of this shortly. (Briefly, I want to finish the book up before the end of December, and am about to set up a new pub schedule. We'll also be revamping the website so as to make it simpler to do updates and stay in touch with everybody in a timely manner. When everything's set up, I'll see if this weblog can be imported / incorporated directly into the website structure.)

Subscribers are being mailed information about the file locations right now. (Briefly: it's where chapters 3 and 4 were on their limited release, and the same usernames / passwords will work for accessing the new material. If you're a subscriber and you've lost the location information or the passwords, mail me at diane.duane@gmail.com and I'll mail you the passwords straight back. Please put the word PICARESQUE in your subject line so I can make sure Gmail notices your messages properly.)

Once again, all possible apologies for the great lateness...but I'm now on track to getting this thing done pronto. Thanks again to all of you who've been bearing with me so patiently.

Thanks for your patience: a note about what's been going on

2006-08-28T12:49:00.000+01:00

So, something like a return to normal procedures around here...but not for long.

First thing: Peter's mum is OK. But she's about to turn 90: and when her health suddenly goes weird, our place is near her, not at Worldcon. We were intensely sorry not to be there, but there are times when family takes priority.

Re: Chapter 5 of "The Big Meow": it too got caught up in the delays, alarums and excursions of the past week. I'm getting caught up now and am intending to post it on August 31st.

Onward...

Hardcover subscriptions to "The Big Meow" now available: also, hardcover upgrades for those already subscribed

2006-08-06T14:49:00.000+01:00

Some of the people who've subscribed to "The Big Meow" have been asking about the possibility of hardcover editions being made available.

I've done the costings, and the price isn't too horrible, so I've put up buttons on the main "Big Meow" page so that people can purchase them if they prefer them to the paperback edition. (There are upgrades available, too, for those who already have subscriptions: they cost either USD $10 or USD $11, depending on whether you want a dustcover or not. Click here if you're already subscribed and want a hardcover.)

A first-time subscription to the hardcover edition of the novel, without a dustcover, will cost USD $32.50: with a dustcover, you pay $33.50. If you use the following link, it'll take you right to the subscription buttons --

http://www.the-big-meow.com/#hardcoversubs

The cover artwork will be by Ursula Vernon. I hope to have some sketches sometime late in September.

Revised "The Big Meow" chapter release schedule

2006-08-03T11:14:00.000+01:00

Folks,

First of all, let me apologize profoundly for the long time in which you haven't heard anything about what's going on here. This has been a most peculiar summer, and the peculiarity isn't over yet, but at least things are quieting down somewhat.

When chapter 4 of The Big Meow went up in June after a month's delay, I was hoping that things would shortly settle down: but they got more insane instead, with other projects interfering to a point where I had to put the book aside for a little while. Now, however, it looks as if the other projects have been finally quieted down to the point where writing can resume. Maybe this delay has been a blessing in disguise, as some plot points I was wondering how to handle have had time to refine themselves. We'll see.

However, my life is now to be made interesting by business travel, which means that the revised schedule for chapters 5 through 10 is going to look slightly different from the original one, in which a new chapter would pop out approximately every three weeks. In a perfect world, I would have been finished with the book this week, with only one or two more chapters to release over the course of the month. I had always planned to be done by now, as between now and mid-October, Peter and I have four science fiction or SF/media conventions to attend -- three of them in the US -- with all the concomitant schedule disruption that normally accompanies transatlantic travel. However, as we see, things have been running late. But in the new schedule I'm going to try to keep the flow of the remaining chapters as steady as possible.

Here's the revised schedule:

Chapter Five: August 15, 2006
Chapter Six: September 22, 2006
Chapter Seven: October 6, 2006
Chapter Eight: October 23, 2006
Chapter Nine: November 6, 2006
Chapter Ten: November 20, 2006

The long gaps between chapters 5 and 6 and between 7 and 8 are due specifically to those convention commitments. In particular, we'll be away from home for the three weeks between August 18 and September 8th, and it's just not realistic to expect any serious writing will get done during that period (though I'll be trying anyway). After we get home from the final convention in October, things should calm down again.

I want to thank you individually and collectively for your patience -- which has been heroic, and a great comfort to me during a period when I couldn't do anything about all the junk that was going on.

Now then: onward.

All the best --
Diane

Chapter 4 has now gone free-range

2006-06-27T01:03:00.000+01:00

For those who aren't subscribers to The Big Meow, Chapter Four is now available at:

http://www.the-big-meow.com/ch4

The chapter is available in both HTML / web-friendly and PDF / Adobe formats. The MobiPocket / PDA-friendly version of the file will be posted within a few hours.

Chapter Four at last

2006-06-03T13:57:00.000+01:00

If I started detailing the number of hardware, software and lifeware glitches I've suffered through in the last two weeks, I'd be here all day...and I have a lot of things to catch up on right now: so never mind. ...Anyway, just a note to those of you who're The Big Meow subscribers and may not have seen a mail from me yet: Chapter Four is finally in place (and incidentally about twice the length of previous chapters).

Please use your Chapter Three login info: the chapter 3 gateway page has the links to Chapter Four. If you've misplaced your login info (I've had mails from a few of you about this), just mail me with the word ACCESS in the subject line and I'll remail you what you need.

The disruptions of the last couple weeks have meant that the turn-in dates for the next few chapters are going to have to be revamped with an eye to making up the lost time. Please keep an eye on the weblog for details of the dates.

Thanks!

Still running a little behind

2006-05-14T10:12:00.000+01:00

Apologies to everyone again. The work-related thing that occupied the middle of last week suddenly (after having apparently been put to bed) reared its ugly head once more early on Friday, and had to be dealt with all over again until late yesterday evening. I'm finishing work now on ch. 4; it should go up late tomorrow night.

(argh) Sorry about that.

Chapter Four rescheduling

2006-05-09T10:50:00.000+01:00

A conflicting work commitment has come up which is going to make it impossible to get Chapter Four posted on its projected date of May 10th. I'm therefore rescheduling the posting date for May 12th. Apologies to everybody: but sometimes something comes up that has to be dealt with urgently, and this is one of those times.

Thanks for your patience!

Chapter Three goes free-range

2006-05-09T10:42:00.000+01:00

Chapter Three is now available to non-subscribers! Click here for the gateway page. The chapter is (as usual) available in in (web-friendly) HTML, (Adobe) .PDF, and PDA/PalmOS -friendly MobiPocket .PRC versions.

Thanks again to all the paying subscribers who made the online publication of this chapter possible!

If you've been reading the Blogger version of DD's weblog "Out of Ambit"...

2006-05-01T08:46:00.000+01:00

...you might like to take this opportunity to change your bookmark for the weblog. It's moving to a new home and a WordPress version, and the Blogger version will shortly be frozen and no longer updated. (All old posts are duplicated at the new location, in case you were wondering.)

The new address is:

http://www.dianeduane.com/outofambit/

If you're reading DD's LiveJournal version of OOA (at http://dduane.livejournal.com), you don't need to do anything, as the blog will continue to be automatically mirrored there. Those of you who're reading the syndicated LJ feed, however, may want to change over to DD's version above.

Thanks!

Chapter Three is now online for subscribers

2006-04-26T20:29:00.000+01:00

After a whole lot of antibiotics, some blood tests, and various other craziness...it's up at last. Thanks to everyone for being so patient.

The URL and access information is going out to subscribers right now. As usual (because believe it or not, the mailing list is STILL acting up...), if you haven't seen access information by the morning of April 27th, please email me and let me know. Thanks.

*collapses quietly in the corner*

(By the way: if you're a subscriber, you may get an email that's empty. Wait a while and another one will come along that's not. Sorry about this -- I accidentally hit the wrong key and dispatched the message before it was ready. A weakness in the software means it's not possible to catch these mistakes. Mutter...)

(sigh) More craziness...

2006-04-22T17:55:00.000+01:00

Well, the local craziness continues (the most exciting part of it being that my ear problem is back -- half back, anyway: I still have one working ear, and with any luck the other one will put itself right in a day or three). Meantime, I continue doing the tidying-up work on chapter 3 of "Big Meow", so that'll go up tonight.

One other minor annoyance: since importing my old posts into WordPress from Blogger, I can no longer publish correctly to Blogger -- I keep getting this:

"004 dk.eos.net.FtpError: Login incorrect."

There are various (purported) fixes available for this...I'll start trying them after I get this chapter work done.

Trouble at t' Mill

2006-04-21T20:11:00.000+01:00

Nothing that I can get into now, but the whole of today has been taken up with putting out a work-related "fire". Chapter Three will go up tomorrow. Many apologies for the delay, all.

Todat's happy New York cat story (nonfiction, fortunately)

2006-04-15T11:43:00.000+01:00

In a purr-fect ending, a miner with a heart of gold...rescued Molly the cat last night.

After spending 14 days stuck in the guts of a 19th-century West Village building, New York's famous fur ball was safe and sound and eating sardines.

The kitty cornered in the wall had drawn such widespread attention that she had become the city's newest attraction, touching the hearts of locals and tourists alike.

...Between yesterday and the day she got stuck (April 1st), here are some of the ways they tried to get her out:

Humane traps baited with mackerel
Entreaties from cat therapist Carole Wilbourn
Mewing kittens
Tiny video cameras
Recordings of whale and gull sounds (That was supposed to help how? Someone please explain that to me. Especially the gull sounds....)
Pet psychic Maxine Albert
Removing bricks from landmarked building
Drilling holes in same (Before removing them, I assume.)
Animal Care & Control officers
NYPD Emergency Service Unit officers
Catnip (Yes indeed, when all else fails, try drugs... [eyeroll]))

Chapter Two of "The Big Meow" now available to the public

2006-04-10T11:56:00.000+01:00

The book's second chapter is now available to non-subscribers. You'll find it here:

http://www.the-big-meow.com/ch2/ChapterTwoGateway.php

The chapter is available in Web-friendly HTML, Adobe .PDF, and MobiMate/MobiPocket .PRC formats (for the Palm OS and other PDAs).

Chapter Three is scheduled to go online for subscribers on April 21.

Enjoy!

We've got the necessary subscriptions: thanks! Chapter 2 goes live tomorrow

2006-04-09T22:11:00.000+01:00

Thanks to everybody who responded to the Shaking of the Can. :) Chapter 2 will go up for public consumption tomorrow morning, UK/Irish time.

Chapter Two goes public April 10th, but we still need some subscribers

2006-04-07T09:34:00.000+01:00

Just a note to let everybody know: chapter two of "The Big Meow" is ready to go online for public consumption as of Monday, April 10th. (If you're a subscriber, of course, you've already seen it. Or you should have! If you haven't, please drop me a note at thebigmeow@youngwizards.com with the word ACCESS in the subject line, and I'll get the access info out to you pronto. I'm not sure if everybody's heard, but we had a database meltdown the other day, and I had to rebuild the subscribers' mailing list from scratch.)

Chapter Two, however, has not yet hit its break-even point for public release. We need at least seven more full-novel subscribers for it to do that. So if you're a recipient of this message and you haven't yet subscribed, this would be a great time to do it! We're investigating the possibility of running a matching-grant challenge over the weekend, but nothing has been finalized...so if you haven't subscribed, don't wait: just go ahead and do it. The button is on the Basic Subscriptions page at http://www.the-big-meow.com, and I'll be installing a new button on the weblog for those who're coming in at Chapter Two and need links to the original chapter as well.

Thanks again!

Today's incredibly dumb thing that I did...

2006-04-04T14:21:00.000+01:00

Put Chapter Two up for the subscribers very, very early this morning, and then forgot to edit the gateway page so that other human beings could actually get at it.

Many apologies, everybody. It's accessible now. (And I had a chance to get at it again this morning and remove some typos that squeaked through.)

If you're not a subscriber and you'd like to see the chapter before it goes public, now's the time to go to the Big Meow subscriptions page and choose the option that best appeals to you -- single-chapter or full-novel.

Update: things running a little slower than planned

2006-04-03T11:04:00.000+01:00

Subscribers, please note: chapter access and location info for Chapter Two of The Big Meow is now starting to go out (as of around 10:00 GMT) via the subscriber/donor mailing list. The directory location and username/password info for the page are different from the old ones. If you're a subscriber to the book (either whole-book or single chapter) and haven't seen an email by 1800 GMT or so with the necessary information, please email me at the address in the sidebar, putting the word ACCESS in the subject line.

The page you'll be directed to is a placeholder page only: the chapter won't be up until late tonight. Sorry for the delay, but as sometimes happens, over the weekend, Life Occurred. (Nothing serious. But things are running a little slower than anticipated, that's all.)

Onward...

Chapter Two access info for subscribers goes out late today

2006-04-02T11:25:00.000+01:00

If you're a subscriber, please note: the chapter access info will be going out via the mailing list this evening. If you haven't seen an email with the necessary information by tomorrow afternoon (April 3), please mail the contact address in the sidebar with the word ACCESS in the subject.

Weblog address change coming up

2006-03-30T10:25:00.000+01:00

Now that the website is pretty much in order (or will be as soon as we get the Ailurin refrigerator poetry working: sigh...), we're going to be moving the weblog from its present hosting at Blogspot to an address at our own FTP server. Please keep an eye on the blog in the next day or two for info about the new address.

For a month or so they'll mirror each other: then the Blogspot address will either simply become a forwarding address, or will close down.

Challenge Grant #4 now running!

2006-03-28T10:11:00.000+01:00

A kindly donor has put up USD $400.00 as a challenge grant. If you donate or subscribe to the Big Meow project now, you can make your challenge go twice as far!

The challenge started running at 10:00 GMT -- the PayPal button for challenge grant subscriptions/donations is in the sidebar to the left. Let's see how long this one takes to complete...

And thanks again for your support!

Another challenge grant coming up

2006-03-27T16:38:00.000+01:00

Tomorrow, March 28th, at 10:00 GMT (that's 4 AM [US] EST) we'll be starting another challenge grant. A generous donor has put up USD $400.00 in matching funds...so if you've been thinking about a single-chapter subscription to the book (or a full-book subscription, for that matter) this is a great way to make your money go twice as far.

We'll have PayPal buttons up here on the weblog and over at the main website for those who're interested in participating. Grants have been matched more and more quickly each time: the last challenge took less than three hours to match a $500.00 grant.

Maybe we can do it even faster this time. Let's find out...

(And of course there's always the button below for those who just can't wait.)

New Chapter One file format available: MobiPocket .PRC

2006-03-23T20:36:00.000Z

The excellent Linnette Stoney has taken Chapter One and converted it to Palm OS / MobiPocket .PRC format, which can be read by PDAs running the Palm OS, as well as various other PDAs. It's downloadable at the Chapter One gateway page.

Linnette will also be converting new chapters to .PRC format as they come out.

Thanks, Linnette!

Just a note in passing regarding something that came up

2006-03-22T08:54:00.000Z

I ran across this reference to the Big Meow project in a nice weblog called Everyday Literacies:

Online narrative writing practices, especially those associated with fanfic writing have spawned a reading and peer editing process generally referred to as 'beta reading'. Basically, the process involves the author posting a narrative, or a chapter from a more extended narrative, to a relatively private public space like a blog before publishing it in a wider or more formal venue, including as meatspace novels, and asks for reader feedback on work done so far (e.g., the novel,Four and Twenty Blackbirds was written this way). Now, Diane Duane, a writer of young adult fiction, is posting online installments of her latest novel, Feline Wizards 3: The Big Meow, for readers to review and provide feedback on....

Erm. Can I clear something up here (before the mailbox starts filling up with kindly offers)? I'm not posting the chapters "for readers to review and provide feedback on." I'm publishing them to publish them. :)

...Oh, doubtless there'll be some critique and comment here and there; but that was never the point of putting the chapters up. (Nor would I dream of trying to blanket-pressgang beta readers in such a manner: it'd smack too much of trying to get other people to do my work for me.) The idea has been (a) to let people see the material as it would go to an editor in first-draft form: (b) and just plain to let them read and enjoy it, since a lot of folks clearly want access to it the very minute each chapter is ready. (BTW, editorial is handled: I've already hired a professional editor -- one I've worked with before on more conventionally published books -- to assist me in going over the material when the book is done.)

So if anybody sees anything in the pages on the Big Meow website suggesting that I'm looking for critique on the material, or soliciting beta-readers, please let me know where it is so that I can get it out of there. I don't want anyone getting the wrong idea of what's going on.

Chapter One has been turned loose

2006-03-21T10:40:00.000Z

It's now freely available online here:

http://www.the-big-meow.com/ch1/ChapterOneGateway.php

BTW: if you were a one-chapter subscriber and didn't receive a notification about the chapter's pre-release location, please mail me and I'll see to it that you get a credit for Chapter Two. And my apologies for the problem. It seems that the email addresses of a very few one-chapter subscribers somehow didn't make it into the notification mailing list.

(sigh) Spam arriving at the mailing list address already...

2006-03-21T09:47:00.000Z

Well, I should have expected it, so we'll be changing the mailing list address shortly, as a temporary measure while I test out a secure version of form-mail. There may be some interruption of mailing list handling today while I get this sorted out. Apologies in advance for any inconvenience.

Note to readers of "On Her Majesty's Wizardly Service / To Visit The Queen": "Humphrey" moves on

2006-03-21T09:33:00.000Z

The BBC has confirmed it, so it must be true: the Person known to the ehhif population of Downing Street has moved on to his next life. "Humphrey" (named rather appropriately after Sir Humphrey Appleby of "Yes, Minister / Yes, Prime Minister" fame) died quietly at his retirement home last week, apparently aged sixteen or so.

A sad loss for the feline bureaucratic establishment. But those civil service People who knew him suggest that, unless he's gone Tenth-lifing, it will probably not be possible to keep him out of politics for long. The Whitehall scene should be carefully watched for signs of his return, especially if Gordon Brown should suddenly find himself with a stray kitten on his hands at No. 11...

"The Big Meow" coffee mugs

2006-03-18T13:57:00.000Z

Peter made me do it. They're here:

http://www.cafepress.com/youngwizards/1290303

...including the first of the Chapter One mugs.

Trouble with the mailing list server again

2006-03-17T13:05:00.000Z

(sigh) A lot of people who signed up between last night and this morning may not go into the general notifications list correctly because we had a loss of broadband this morning, and the mailing list server barfed. As a result, all those names are going to be re-input by hand.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

I couldn't help laughing

2006-03-17T11:06:00.000Z

This came up this morning as part of a Technorati search: Some Google AdWords for Amazon --

"The Big Meow" at Amazon.com

Not just yet, guys. In time. But restrain your enthusiasm for the moment, or people are going to get the wrong idea.

Meanwhile, a strange idea came up at the pub the other night. TBM coffee mugs. "A series of ten," Peter said, "with a different line of dialogue on each one. Collect 'em all!"

My husband is so odd sometimes. Yet...still...hmm... And I wouldn't care one way or another if anyone collected 'em all. It'd still be fun to do...

...Think I know what the first line of dialogue would be. (Or within two guesses.) Either "Did I look good in that? I think I looked good in that." Or, "You have cable in your Dumpster?"

First feedback (heh heh)

2006-03-15T13:57:00.000Z

"Chapter One has been devoured over lunch and deemed excellent, thank
you."

:)

(BTW, for those interested in having a place to discuss what's being posted -- I'm trying to decide whether to start a new separate message board, or just set aside a space at the YW discussion forums where people can ask questions or point out mistakes or unclarities or whatever.

...Probably the latter makes most sense. I'll think about it a bit and work out what to do this evening sometime.)

Passwords have gone out

2006-03-15T11:12:00.000Z

Just so that everybody knows: access information for Chapter One has gone out to all subscribers.

The mailing list software is still acting up, so I've had to gang-email everyone by hand this morning. If you're a subscriber and you do not receive your access info today, please mail me and I'll see what's going on. (In particular, I've had to hand-compile the subscriber lists, so there's always the chance that an address might have gotten mangled or dropped out.)

Thanks again!

Chapter One is ready!

2006-03-14T22:19:00.000Z

The first chapter's ready to post: I'm formatting it now. There will be two versions -- a .PDF version (fully printable) and an HTML (web-friendly) version.

As soon as the chapter's up, I'll be starting to send out passwords. Please bear with me, as the process may take some hours: the password generator is having teething pains.

Thanks!

Chapter One passwords go out later today

2006-03-14T13:32:00.000Z

Just so that everyone knows: as usual, when you're away from home for a few days (as we just were) sometimes things pile up that have to be dealt with before you can get back to "business as usual". Today is going to be about that -- as we came home a little later than originally planned. But Chapter One will be going up this evening.

Passwords will be going out to the mailing list very shortly after that. We're going to be using a different password system for the next chapter, so expect to get a different password for Chapter Two when it's ready.

Thanks!

[boggle]

2006-03-10T19:08:00.000Z

Three hours??

(boggle boggle boggle boggle)

Thank you, folks.

Meanwhile: I'm up in a sushi bar (with wireless!!) in Dublin, striving not to pour saké into the keyboard again: so (because I'm here for a convention appearance) you won't hear much more from me until Sunday evening. Subscribers: passwords to the "locked" file areas will start going out to you on Monday.

Thanks again.

Third challenge grant goes up

2006-03-10T13:45:00.000Z

The third grant, from yet another anonymous donor, is for USD $500. The last grant was matched in only twelve hours. Can you folks break the record? We'll see...

Meanwhile, this is a good place to thank the excellent and generous Carl Rigney, who was responsible for the second $1000 grant. Thanks so much, Carl!

Mailing list responder shutting down until Sunday

2006-03-10T10:25:00.000Z

For anyone who's likely to be registering with the mailing list today: the responder will only be working until 2 PM GMT or so, and then will be down until probably around 9 PM GMT on Sunday. We have a convention appearance this weekend, and I don't trust the mailer unsupervised at the moment: it's safer to shut it down rather than have it email the entire planet for some obscure reason.

Meanwhile, the last challenge grant (for the moment) will be going up today: and the buttons for "full subscription", "full subscription with donation", and "Chapter One only" will be going up on the website within a couple of hours. A broadcast message from the mailing list will be going out to everyone at that point.

Also, just in case anybody's getting concerned: Chapter One is nearly done...I just haven't updated the progress graphic on the web page. The thing is kind of complex to update, and I'm looking for a better way to do it.

More shortly.

Mailing list acting up again: my apologies

2006-03-08T12:40:00.000Z

Folks, I tweaked some settings on the list-handler this morning, but not in any way that should (reasonably!) have caused the bloody thing to send out 44 messages to the last 44 registrees. I'm getting increasingly tempted to export the mailing list's database, then shut it down, erase it, and build a new one from scratch. In my copious spare time. (sound of writer tearing hair)

Meanwhile, if you've already been confirmed on the list before today, please ignore what it sent you. Sorry about that...we'll get the thing sorted out in the next few days, honest. If I have to sort it out with that sledgehammer I mentioned.

Twelve hours?!

2006-03-06T22:06:00.000Z

Twelve hours, people? That's how long it took you to match a $1000 grant this time.

Sheesh. I think I'd better write faster. :)

We'll do another grant tomorrow. Meanwhile, those of you who want to do your whole-book subscriptions at the same time as a $10 donation to the general fund, feel free to keep doing that using the button in the sidebar. I'll put up a PayPal button for whole-book-only and chapter-only subscriptions tomorrow or the next day (I'm still ironing out software issues with e-Junkie).

Thanks, everybody!

Here comes the new challenge grant!

2006-03-06T09:19:00.000Z

Another kindly donor has stepped up to put USD $1000 down as a contribution to the Big Meow project...if the rest of you meet it.

If you'd been planning to make a contribution to the project, this is a great way to make your money go twice as far. For one thing, if you donate more than $32.50 -- the present cost of a ten-chapter subscription (see the How publication will work page for details), plus a ten-dollar donation -- your own subscription, including a print copy of the book when we go to press, will be all handled.

With your donation, you'll also be helping drive down the cost of the project as a whole, and the cost of your fellow readers' subscriptions. Ted Ts'o's first grant, and the generous contributions of those who matched it, has already reduced the cost of subscriptions by 20%.

So watch the sidebar for progress. Within only six hours of the challenge opening up, we're already well on the way to matching our challenge donor's $1000. The last grant was matched within thirty-six hours. Help beat the record!

Mailing list madness: new challenge grant tomorrow

2006-03-05T22:28:00.000Z

The mailing list software is still behaving a little peculiarly...our apologies while we beat it into submission (in the nicest kind of way). If you send a message confirming your opt-in and receive another message asking you to confirm again, please ignore it. Also, if you're submitting your address for the first time, please make sure you put the word SUBSCRIBE (in caps) in the subject.

Meanwhile, the new grant challenge will start tomorrow. We're also almost ready to start accepting subscriptions for either just Chapter One or the whole book. Please see the new subscriptions page at the main Big Meow website for more details.

The main website should be completely up and running tomorrow, at which point this weblog will revert to being a place to discuss the project itself and how it's going. (20% of the first chapter has now been written: check the progress indicator at the top of the website menu column for updates.)

New challenge grant coming

2006-02-28T22:03:00.000Z

We'll be rolling out a new challenge grant in the next couple of days, as we get the mailing list shaken down into working order. These challenge grants are a great way to drive down the general cost of subscribing to each chapter, and we're delighted that readers are coming forward to offer them.

By the end of the week, we'll also be announcing the estimated dates for the posting of the initial chapters of The Big Meow, and the proposed schedule for subsequent chapters between March and August.

Meanwhile, the business of getting the main Big Meow website up and running continues. There's not much there at the moment, but over the next few days material that's been here at the weblog will be moved over there.

New mailing list address

2006-02-28T21:32:00.000Z

We're finally getting the mailing list sorted out. Here's the new address:

the-whisperer@youngwizards.com

The list processor will be run several times a day, so don't be surprised if you don't receive a response instantly.

People who've already mailed us to ask about being added to the list don't have anything further to do: we'll be adding them to the master list shortly.

Still working on the mailing list

2006-02-27T12:43:00.000Z

Just so that no one thinks I've forgotten about this. The software is proving a little, uh, challenging at the moment, that's all.

The Meow heard 'round the world

2006-02-27T10:44:00.000Z

My gosh, has this whole business been getting a lot of attention. Well, I should be grateful.

First of all, a heads-up for those of you who've been following the Big Meow saga so far: Now that I've decided to go ahead, a weblog isn't going to be an appropriate home for the project, as there are a lot of other things that need to be attached to the endeavor. So the-big-meow.com is now online -- in a very bare form, at the moment, since almost nothing has as yet been added: not even the 404 page is working correctly right now, so be warned. When the website is properly established, in a week or so, the Big Meow weblog at felinewizards3.blogspot.com will revert to its proper use -- talking about how the project's going.

The website will house the chapters themselves as they go up. It'll also be the center for subscriptions and donations (which are already considerable: we have another challenge grant to roll out this week) and the ground rules for how the project will work, including the projected schedule. I expect to take a week-to-ten days or so to get this basic framework in place: then once it's done, I can heave a sigh of relief, leave the technogeekery behind, and get on with the auctogeekery, which is much my favorite kind.

Meanwhile, let me thank everybody again for the incredible response and support I've been getting. This is going to be a very interesting experiment, and at the end of it I hope to leave behind, not just a book, but a continuation or expansion of Lawrence Watt-Evans's do-it-yourself publishing paradigm, with a few useful bells and whistles hung on it, and some more of the bugs worked out -- something other writers can adopt and use in their turn, making changes and additions to suit what they're doing.

Onward.

(wanders off, muttering: now where the heck did I leave that banner with the strange device: Excelsior?)

The challenge has been met!

2006-02-24T23:18:00.000Z

...and in less than thirty-six hours from the time it was proposed.

Wow!!

Let me briefly make plain what this means. The various donors (with all of whom I'll be in touch before the weekend is out) and the noble Ted Ts'o, who committed himself to match their donations up to the $1000 mark, have made a significant dent in the overall cost of writing The Big Meow -- so that fewer subscribers will be needed to finance each chapter, and those who do subscribe won't have to pay as much. The exact numbers are still somewhat up in the air, but these early donors have made a big difference...and I thank them all profoundly.

Those of you who feel like continuing this process, feel free: but for the moment, let's all stop and take a breath: the initial challenge has been met in spades and at speed. We have, however, already been offered another challenge, which we'll announce on Monday.

Meanwhile -- congratulations, you guys! What a feat!

"The Big Meow" ...is a go!

2006-02-23T15:57:00.000Z

For those coming in late, a brief recap.

In mid-December I posted part of a message from a reader and fan of the "Feline Wizards" books who wanted to know when the third book of the trilogy begun with The Book of Night with Moon and continued in On Her Majesty's Wizardly Service / To Visit the Queen was going to come out. I wrote back saying that, though the outline for the book was complete, the publisher hadn't been interested in bringing out the third volume because of relatively low sales figures on the first two: so that book would probably not be written.

And then I started thinking... You can see the whole response post here, in which I laid out my thoughts on the subject. In that post, I asked people who were interested in seeing a third book to mail me and let me know. If enough of them (meaning enough people to cover the costs of writing a book and self-publishing it via a print-on-demand publisher like Lulu.com) expressed interest, I would consider writing the book and publishing it myself.

Now it's two months later, and that being -- I thought -- more than enough time for people to express their interest, I wanted to get some closure on the issue. Last week I asked the readership one last time for their emails, intending to make up my mind once and for all this week on what to do about the project so that I could get on with other things.

I spent most of this last Monday counting and rereading all the emails since December. They were all very positive. A surprising number of people committed to buy multiple copies of the book when it was finished. Many others offered suggestions for ways to self-publish. A lot of people offered to send money up front, which was nice, but per se was a suggestion I preferred to resist: I'd rather there be something concrete on the barrelhead for people to put their cash down on, as it were. A lot of the people who mailed me knew about, and mentioned, Lawrence Watt-Evans' celebrated approach to his own version of this problem, in which he "serially" self-published his Ethshar novel The Spriggan Mirror, posting a chapter every time the PayPal donations from interested readers reached a certain point. (And afterwards, his book found a publisher, too.)

That particular business model had been on my mind for a good while. Certainly it has an honorable and ancient cultural precedent in the storyteller who unrolls his or her mat in the marketplace and tells just enough story to get your interest...then shakes the bowl in front of him/her, and waits for enough coins to jingle in it to warrant a continuation. But at the end of the day, when you start a project like this, the question is always going to be: is there going to be enough interest to see it finished? Yes, I want to tell this story -- there are characters in The Big Meow who I've been wanting to write for a long time. And at the same time, what goes on in my household is still a business, about which I have to be fairly hardheaded if it's not to flounder in the face of present market conditions. I set a number of financial conditions that were going to have to be met if this whole business was going to be worth my while: these conditions were tied to the approximate cost of a book of this size as published at Lulu (between USD $20 and $25, approximately) and whether I was going to be able to make back my expenses, at the most basic acceptable level, from projected sales.

Unfortunately, after the count was finished, and even after putting the best construction on the number of books that the people who wrote me were committing to buy, the numbers still came up short of the results I'd been looking for. This depressed me, and I spent some hours afterwards trying to figure out what to do. And during that period, something rather unusual happened. An email came in that started out like this:

If you find yourself a little short on responses for "The Big Meow", I
hereby offer to write a check for $1000.00 USD up front if you commit on your blog to start writing the book and self-publish it.

You may imagine that my jaw kind of dropped at that point. (BTW, I'm not going to reveal the person's name at the moment, not being sure if it's OK with him.) At no point in this process had anyone stepped up to the plate and started swinging quite like that. And so substantial an addition to the economics of the situation could, under certain circumstances, make a significant difference to the way the rest of the numbers played out.

So here's how it will be.

Adding the challenge like the one in that last mail to everybody else's commitment...it's simply impossible for me to say "no". Therefore, I'm going to start writing The Big Meow. (However, everybody please note that at the moment, the chief priority on my side of the household is getting A Wizard of Mars off to its publisher, so the "delivery" of the first chapter of TBM is likely to be delayed a couple/few weeks.)

I will conduct this operation along the lines of Lawrence Watt-Evans's model, which seems to have served him well, but I'm going to add a few tweaks of my own to it.

The Big Meow mailing list

I'm assuming that all of you who mailed me about TBM are willing to be notified when material is ready for you to see: so I'll be constructing a mailing list using all your addresses (you'll get a confirmation /opt-in-or-out mail in the next few days). When Chapter One of TBM is ready, I'll mail you all and "shake the can", alerting you that it's time for you to make a payment. I'll put a link up on The Big Meow's website so that those who want to add themselves to the mailing list can do so.

Subscriptions

PayPal will be the preferred payment method, though (as in Lawrence's case) I'll accept checks as well. (It will take a little time to set that up with my bank and the local post office: in the meantime, PayPal payments, or credit card payments processed via PayPal, will be the only available method.) As with sales for A Wind from the South,, fulfillment of the PayPal payments will be via e-Junkie, which has been working quite nicely for us. (You'll notice, by the way, that the email address to which the payments are directed is Peter's. He is acting as "banker" and in-house oversight -- i.e., "nag" -- for this project.)

Please note that I haven't yet decided what the minimum amount/number of received subscription payments per chapter will be: this is going to take a little more thought on my part. I'll be notifying the people on the mailing list of the minimum amount shortly. At any rate, when enough "subscription" payments have arrived, everybody who subscribed will be emailed the first chapter (and a link to a password-protected page on the Web. All the subscribers to a given chapter of TBM will be getting back a receipt back assigning them a unique password for that transaction).

Three days after the chapter has become available to the subscribers, it'll be posted to an "open" webpage at the Big Meow website, where anyone who likes can read it, and (if they like) subscribe to the next chapter.

And so it'll go. We'll repeat the process as long as reader response warrants it. (Please note that I am not committing myself to complete this project if the reader response is inadequate. Each time a chapter is posted, the ball is back in all of your courts.)

After the book is over: publication

Assuming that all goes well, when TBM is finished, those who've subscribed to all ten installments (that's how the book is structured at the moment, in ten chapters) will be getting a "hard copy" paperback produced via Lulu.com. Others who haven't subscribed, or have subscribed only to part of the run, will be free to purchase the book at Lulu, in whatever quantities they desire. All subscribers, whether they paid for the whole run or only part of it, will be acknowledged for their contributions in all subsequent printed versions of the book (who knows, perhaps some day a publisher will step up to the plate).

The challenge grant fund

I'm designating the above chapter-by-chapter payments as "subscription" payments,in order to leave free -- for those who prefer to handle their participation this way -- a separate channel for contribution to the project. My mystery e-mailer added the following good suggestion:

If you like, I give you my permission to publish this note and to convert the $1000.00 USD pledge into a challenge grant where I will match up to $1000 of donations from others, at your discretion.)

I like the sound of that. So I'm going to be establishing a separate payment button (look to the left) where interested parties can add to the challenge grant fund. If the challenge is successful, this will significantly reduce the total costs of the project, and make it possible for me to hit my "earn-out" figure sooner. Those who make contributions to this fund will also be acknowledged in all print versions as "Friends of The Big Meow" or something similar. (US readers, think of the varying levels of support you see advertised in an NPR / PBS pledge drive: this would be like that.) After the challenge amount is achieved, a notification to that effect will be posted on the Big Meow website. The "contribution button" will remain in place, though, for those who want to help the project along in a mode different from the chapter-by-chapter subscription model.

(One note about this: once we figure out a way to configure e-Junkie to handle payments of unspecified amounts, we'll switch the challenge grant payments over there, and that system will automatically deliver you a document confirming your contribution. In the meantime, just use the PayPal button at the Big Meow site; when the transaction finishes, you'll wind up with a copy of the acknowledgement that you can print out.)

My commitment to the readership

I think -- looking at my present work schedule -- that I can finish this book in six months. So my target completion date is August 23, 2006...the first day of LA Con IV.

(Doubtless there will be betting pools starting up immediately regarding whether I'll hit the target. I don't want to know. :) I'll add only this word of warning: it looks like the TV end of my workload may start getting active during the summer. I'll keep people posted as I can.)

Other miscellaneous details

Please note that this endeavor is not being operated by or as part of a non-profit organization, so your payments to the challenge grant fund are not "donations" for tax purposes. Just so you know.

Otherwise, doubtless there will be various minor logistical and technical matters that will come up to be handled as we get this thing going. Please bear with me as I sort them out.

...So there you have it. If you want to be added to the TBM mailing list, email us at the-whisperer@youngwizards.com . Those of you who offered to send money right now (and that was a truly surprising number of you), you can put it to best use by putting it toward the challenge-grant fund.

And now: onward. Let's see what you folks do.

Time to make a choice...

2006-02-19T11:11:00.000Z

As I said in the main blog the other day:

It's been two months since I broached this subject. Now it's time to make a choice.(I kind of hate to use the word "decision": it does, after all, have its root in the Latin word that implies you're about to kill something...)

I'll be evaluating my options over the weekend. (BTW, I'm aware that this is the President's Day "long weekend" in the US: I won't be posting the final result of my deliberations until Tuesday morning. ...Just as well, as it gives me a little more time to evaluate the incoming emails and make up my mind.)

However, if you have an opinion on whether you'd like to see the final "Feline Wizards" book, and you haven't yet dropped an email to the straw poll address, then this is the time.

Project progress report

2006-02-15T10:00:00.000Z

I had a query about the subject late last night, so I thought I'd drop in an update here.

I don't have enough information yet to make a decision about writing The Big Meow, as I haven't yet hit the "break-even" point in terms of responses to my initial posting about the project. So far I've only heard from a few hundred people, and even if every one of them bought a book at the stated price, I'd still be losing money on the deal. As the project stands at present, I would need to hear positively from at least a couple/few hundred more people before I could commit.

-- And so that no one reading this misunderstands me: for costing purposes on this project -- without getting into actual figures -- I'm "paying myself" the lowest amount my agent would have allowed me to take for a work-for-hire/licensed-property book between three and five years ago, when I was still doing such things. This amount -- again, without getting into actual figures -- would be about one-fifth to one-sixth of what I normally get for a writing a novel these days. To do this very on-spec piece of work, I would be taking a considerable drop in pay while I spent a significant portion of my work year on the project -- so you can see where my concern lies, as I have cats to feed, and they don't understand explanations about wanting to write just for the joy of it: they want to know where their dinners are.

(An additional and slightly related issue: one of the ways I've been testing the water as regards self-publishing is with online sale of a book already written but never published elsewhere, though it was bought by mainline publishers twice -- details here at the website for Raetian Tales 1: A Wind from the South. The sales so far of the book's e-version have been only modest...and this for a novel already written. Looking at this situation, I have to ask myself whether The Big Meow is really likely to do any better, and whether I may be about to start wasting a lot of precious time on something that's just "a nice idea".)

...So if you know somebody who's interested in seeing this book written, or (looking over the heads of whose who've already mailed me) if you're yourself interested, now's the time to drop me a note and let me know. The original post laying out the situation with this book is here. The address to mail support or inquiries to is
thebigmeow@youngwizards.com

If you haven't done so already, please let me know what you think.

Or you could, if you liked, convince me more concretely by putting money-where-mouth-is and buying a copy of A Wind from the South. (There are sample chapters and links to reader comments at its website.)

But I also want to thank very much all those who've already written -- so many of your comments have been really heartwarming -- and those who've read AWFTS and have been having fun with it. You guys make the work worthwhile. :)

A word to those of you who've purchased "A Wind...""

2005-12-15T13:59:00.000Z

First of all, thanks! :)

Thanks also to those of you who let me know how small the page size was. I wasn't entirely clear that the thing was formatted for A4: my apologies.

If you'll go back to your download link in an hour or so (or whenever you please after that, naturally) and download the file down again, you'll find a much more easily readable version of it.

(You may also have received an email from me about this issue by the time you see this note, as I'm about to gang-mail all the earliest buyers.)

Another note too: the book will have its own page over at http://raetiantales.blogspot.com momentarily, as soon as I get some FTP issues sorted out.

Just to say "Thanks!"

2005-12-14T23:26:00.000Z

First of all -- thanks to everybody. It's kind of rare to get such an outpouring of, well, approbation...and I really appreciate it.

A lot of you have given me terrific and useful suggestions: over the next few days I'll put up some posts here to talk about which ones will work and which ones are kind of problematic in this particular book's situation. Mostly I'll be keeping these discussions off of Out of Ambit: if you're interested in self-publishing and POD issues, this is the blog to keep an eye on. I'll put up a link to an RSS feed in a day or so to make it easier.

Meanwhile -- another aspect of this experiment.

In this big batch of emails, a lot of you have said things like "I'd buy anything of yours..." (Which, by the way, is incredibly flattering.) It occurs to me that there's one book of mine which very few of you will have ever heard of...because, though a publisher paid for it, it was never published. It was written, though...so we can try out on this one some of the techniques I'll later be using on The Big Meow.

A Wind from the South, the first book of a projected trilogy, was originally outlined and written as part of a three-book package sold to Corgi Books / Transworld in the UK. There was some more information about it here, but I've now moved that information over to the book's own page. You can find that info here:

http://raetiantales.blogspot.com

But, briefly...those of you who said you'd buy anything of mine? Here's your chance. :) $5.99 via PayPal and A Wind from the South is yours. (The file is in Adobe .PDF format.)

Just hit the button in the left-hand column under the book's cover image. The email address associated with the PayPal account is Peter's, just in case you were wondering.

Thanks again... and have fun.