#interim errantry

[moonlight-and-memory]

“Kit turned over the hearts in his hand, the way Cheleb had, with his finger, one by one. They were pink and blue and yellow and purple and green and white. And regardless of the color, every single one of them said: I KNOW.”- Interim Errantry, “Lifeboats,” Diane Duane

[dduane]

At Ebooks Direct: INTERIM ERRANTRY 2: ON ORDEAL recovered, reformatted

The project of reformatting and recovering everything in the Ebooks Direct store has been going on for the guts of a year and a half now, and here’s the latest installment.

Interim Errantry 2: On Ordeal -- the compendium volume containing the stories of the Ordeals of Young Wizards Roshaun ke Nelaid, Mamvish fsh Wimsih, and Ronan Nolan Jnr -- has just been passed through the cutting-edge Vellum ebook production software, and has had a new cover added to the package.

If you’ve already purchased this ebook from Ebooks Direct, you are (as usual) entitled to a free copy of the new edition. All you need to do is drop us a note at the EBD support email address, and we’ll have the store send you new download links. Please note that it may take a day or three to get to your request, as this book has a lot of purchasers.

Also: now that the reformat is complete, we’ll also be rolling out a paperback edition of the book at Amazon.com within the next week to ten days. We’ll make an announcement here and on the Ebooks Direct and Young Wizards Twitter feeds when it’s ready, as well as at the EBD and YW Facebook pages.

Thanks for your interest, all!

[dduane]

Carmela. WTF.

Once again I am reminded (as I go over the new Vellum version of Interim Errantry for Amazon) that Carmela can be unpredictable.

Nita squinted to read the block of tiny, tiny print at the bottom of the promotional feature, again displayed in English to ease the handling of some of the more obscure Rirhait idioms. “…Wait. ‘Earth’, ‘Mysterious Earth’ and ‘Mother Earth The Legendary Home Of Humankind’ are licensed trademarks of Gaia Protectorate CRLLC, terms and conditions apply, planetary descriptions may change from time to time without notice at management’s discretion—” And then in the tiniest print possible, “—battle fleet not included’??”


“Legalese,” Carmela said, craning her neck to see ahead of them. “It’s not like the disclaimers actually have any force in law, really, once you’ve—”


“I can’t believe this,” Nita said. “CRLLC? Did you incorporate the entire planet Earth somewhere?!”


“Here, actually,” Carmela said. “The corporate tax rate here is reeeeeeeeallly low. Especially if you’ve saved the place from alien invasion. At which point it drops to zero. …If not lower.”


Nita’s mouth dropped open.


“And why are you looking so shocked? You cosigned the incorporation documents when we were here last.”


Being reduced to speechlessness around Carmela was hardly a new experience for Nita, but this particular incidence was setting new records for the underlying implications...

(covers eyes)

[dduane]

While Filif explains Santa Claus, Ronan adds something unexpected

From Interim Errantry:

“—but once you’re into six-and-up, millions of apparent visits to physical reality per second is no great problem. It’s only inside the orthogonal plane of time that everything seems to be happening amazingly fast. But if you’re one of the Powers, there’s not the slightest rush. You slide sidewise into the applicable orthotemporal dimension, just that one, mind you, and then you drop off whatever playthings are required make a drop. And then you pull out again and restock at your leisure, and then dip into that timeplane again. When you’re in D7 or thereabouts, the temporality of D3 and D4 is hardly an issue...”

“That’s it,” Ronan said, “he’s solved Santa. We have nothing left to live for. Though why the old Dublin postcodes? A bit retro…”

[dduane]

A study for the new cover for Young Wizards: Lifeboats. Lighting’s not yet quite where I want it (the light in the FG is too white), but Thesba looks nice. (The old force-bubble-over-two-planets cover is going to be for Interim Errantry only after I get this cover sorted out.) (Also that art has some clothing texture problems that need to be repaired anyway. Learning curve issues...)

Going to do something a bit experimental with the Amazon ebook versions of this shortly: not so much A/B testing as A/B/C/D. One version of the cover (as above) with just Kit: one with just Nita: one with both of them: one with Kit, Nita and Ronan. We’ll run each version for a week or so and see what demographic buys which one the most...

[dduane]

So here’s an announcement

Once upon a time there was a kid who lived in the Dublin suburbs and never once even considered believing in wizards… until he found he could be one.

Ronan had always felt himself both the odd man out, the guy nobody really got, the one who couldn’t figure out where he fit in — and the one who didn’t stand out, who got lost in the crowd, who was never going to be anything unusual… just one more also-ran in a world that just seemed to be getting worse all the time. He was slowly starting to feel as if there wasn’t any particular point in life, because he was never going to make that much of a difference to anyone or anything.

Then Life took an interest.

Without warning Ronan Nolan was about to find himself the crux of an argument between forces older than Earth itself… and the recipient of an unfolding challenge that would change many more worlds than just one...

I’m pleased to let everyone know that On Ordeal: Ronan Nolan Jnr. is just about ready.

...So there are a number of things to say about this, and probably the first of them is: I’m really sorry this took so long. Some of you have been waiting quite a while, and I’ve been stonewalling on any discussion until I knew it was in the can and ready to go.

But now it’s ready. At 52,000+ words it’s the longest of the triptych, because Ronan is... complex. :)  In ways that have surprised me, and which I look forward to exploring in other ways at a later date. 

If you’re one of the people from @Crossingscon or elsewhere who presupported the Interim Errantry: On Ordeal project, links to the completed file(s) will start pushing out to you from the Ebooks Direct store around 7AM (US) EDT on June 22. Please note that the store doesn’t send all the links / notifications at one time, to avoid having them get mistaken for spam, so it’s possible other people you know might get their copies before you do. ...In any case, I want to thank you all for your patience. This project more or less tripled in size between conception and completion, which took me by surprise, but has (I think) turned out for the best. I hope you enjoy the long-awaited last bit.

If you’re not a presupporter and will be wanting a copy of this, please note that it will be available two ways: as a standalone ebook (for those of you who might already have acquired On Ordeal: Roshaun ke Nelaid and On Ordeal: Mamvish fsh Wimsih) and in a full Interim Errantry: On Ordeal package. I know that some people have held off on buying any of the three until the whole group was available. My advice to you is to check the store and buy the single-”volume” version, as it’ll give you a slight price break over buying the three separate parts.

When the ebook version(s) are available tomorrow, I’ll put up a post here with links, as well as Tweeting and posting on Facebook and Google+ and doing all the other usual things. You can also have a look at the On Ordeal page at the Interim Errantry site; shortly after the ebooks are up at the store, you’ll find one-click sales buttons in the right-hand column of the page for the separate sections and the three-part full book.. 

Re: other questions that’ll probably be coming up: yes, this will be available at Amazon, but not until October 1st. Yes, there will be a paperback, but not before mid-August at the very soonest -- it takes time to get something this long* set up for print rather than e-format -- not to mention the time it takes to create a wraparound cover -- and during the month of July I am going to be exclusively very busy with YW book 11. So... just a heads up. What you see, for the moment, is what you get.

Again, thanks for your patience, everyone. Enjoy!

*Total word count: 127,600 words

[dduane]

“Young Wizards: Lifeboats” -- files with new covers on their way

For those of you who may have copies of this already, just a heads-up for you. We’re giving YW: Lifeboats a new cover so that it’ll no longer look identical to Interim Errantry. (That will also have a slightly spruced-up version of its cover applied to it later this month. Those of you who have IE will already have Lifeboats as part of it.)

The store will shortly start pushing out download links for the new, re-covered ebook to its previous purchasers. There’s nothing you need to do but click on the URL in the notification email when it arrives in your mailbox: it’ll take you to the page with the URL for downloading the file. Please note that these download links have the same five-day expiry time as regular purchases. If you miss the download window, naturally we’ll refresh your link if you email us with your order info. But try not to miss it if you can, yeah? Thanking You. :)

If you don’t have a copy of Lifeboats: as part of the Ebooks Direct Summer Reading Sale, we’re dropping its price by half for a few weeks. So now’s a good time to grab it if you feel so inclined. Want to know what happens between A Wizard of Mars and Games Wizards Play? This does. 110,000 words of it.

Thanks, all!

[dduane]

Just a note: “Interim Errantry 2″ file updates going out today

Interim Errantry 2: On Ordeal has just gone through a minor formatting-and-typo-fixing pass, and the revised versions of the file* are now up in the Ebooks Direct store.

If you’ve already got a copy, this means the store will be emailing you a download link for the new version (which has the new trio cover above instead of the original one with Ronan on it). If you were a presupporter and received the three parts of the book one by one, the new download links will replace those single files with the full single-volume collection.

If you don’t already have a copy of IE2: On Ordeal, this seems like a good time to remind you that if you bought anything from the Ebooks Direct store between late November 2016 and (approximately) mid-April of 2017, the email that confirmed your purchase will also contain a one-time 30%-off discount code for use on IE2:OO. 

To the presupporters on this project... thanks again for your support (and your patience while it got finished)!

*This is v2.08, for those of you who like to know such things. The v1.xx releases and v2.0 through 2.06 went to the project’s presupporters.