Eagles Over the Kennebec

Today is Theo Waitley’s birthday.  That’s right, on this date in 2007, the first chapter of Fledgling was posted on the interwebs.  I trust everyone has marked their calendars and have suitable celebrations planned.

Since that first, auspicious appearance, Theo has broadened her horizons considerably.  Not only has she pursued her dream of  becoming a courier pilot, but she has been published in ebook, hardback, and paperback by Baen, and hit various bestseller lists, including the Wall Street Journal Bestselling Science Fiction list.

As this is Theo’s fifth birthday, I’d say a little gentle embarrassment is in order.  How about this?  Let’s share our favorite memories of her in comments.

NOTE:  Those who have not read the books (Fledgling, and Saltation, that would be), please be aware that there may well be spoilers in comments, and click at your own risk.

So, everybody pull up a chair — no, wait!  I’m forgetting something.  Before we settle in, punch and cake in hand, to reminisce, let’s gather in a circle, join hands, and say the magic words:

Happy birthday, Theo!

Originally published at Sharon Lee, Writer. You can comment here or there.

Paid bills; did laundry. I have been doing laundry for two days. I want to say "non-stop" for two days, but that can't actually be true, can it?

Hexapuma is on the move, and hopefully on the mend. He crept onto the bed in the early morning, curled up on my stomach, and purred me back to sleep -- much better than a Shaky, Hidey Cat! Today, he split his time between his favorite Fleecey Thing (formerly Sharon's favorite fleece house-sweater) and the fleece snowflake blanket on the couch, with several forays into the kitchen to hunt and gather cat crunchies and drink water.

My car being in the shop -- by which hangs another tale -- Steve has the happy task of driving me to work tomorrow morning (early), so Hex can keep his 8 a.m. appointment with his Good Friend Dr. Slack. Who will remove the drain, and I hope to ghod also the damn' collar.

After work, I'll walk myself down to SRM Galactic Headquarters (hey, it's supposed to be 43F/6C tomorrow!) to pack up and mail the Fledglings adopted over the weekend.

I did write today -- a little. I found that I need to indulge in a Chapter and What's in Each list, which I don't always bother with, but this book is complex enough that, yeah -- all the help I can get.

Remember! If you would like to adopt one of the left-over Fledglings, signed by the authors this is what to do:

1. If you are in the North America, you may PayPal $30 to fledglingATkorval.com (where @ replaces AT). You are responsible for being sure that the delivery address is correct.

2. If you are outside of North America, you may PayPal $40 to fledglingATkorval.com (where@ replaces AT). You are responsible for being sure that the delivery address is correct.

3. If you prefer to send a check or money order (in US funds drawn on a US bank only, please), write to fledglingATkorval.com (where @ replaces AT) and tell Sharon that you are putting a check in the mail to her at: Sharon Lee, PO Box 707, Waterville ME 04903-0707

4. Prices include shipping. The reason for the discrepancy between North American and other orders is that the United States Post Office has lost its tiny mind. We apologize profusely for this lapse of rationality.

5. Because there are a limited number of these books in hand, this will be a First Come, First Served operation. This is why is very important for those who prefer to do commerce by check to tell Sharon that a check has been sent.

6. This adoption may not be combined with any SRM order; the Fledgling and Saltation are Lee-and-Miller projects, and are fully separate from SRM Publisher. It seems a tiny, tiny thing, but it makes our accountant happy when we put the money in the right piles, and we're all about keeping our accountant happy.

Progress on Ghost Ship

35002 / 100000

The puzzle pieces tumbled into place so hard Miri thought the clatter would wake up the cat sleeping on the windowsill.

Spent all day doing bookkeeping, database keeping, checkbook keeping and every kind of keeping except lighthouse keeping, which at this point in the day I might actually want to do.

Having now completed my labors, and achieved a work surface, I can tell you several things of note:

Thing One: There are a scant One Hundred Seven (107) Saltations left for preorder.

Thing Two: There are 38 people that no amount of emailing, phoning, post carding, and shouting from trees have roused. We very much want to send these folks the Fleglings they're due, but it's hard when they've gone and dropped off the earth. I suppose that I'll give the postcards another couple days to hit, and then publish a list of Very Lost Souls to the Fledgling webpage, and the Liaden Universe(R) News List. Can anybody think of something clever that I should be doing instead of or in addition to those things?

Thing Two-Ay: Some people may not be aware that a package refused or returned to sender does not have a free ride back to said sender. If your book comes back and we have to mail it out again, we will be contacting you for extra postage.

Thing Three: ...there was a Thing Three; I'm almost certain of it. Never mind.
Edited to add: I remember! Lookit! We're on the Uncle Hugo's Bestseller List for October! Three times!

Thing Four: Take a look at David Mattingly's latest painting.

Thing Five: The Mixed Metaphor Sale is still going on!

Tomorrow, I note, is Monday.

Have I forgotten to mention here that Steve and I will be reading from and signing Fledgling at the Children's Book Cellar in Beautiful Downtown Waterville Maine on Friday, October 9?

Here, have a flyer

We're also planning on hitting Cacciatore's afterward, because, yanno, Italian food.

Anybody in the area who's planning to come, sing out!

...just sayin'.

In other news, I must and I will see this film. Omighod. What were they thinking? No, no, scratch that. I hope it's shown in a theater within striking distance of Waterville.

I have today received a communication from a lost soul, correcting their information, which is Good and I appreciate it immensely. Please note that I am behind on striking names off the list and in no case am I able to instantaneously strike a name from the list, as in, after the email has been sent, but before I've actually received it.

Thank you for your patience.

Remember! If your name is on this list, please follow the instructions at the top of the list. If you see a friend's name on the list, let them know, OK? It's the right thing to do.

Who here is an artist? More! Who here is an artist with a yen to draw/paint/ink a bat-wing horse? If this is you, drop me a note.

Boy, am I tired. And the sun's still out.

Today is the Official! Release! Day! for Fledgling

What can you do to celebrate Theo's flight from web serial to hardcover?

I'm glad you asked.

Cake and ice cream are, of course, always in order. Ticker tape parades are also appropriate, but hard to coordinate.

You might also do the following:

1. Visit your favorite brick-n-mortar store to congratulate Fledgling in person, where it sits on the shelf.

1a. If Fledgling is not on the shelf, politely ask a friendly bookstore staffer when it will be available.

1b. If they say, "It hasn't been ordered in," "Never," or other variations on the theme, politely ask them to order it.

1c. In all cases, thank them for their time. Yes, they work in a bookstore, which is a very cool job, but still, some days one 'thank you' goes a long, long way.

More ways to celebrate!

2. Introduce Theo to a friend or co-worker.

3. If you have Fledgling in-hand, read it!

4. If you've already read it, blog it, or post a review on Amazon.com, bn.com, LibraryThing or the social networking site of your choice.

5. Ice cream and cake!

I hung the SFRevu review review of Fledgling on my office door, next to an image of the book cover.

What are you doing to celebrate Release Day?

OK! We know that the following bookstores have Fledgling in hand:

Constellation Books

Amazon.com

Who else either:

(1) has Fledgling in stock or --

(2) has seen/purchased Fledgling in a bookstore?

Sing out -- bookstore folk, remember to provide a link to your store!

Down in another thread, slash_reader asks the following question:

I live in the UK & am concerned about the postage you will be facing to send my copy. I feel like I made my donation at the time & now you will have to give me back $10-15 of this donation for the postage... I am not so pleased about this.

Is there a way to donate to cover postage costs which won't annoy your tax authorities?

To which I replied:


Thank you for thinking of this.

I went over to the US Post Office site and fed in the information for sending Fledgling to the UK. It would appear that, cheapest, we're looking at $14.20 for one book, which is, frankly, somewhat more than we had budgeted for postage out of the donations*. The post office has been going, er, batshit the last few years with rates, which of course we didn't -- and couldn't -- know in 2007, when this all started. (We have, for the record, seen four postage rate increases since January 2007.)

Because we are freelancers, the IRS considers any money we take in to be taxable -- that's just how it is.

Let me poke around for a couple minutes and see if I can set something up with PayPal. I will make a new post at the top of the journal detailing what I may discover.

Watch the skies!

---
*the accounting for Fledgling and Saltation went like this: 33% off the top for taxes; split the remainder in half, one half to postage and (so we thought at the time) printing, the other half to keeping the authors under roof.
* * *

This message is to note that those who wish to donate money toward postage, may do so by sending an amount they deem appropriate to postageATkorval.com (where AT is replaced by @).

This is not a requirement; we said that we would send those folks who donated $25 or more a signed copy of the book when done, and that we will do. This is an option provided to those folks who, like slash_reader feel that they want to do something more.

Thank you all. We have the Best Fans Ever.

Amazon.com is now posting reader reviews for Fledgling. If you have read the eArc and would like to provide a review, now is the hour. There are no (that's no) structural or plot alterations between the eArc and the final book.

I would ask that spoilers be tagged, or avoided.

Thank you, and go to't.

*dives back into revisions*

For those who have been waiting for the electronic release(s) of The Tomorrow Log and Dragon Tide, we have today learned that they will be bundled with the eArc of Fledgling which is due to hit Webscriptions, err, realsoonnow. Watch the skies.

We also learn that the (paper) ARCs and the galleys for Fledgling have landed, dern near simultaneously. ARCs should be going out to reviewers starting tomorrow, and the galleys will be coming right here to the Confusion Factory.

For those writers who read here -- how do you manage to read galleys while working on a writing project? Read 50 pages of galleys and then write for an hour? I read realllly slow (yeah, not a Writer Survival Skill), and I was kinda counting on the long weekend for some serious Mouse and Dragon action. Normally, in this kind of time-crunch, the galleys would fall to Steve, but! Steve's going to be gone for seven days, so -- it's my lap or nobody's.

In other news, music CDs have been burned, so Steve can have Noise on his drive down south. At the day-job, the professors are jumping ship as fast as they can leap, leaving me with a refrigerator that needs to be defrosted and cleaned, scheduling computer pickups, getting keys cut, and Other Thankless Tasks(TM). Which! Is why I get the big bucks.

Mozart is asleep in his rocker. Scrabble is on Steve's lap, chewing on his buttons. Hexapuma is declaiming in the hallway. Truly, we are Blessed.

Frost warning tonight. Yep. And a call for 81F on Thursday. Is this a great state or what?

Progress on Mouse and Dragon

84463 / 120000