Okay, so, I finally decided that I was ready to make the paperback version of NO FOREIGN SKY — the final version. I’m sure there will be typos to correct, but at this point I think it’s time to go ahead and make the paperback file and make sure the preview looks good and that every page is on the correct page, that the page numbers are correct in the ToC, that there aren’t any blank pages anywhere, all of that.
This does mean that all remaining typos will have to be corrected in two different files, but oh well, that adds some tedium to my day, but it’s not like it’s hard. The point is that the file now looks good and also I can tell the cover artist how many pages it is and send him a template so he can finish the paperback cover. It’s 450 pages, by the way. That does include a short teaser for INVICTUS at the back. But it’s pretty long. I wasn’t sure what font to use, but I wound up going with Garamond 11 because that dropped the length down from 500 pp. Honestly, 450 seems long enough, and I don’t want to force the paperback to be more expensive than necessary. I’m perfectly aware paper editions are expensive enough already.
I also needed a new, clean paper copy for my mother to proofread. If she proofreads it. She may recoil from the SF setting. We shall see! Regardless, *I* will proofread it again. With TANO, I found about a dozen more typos after it was published by re-reading it on my phone — if you sent me an email to tell me about a few typos, thank you, but I mean about a dozen more after that (!). So apparently I should also send the file to my phone and proofread it again that way. I will do that very last thing, after all other proofing corrections have been made.
I also loaded the current version of the ebook, which for the first time includes all the frontmatter and endmatter and the ToC and so on and so forth. I needed to get the preview of that and turn every page to ensure there aren’t any extra blank pages anywhere (I should have gotten them all, but let’s make SURE). This is also remarkably tedious because the preview function won’t let you turn pages any faster than about one per three seconds, which is PAINFULLY slow when you’re just checking formatting.
I’m dedicating it to Little Fuzzy, by the way. I’m aware not only of the original stories by H Beam Piper, but also of related works by Ardath Mayhar and John Scalzi. I love the art by Michael Whelan. I mentioned them all in the dedication, so I guess I probably need to check and make sure I spelled all their names right. Anybody know of any others I might reference?
Oh, by the way, I’m dropping the initial price for NO FOREIGN SKY to at least as low as $4.99. I may drop it further and in order to pick up more orders right away and get the right kind of data into Amazon’s algorithms. That means it could go down to $2.99, for example. It turns out you CAN change the price for a preorder, so everyone who preordered NO FOREIGN SKY at $6.99, thank you, and you will find you are not actually charged that much.
I will most likely put the price up again sometime in June, so if you would like to pick up NO FOREIGN SKY at a low introductory price, this is absolutely the time to do that. Again, if you preorder this book, your price might go down from where it stands now, but it certainly will not go up.
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In between the original series and Ardath Mayhar’s retelling, there was an authorized sequel by William Tuning, FUZZY BONES. It’s not bad, although its semi-canonical status was lost when Piper’s estate discovered the lost manuscript that became FUZZIES AND OTHER PEOPLE. It’s also the original source of the notion that the Fuzzies aren’t native to Zarathustra which Mayhar picked up, so Tuning probably deserves a call-out.
It turns out that the Piper estate has since commissioned more sequels by Wolfgang Diehr, which I only just found out about when I was googling to remind myself of Tuning’s name.
Thanks, Craig! I think I have FUZZY BONES, and I definitely took their otherworldly origin as canonical, so yes indeed, I had better mention Turing!
Good to see you making progress on this. I know you’ve been really working hard!
I didn’t know there was a Little Fuzzies picture book! Gorgeous: I want it!