Robin reminded me that I haven’t keep you up to date on the editing.
We’ve passed the book back and forth about three times now and I’m very pleased with the way the editing is going. We’ve had some tweaking of the cover art, mostly for color and tone, but the real time is being put into cleaning up the story.
One of the things that always baffled me about interviews with authors who went from Print to Podio was the question of “Did you have to change much?” I understand that question much better now. Writing for print is, on its surface, a much more straightforward proposition. There are a lot of visual cues on the page to help the reader understand what’s going on. There are, likewise, a lot of audio cues in a podiobook. Since I wrote all my books to be read aloud and not printed, I’m finding that we’re spending a lot of time fine tuning that difference.
It’s taking longer to edit that it did to write originally, but that’s to be expected, given how fast I wrote it. I believe that — in the end — you’re going to be pleased with the results, and in any case, we’re taking the approach that it’s better to be good than fast.
Thanks for the update, Nathan. I am probably not the only one who would love to have the print edition available “at your earliest convenience,” but in truth, good rather than fast is much better. :-) I really look forward to it.
I am getting really excited about this release. I can’t wait to have your books on my bookshelf. I might even be able to make it to balticon this year (though I am still not sure of that), and get my copies signed.
Is there any chance this will be available as an e-book on Apple’s upcoming iBookstore, or any other e-book outlet? I’ve held off on buying physical books for quite sometime now in anticipation of buying an e-book reader, and have decided to go with the iPad (which will support many other e-book outlets as well, from what I understand). Due to space and other issues, this is how I will likely buy most, if not all, my novels from here on out, and I’d love your books to be part of that.
It will be available as an ebook. Whether it’ll go on the upcoming iBookstore or not is up for grabs. I suspect that it will, but I don’t know yet.
Thanks for the update I will be first in line to purchase a print edition may be two. Just a small question will you be doing a signing of some kind like Sigler did with the Rookie for O’Seas people who wont be able to get to any USA cons?
Regards,
Darren
It’s fun to hear how it’s going, thanks for the update! I can’t wait to read the revised book and see what’s changed after having listened to the podiobook several times now. It’ll be so great to have it on my shelves, even better – to have it on the pile of books I’m reading on my nightstand :)
This post — along with the interview you did recently on the Guild of the Cowry Catchers podcast — has tipped the scales for me: if Ridan will do international shipping, then sign me up for a dead-tree version of Quarter Share!
When you described the way you and your editor at Ridan are handling this edit on the aforementioned interview, you made me curious. Now I want to read the print version of this book just to see if I can spot the differences between it and the podcast version, or if they are too subtle to notice :p.
I also like Ridan’s cover art for the book, which means I could totally see it lying around on my coffee table or something — I might otherwise have gone for the Kindle version. I suppose that’s shallow of me, but there it is.
So for whatever it is worth, know that you just sold one more copy. I hope you’ll wind up discovering that your 500-units-sold estimate was too low, and if I can contribute to that, so much the better.
Also, for those of you who haven’t yet discovered Abigail Hilton’s Guild of the Cowry Catchers: definitely do give it a try! Nathan has the protagonist role :D.
Thanks. Ridan will ship anywhere.
I’m eagerly looking forward to the next book. I hope you release it on Podiobooks, but I’ll be buy a print copy either way. I discovered Quarter Share earlier this month and I’ve listed to all your books except Ravenwood, which I started today. Very good work and I’ve been recommending it to lots of folks.
For those wanting signed copies that will not be going to cons….Ridan always offers signed copies – ordered through our website, through Amazon’s “Marketplace”, and through special promotional pages. When ordering through a site we control (i.e. our webpage or a promotional page) not only can you get them signed – but you can get them personalized as well. When ordering signed copies from Amazon Marketplace – they come only in signed/unsigned varieties – but if you email us after ordering a signed copy from the marketplace then you can get that personalized as well.
Basically we ship books (and shipping materials) to the author then as orders are processed email them mailing labels that they use after they sign the books.
Hope that makes some degree of sense.
Susan Parker
Ridan Publishing
Nathan, Thanks for the update… Like your MANY other fans, I too am eagerly awaiting the print copies. I’m also very curious and interested in both re-listening to the “original” and comparing that to the “print” version… it’s always interesting to see/hear the differences required for the various types of media. Like James above, I’d love to make it down to BaltiCon to get the signing/personalization… “live”, as it were… but may not due to my schedule . So Susan’s options through Ridan may have to be my option for this year . Either way, a couple copies will be in my future… ;-)
Keep up the fantastic works (Share, Coast, and Ravenwood… and anything else your amazing imagination can come up with)!
I have been eagerly awaiting the print versions, especially because I know so many people who would love the books but are stubbornly anti-audio. Your work has often been joked about because you write so blazingly fast. I think most other podcasters never realized that it was for those two reason you mentioned plus a third. 1. It was never originally written for print until your fans began to ask. 2. It wasn’t all that important to have the visual cues and language most people have come to expect of print novels. They were exclusively written at the time for audio, for english speakers. 3. Your novels, while not short, are shorter than most full-bodied novels in science fiction and fantasy. The world you’ve created, while rich, is heavily based on the implication thatits linearly in the future. There isn’t very much crazy speculation about tech (a lot of it we already have on small scale) and the rest is all human interaction and sheer economics. :3 I’m willing to bet that it will be worth any wait to get the books published. Your writing is amazing even in “short”hand. ~_^
Nate, how are the other projects coming along? Will we be gifted Captain’s Share soon? I certainly would enjoy that! =)
Thanks, Megan.
I don’t know that writing for audio makes the writing go any faster, but it does require some different kinds of thinking. For one thing, I was always trying to make it clear who was talking without resorting to artificial voices or contrived speech patterns. That was sometimes a challenge.
Quarter Share is rather short at about 80,000 words. It’s about the minimum length to be considered a novel in this genre. By comparison, Captain’s Share – at almost 150,000 is closing in on “way too big to get printed” by US standards.
Captain’s Share has been out since the Fall, Michael. You can find it on iTunes and Podiobooks.com. Do you mean Owner’s Share? That’s still in the works and I don’t know if I’ll have it done by the end of May and Balticon, or not. (probably not but you never know).
Owner’s Share would indeed be what I meant. Thanks for the update! Looking forward (as ever!) to your next work :)
Nate, is the publishing date for Quarter Share set in stone? Amazon’s still showing the preorder shipping date “estimate” between April 5th and 7th. Just curious (read as “my Id is chomping at the bit for the hardcopy and my Ego’s fighting a losing battle to beat the Id into submission). Like you said in the post, better to be good than fast, so no worries from me if things are held up a bit.
I’m guessing that estimate is a tad on the optimistic side. I just got the final set of edits back from Ridan yesterday and I still need to get thru them and add my own for final approval before this can go. It’ll still be out in April, but probably closer to the 20th than the 10th.
The special edition hardcover will be something behind that one but worth the wait.
If it truly is going to be an ebook are you going to do what some authors have done and offer it as an app like Scott SIgler did with The Rookie or Mur Lafferty did with Playing For Keeps or will you pop up in the kindle store?
It may go as an app — particularly if the iPad and the iPhone share an app store — but it’s going up as a kindle version, most certainly, and I suspect at least two other formats as well.
Nate, How extensive are the edits to the book? Will you be re-recording the podiobook version after the book is published?
Thanks for the update. I don’t mean to chivvy you along any quicker than you can, but we can’t wait to have a printed version to enjoy. Thanks for your considerable hard work and the hours of entertainment you have already provided.
Get a fresh pot of coffee on and keep up the good work.
Brandon: The edits are not extensive as far as the story goes. It’s mostly just word choice and page formatting. There’s lots of dialog tagging that really isn’t needed when you see it on the page.
If it’s a choice between re-reading QS or writing a new book, I’m writing the new one. Audio production takes a lot of time and energy, even with a single read.
“It’s taking longer to edit that it did to write originally, but that’s to be expected, given how fast I wrote it.â€
I feel your pain. I find it amazing how long it takes to edit a novel. Those who haven’t been through the process often have misconceptions. People think editing either means looking for typos, or a monstrous process wherein an editor cuts out or rewrites whole sections trouncing the writer’s work. I was just as apprehensive when I received the edits to my first novel, wondering how much legal power I had after signing the contract. I mean if they really messed something up, could I stop them? Luckily, editors—at least the ones I’ve dealt with—are extremely careful and often treat my prose with far more reverence than I do. But it does take a long time. I wrote my first book in one month, it took a full year to edit, and in the end, after passing through the hands of no less than five editors, there were still a few mistakes that needed to be corrected in the second printing.
In the end, I found it all to be worth it. The extra word-polish might not be something a reader will point to, or notice anymore than a slightly cleaner directional microphone, but you know the overall experience will be better for the reader/listener even if they can’t define exactly why.
Still looking forward to that lunch on Thursday.
Excellent!!!! I just saw that your book is going to print! Now, I’m in a quandry whether to pre-order it now, or to wait until the release day in order to boost your numbers on Amazon!
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve listened to the “Share” series and have always wanted a print copy as well.
Congratulations Nathan.
Nate, question came up in Second Life about the Visitor Center–will that make a reappearance now that the sim has been reorganized? Or is there contractual issues that keep you from having a Multiverse presence for the Age of the Solar Clipper?
The visitor’s center is now at Podiobooker. I took down the big primmy box because nobody ever visited.
Wait… Quarter Share is on Amazon?! Where is my alert from Ridan… Where is my preorder?? Where is the blog alert!! Where is the big opening day push like Podiobooks has done for Brave Men and Sigler and Holyfield??? I feel… let down!
Awwww. I’m sorry.
The notice from Ridan is waiting for my books to be delivered here so we can ship them. It should be going out in the next day or so. I’m actually jumping the gun on the announcement a bit.
Your pre-order? I’m not sure because it depends on where you pre-ordered it. If you got one from Ridan, it’ll be shipping as soon as the books get her to put into the mailers. If you ordered from Amazon, check your order status. It might have shipped already.
As for a “big opening day push” — that’s my choice so if you’ve been let down there, it’s my fault. I didn’t want to put the kind of pressure on my fans that comes when everybody’s sayin’ “Oh you HAVE to go buy it TODAY!!” So I decided to fore-go that.
You can buy it when it’s convenient. I’m here for the long haul and I’d just as soon have a good solid roll out over several days – or even weeks – rather than all at once and then a precipitous drop off.
But … feel free to tweet, post, blog, and generally spread the word as much as you like on your own. :)