19 September 2008
Blog Home : September 2008 : Permalink
It was late 2005 and David Weber's latest Honor Harrington novel had just been published. More than a hundred thousand people had read it and they were hungry for more.
There would be a teeny tiny wait.
Until now.
Late 2008. Rumors of a new Honorverse novel to be published in 2009 abounded. David's progress on Storm from the Shadows, the sequel to Shadow of Saganami, was followed with great glee. David, being the honest Baen writer that he is, wanted to help those rumors along.
So he snippeted. Snippeting being a technique invented by Jim Baen to torture, er, nurture Baen readers by sharing parts of the latest novels that haven't been released yet.
David, being David, does not do things in a small way. So he snippeted the whole freakin' quarter-million-word novel as it existed on September 2, 2008.
Okay, so that's not exactly what he had planned. He had just planned to let out a few chapters. So the "oopsie version," as it has come to be called in our usual dignified way, was pulled within a few hours of the post.
But not before a very few people downloaded it in all good faith. And proceeded to read it. And proceeded to gloat in front of the rest of us.
Lamentations and wailings for parity commenced. And so we let everyone know that the version that got released really was not the final version. Several rounds of revisions by the author have been made since, and the copy edit and continuity check is still in progress. We really aren't quite ready to let the book out as an official eARC (i.e. electronic advanced reader copy); we want to send it out to the world all prettied up.
But the lamentations from the faithful did not cease.
And so, we—the publisher, author of the book, and webmaster—bring to you:
For those who want it—and we stress this is an early, un-edited, incomplete version—we will sell the "oopsie" now for $10. We are not asking you to buy this version, we do not recommend you buy this version, but if you gotta have it, come and get it.
In about 6 weeks, when all the revisions and edits are in, we will make available for the usual $15 the official eARC, which will get you both the "final" and "oopsie" versions—extra computer memory sold separately. If you bought the "oopsie" version, you'll be able to get the official eARC for only $12.
If you buy the Webscription month that contains Storm from the Shadows, March 2009, you will get access to all three versions, if you want 'em. If you buy the novel as a solo ebook, you get access to all three versions, if you want 'em.
And so let there be peace in the valley. Until the next snippet.
—Toni Weisskopf
