E Arcs Have Happened

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

For those of you who aren’t old Baen fans (or fans of Baen for a long time) I suppose I should explain what e-arcs are.

So in the days when the mammoths roamed the Earth — 30 years ago or so — the main mode of publicizing an upcoming work was the ARC, aka the Advanced Reading copy. whenever a publishing house had a hot — or lukewarm, or cold. The difference was in the number of ARCs printed — book to push, they would print a bunch of these.

They were distinguished by having cardboard covers with no images, just the Title, author’s name and Advanced Reading Copy, not for resale. (I need to write about the resale, and why giving resale rights in ebooks is the road to ruination. Even if we do, by default, because how not? I think I’ll do that for MGC on Wednesday.) The pages inside were an unnatural white.

This is why experienced indies print their books in cream paper, btw. The bright white pages are off putting, unless it is non-fiction for some reason.

Anyway, these copies were dispatched to any reviewers you thought might put in a good word, friends of the author who might tell their fanbase about it, and in desperation just complete strangers whose address you happened to have.

Since I was in SFWA at the time, and had put my address on it, I’d get a few of these a month, most of them not even vaguely interesting. Or worse, interesting, but what to do with them after you read them and bought the book?

I might or might not have done walk-bys of those free-book bookshelves outside the local bookstores, put them in little libraries, etc. I have never stuck them in random cars with their windows down. They were not zucchini after all.

Anyway, I THINK Baen started electronic ARCs, because they were the first house to go into ebooks full force. (I read Baen ebooks on a used electronic planner I bought at the thrift store. Well, I had better eyes back then. Needed them, as the screen was sickly green.)

Anyway, I don’t remember when Jim had the brain storm of selling the e-arcs. He sold you the manuscript as the writer sent it in, typos and scenes that weren’t quite right and all. But it came out months before the book, and gave the people who bought them bragging rights.

I remember a Liberty con in which John Ringo reminisced about Jim Baen’s joy at how well they sold “Oh, Johnny, Johnny, it’s like watching the sheep shear themselves.” (If you don’t hear that in John’s voice it’s not my fault. It was very funny.)

Anyway, I’m not really aiming to sell them, but I’ve been looking for things to give my substack subscribers: see links at the top on the right. Because I got caught in this book and my health went weird and I kept forgetting to post.

Yesterday I posted the link to download e-arcs of No Man’s Land, Volume 1. They are actually pretty finished, save for some awkward wording and my usual fun with typos.

Why volume 1, you ask? Well, because each of three volumes is about 300 pages, printed. There’s no way I could print this as a single book, unless I set it in a type even zoomers will have problems reading.

So I am putting it out in three volumes, two weeks apart. Today I set up the pre-order for volume one. It comes out September 10. And then volume 2 and three each two weeks after the first.

Meanwhile the first volume is out in earc, and the second comes out in two weeks, the other two weeks after.

After that, Witch’s daughter e-arc should be ready to go. (I’m going to restart serializing it.) It tells you how well — not — my brain was working that I was very upset because I was serializing at substack but didn’t realize that they didn’t keep access to the archives easily, and there was no way for the to set up a unified page of what went before.

Of course the solution to that, which I’ll implement tomorrow, is to have a secret page here, and put the code to sign on to that page over in substack. (Derp, right?)

The other thing hopefully coming soon ((ish) It needs to be done this week but I owe younger son detailed outlines for the series we’re collaborating in, so that will eat some large portion of tomorrow, and there’s still doctor appointments this week) is that I’ll set up a shop with shopify so I can sell my own books both print and ebook, and other merch, book and not book related. (Look, I want to do calendars. And planners. And….)

Eventually that shop will “Stock” earcs, but today is not that day. Mind you, I’m not allergic to money, so if one or more of you wants to pay me 6.99 (it will be 4.99 on amazon) for getting the book early, I’ll be more than happy to sell it to you, and the sequel in 2 weeks and the next 2 weeks after that. So, the third one will be out well before the first officially comes out.

If you desperately need the e-arc, send me 6.99 via paypal. And shoot me an email to bookpimping at outlook dot com (because my hotmail eats emails) so I know where to send it. (Turns out paypal won’t let me see it easily, and what I see doesn’t always work.)

And if you don’t… well, know it’s coming in September. (I didn’t quite make the August deadline. I probably could force it but don’t want to give my copyeditor a headache.)

So, yay, things are happening again. Go over to Amazon and poke around and read the blurb! (And yes, I’m releasing wide, and hopefully selling in my own store as well.)

32 thoughts on “E Arcs Have Happened”

  1. Off-topic, but since I’m actually awake when you put up a new post instead of having it happen in the middle of the night, this seems like a good time to make this request. A few weeks ago (edit: apparently it was a month ago, on June 15), the book promo included one book (titled Warrior Soul) with cover art that was distinctly Not Safe For Work. I’m often at work when I read According To Hoyt, reading it in between tasks, so I was very glad that nobody happened to be looking at my screen when that image scrolled into view.

    In the future if a book cover is obviously NSFW (I realize there are borderline cases), would you mind replacing the cover image that appears on the blog with a placeholder image that says “NSFW cover, click here to see it”? Or else a warning saying “Next book cover is NSFW, just so you know, so now’s your chance to stop scrolling if you don’t want that to show up on your screen” followed by a few blank lines so that people who use the PgDn key to scroll page by page won’t have the image show up on their screen before they have read the warning? I don’t know which of those will be easier to do in WordPress’s author interface, but I’d have appreciated some sort of warning before a distinctly NSFW image scrolled across my screen at the office. As I said, I’m lucky nobody was looking in my direction when it happened, so it wasn’t a big deal this time, but I’d like to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

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    1. Scrambles through the archives eagerly. Oh, nudes canoodling. Well, that could be embarrassing at work! Good thing I don’t work anymore, but it does spark a story idea about archaeologists uncovering and attempting to decipher this weird thing called text-speak, and searching for a Rosetta Stone to decipher it. Hmm, the stone says AFK means Away From Keyboard, but what strange thing is a keyboard?

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          1. Oh man, I can’t even blame autocorrect for that one as I was typing on a keyboard. On Linux, which doesn’t go in for that autocorrect idiocy. And if any devs were dumb enough to add autocorrect into their software, you could (in theory) take it right back out again.

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    2. Yes, I’m happily waiting for the books. All three are set on pre-order, with reminders (barring medical and/or LIFE festivities on SAH’s and my own part) to download each on the guestimated date.

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    3. I’m with you on that.

      So these are going to be published as three volumes, not one? Will they all come out in the same year? Do you regard them as a series of three novels, or as a single novel in three volumes (like Lord of the Rings, for example, or arguably the Baroque Cycle)?

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      1. The first two volumes come out in Sept 2025 and the third comes out in Oct 2025.

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        1. Thanks. That clears up how they should be handled in the possible event of a Prometheus Award nomination. Your mention of the effect of Le Guin in stimulating (or irritating?) you into writing them makes me interested; the internal dialogues of science fiction (Lest Darkness Fall inspiring “The Man Who Came Early,” or the Foundation stories inspiring Psychohistorical Crisis) are one of the cool things about it. . . . So they’re on my “to buy” list.

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          1. I don’t think it’s Prometheus bait, but writers never do.
            The irritation was with her idea that hermaphrodites would OF COURSE be communitarian. I was a full-of-myself 14 yo. ;)

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            1. I consider that somewhat doubtful too, at this point, but I’ve only seen two chapters. It’s always possible both of us might be surprised. And it doesn’t do any harm to know your intent. Thanks!

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  3. Ah, the Baen of my existence. Not really. I was annoyed with him for some mild misbehavior on his part at World Fantasy Con many decades ago, enough to make him into the oleaginous villain in my next story. Apparently I did it well enough that my friend recognized him in my story, A Hearth for Ulysses.

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  4. I don’t remember exactly when Jim Baen started to sell eARCS but I remember why/how it got started.

    Some of us Barflies were talking about regular ARCS and how some of us were purchasing those “not-for-resale” ARCS from the Internet.

    Of course, somebody brought up the “not-for-resale” aspect of them and Jim commented that he had no problem with people selling the Baen ARCS. IIRC he saw people selling and purchasing the regular ARCS as advertising.

    So apparently he got to thinking that selling electronic versions of the ARCS would be good advertising and it was obvious that people were willing to “pay more” for “getting the book early”. So why shouldn’t Baen Books cash in that market. [Twisted Grin]

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  5. Pingback: Instapundit » Blog Archive » THINGS ARE MOVING FORWARD:  E Arcs Have Happened.

  6. (looking at cover …..)

    Military Dudes (smart ones anyway) usually have very short, easy-to-maintain, impossible-to-grab hair. Heinlein also made such comment on hair as Lazarus.

    And in sheer spite, it is almost impossible to scalp quickly a man with a buzz cut, nor to easily handle or display the taken head. (grin)

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    1. The thing is that such hair will spontaneously, of its own nature, turn itself into get-into-the-eyes-but-too-long-to-pull-back length. This is why sailors had a pigtail. You would cut it short enough to just pull back when you could, but if you were unable to cut it, it was still able to be tied back.

      Very short is ideal if you are absolutely certain you can get it cut. Long is ideal if there is any doubt. (Inbetween, like the Winter Soldier hair — yes, Bucky was very cute with it, but it was a stupid length.)

      And of course, tradition may reign if it is now always feasible to cut it.

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  7. Since I review books, EARCs are important, more important than just bragging rights. My first EARC read-through cues me as to whether I want to review the book when it comes out.

    Part of my approach to reviewing is I only review books for which I can give a positive review. I don’t review throw-at-the-wall books. Only ones I can honestly recommend. Since I generate at least 6 reviews each month, EARC help the winnowing process. The cost to send me one is zero. I don’t have to feel guilty for putting an author or publisher with a book I decide to pass on to the expense of sending a copy.

    (With a printed ARC there are several costs – printing, mailing and the labor to package it. With an EARC, it costs nothing to produce and 5 minutes labor (max) to send. For an indy author the price of sending a paper copy can be significant, and I hate imposing that cost if I decide I cannot review the copy sent.)

    Baen was one of the first publishers to send EARCs. Now lots of them do, including New York publishers.

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    2. I couldn’t find your email! I sent it to your son. (Who at any rate should have the link, because he substack subscribes.) Thank you, btw I meant to say ANYONE who is a reviewer should ask me for a copy. I’ll put a note in today’s post.

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    2. Yes. Can only read the first book once.

      OTOH I tend to re-read quite a few books.

      I am thrilled to be a pre-reader (before ARC’s) as the author is writing. Which means I get to read it as being written, and final version. Whether I get to continue to be the pre-reader? IDK. Not like I can point out inconsistencies in foreign or old languages (mono language, American English, speaker despite integration Spanish, or at least as much as it was in early ’70s. No use, lose.) But I can point out, “these continuation dates confused me”, or “what about?” and “Wait. What?” holes.

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    1. Er… always were, but before quoting, let me know what you intend to quote and I’ll tell you if it’s still in. (For the record the first third almsot didn’t change. Just some awkward wording.)

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    1. Oh, and Amazon won’t let you give reviews till it’s out (and best if you buy it.)
      It occurred to me I didn’t know what you are asking.
      Also, he named himself. ‘s not my fault. (Sullenly.)

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  11. I just found out. Then what’s the point of an ARC?

    As I recall, when the Roman Senate sent Scipio out after Hannibal, they expected him to fail, and either get killed or return in disgrace. (He disappointed them, but returned to private life and caused none of the trouble they’d feared.) It looks like Viscount Webson has many parallels with his namesake.

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