…sort of like a self-appendectomy, us trying to test it has problems. But enough people have tried it and failed that we are sure it is most sincerely screwed. We are trying to find the problem.
If you need an updated file, write to me at cj@cherryh.com
Is it meant to go to Jane’s blog? That’s where I ended up.
Nope. CJC was putting up two different notices. It’s supposed to (and now does) go to CC. Front page. Then scroll to the first post under the header.
The link took me to the page to report typos, etc, in the books, but I did not see a download link to test. I tried again, and got to the download link page. I tried the link and got a link to The Writing Life. I’ve bought a lot more than that. Tried that link – got freebies full zip which contained Flux, Jerlayne, Seeking North and The Writing Life.
Good luck; This stuff can be messy. I’m still having trouble getting more than one device on my wiki at a time. Earthlink uses PPPoE, and Earthlink hates Apple equipment.
Got an email but doesn’t include everything (just the physical object things):
Product download links:
Signed Bookplates – This product does not have any downloadable conten
Gate of Ivrel Graphic Novel: Set of Three – This product does not have any downloadable content
Got an email but doesn’t include anything I ordered.
I also got the email but it didn’t include anything I’ve ordered except Intruder, which I bought a hard copy of.
It claims to have sent me an email, but none has appeared. I gave it ten minutes just to be sure!
Oh, sorry, it needed eleven minutes! I got the email, listing only The Writing Life, as Arethusa reported.
Sheesh—we’re writing to the software people at the designer at WordPress to see if they have an idea why this isn’t working.
Meanwhile, if you need anything, my addy is cj@cherryh.com and I don’t mind at all fixing something for any of you.
I’m good.
Everything I got on the 24th came out just perfectly on my Kindle — and I am so much enjoying it! So I, too, am good.
I got my new laptop and started installing everything last weekend, and on monday enough of it worked that I could go to Closed Circle and buy all the nice new goodies. I haven’t gotten them onto my e-reader yet, as I’m still working on all the re-installation needed, so I haven’t started reading yet and can’t help with the typos. Besides, I’m in the middle of Michelle Sagara West’s House War books right now, and those need a lot of attention and reading time.
As soon as I finish the third one I’ll start on yours – Deliberations first, then ‘Netwalkers, then maybe I’ll start on the Russian trilogy which I’ve been saving ’till the story was completed.
I did try the re-download link: it promptly sent me a mail with a link to Jerlayne; when I downloaded from the link it sent me a ‘freebies-full.zip’ file containing Flux, Jerlayne, SeekingNorth and TheWritingLife.
I tried the download link again, using my second email address that I seldom use, and it sent me a link to Gold in Ardarin.
Conclusion: it seems to depend on the address you’re using, and seems to be sending one of the current freebies instead of the last-bought book or the specific file for Deliberations.
It’s a very clever idea, if you can get it to work, but I don’t think fixing a typo should mean Jane or you going short of sleep and dropping everything else. Your health and tempers and enough relaxation to not stifle the creativity are way more important than fixing this really fast!
Best wishes for Jane, and I’m really hoping she can relax enough to let it go and catch up on her sleep before trying to fix it further. We know it will get fixed eventually, and at a time that generally is much, much faster than the big companies get round to fixing this sort of stuff. You three can be really proud of what you’re achieving, without a large IT-department to get things done!
My email had Jerlayne & Seeking North. I also bought the 3 russian books and Lynn’s time series books on the 24th as well as Deliberations. Those three did not show up on the link I received in the email.
I received a “Product download links:” email without any download links. To date, I have only purchased “Deliberations”.
I used the redownload link and was able to download the four free books from Closed Circle. The folders in the zip file were labelled TheWritingLife-CJC, Flux-JSF, Jerlayne-MLA & SeekingNorth1-JSF-CJC-MLA. These all seem to open satisfactorily as mobipocket files.
I had also downloaded NW_NetWalkers_Partners-JaneS.Fancher.zip on the free date and the mobi version seems to be OK in my MobiPocket reader. This did not come up when I logged in but then I am nor sure I logged in to receive it, I don’t think that I was asked to do so.
Having purchased all CJ’s books (UK versions mainly) and most of Jane’s work and some of Lynn’s I am an enthusiastic supporter of Closed Circle and recognise the need for me as a reader to support authors whose work has given me so much pleasure.
I will be buying the Foreigner short story when it is available and wish you the best of luck with your voyage of discovery towards selling more of your work and getting a proper share of the rewards i.e. Not supporting the DRM ridden megabeast in the forest.
If you need further tests run please let me know.
Regards
Ian
Deliberations is the Foreigner short story.
I got the email immediately, but there was no link in it.
It sent me a blank email after about 3 hours. Mind you, I’m not upset — no matter how many problems you have with the file, it can’t be as bad as some of the books I’ve read recently. I’ve purchased several books that have been scanned and are being sold for Nook or Kindle. One book was riddled with exclamation marks after, “he said!”
This is so bizarre. We have some theories, none of which involve covert Klingon action, but some of which are nearly as outre. Give us a week. We are pursuing it with the software maker.
“Once is a coincidence. Twice is Enemy action!” 🙂
I got the e-mail right after I entered it on the Closed-Circle form in your update post. It says “Your download links” and in the body “Product download links:” and then it’s empty (I opened it in text-only format which it was sent in).
Also – the little hiccups (instead of that question mark in Deliberations my e-reader showed me a box with an x inside) can easily be gotten rid off at my end via Calibre or even Sigil. They didn’t really bother me either (I’ve just been reading some badly scanned old Harlequin romances and those are sold by a big publisher if you think about it).
And you’re going to a lot of trouble with the lovely fonts, etc. already.
The fonts are all Jane’s idea—she searched up useable fonts—most are under trademark; and she learned how to embed them: she does all the technical prettiness. I’m in charge of screwing things up. 😉 Srsly, I do the very gross runthrough, hunting down fossils and orphaned parentheses, that sort of thing—usually not too much work: it’s just a line-by-line check, the conversion of quote marks and apostrophes, which are a test of eyesight, checking for … versus …. (which are 2 different things) and cleaning up spacing, etc. The good ol’ copyeditor-stuff, which maybe a program could do, but it also provides an eyes-on opportunity to catch stuff no bot could catch…the little glitches like meaning to type one name and typing another. There’s a downside to being a really fast typist: sometimes the actual word/spelling, once triggered, does not pass through the frontal cortex—it goes right through the motor center, right to the fingers. I look at it later and ask, “What was I thinking?” The 8 is another story. I fixed that. I know I fixed it. Did I *save* the fix? I’m less and less sure. I read this story aloud, for gosh sakes…did I read the 8? Or did I read some other version? I tell you, dealing with my mind, when I’m in creation-mode, is a whole ‘nother trip. I can change names. I’m forever crossing up left and right, east and west—but I do that in daily situations, too: not as bad as my old friend Audrey—you could get where you’re going with her in the front seat by taking every turn opposite to what she was telling you, and she’d sit there perfectly satisfied and happy when we got there—I’m not that bad, and I don’t get lost when I’m driving (she did)—but I will say the one and mean the other. THIS is the kind of thing I have to watch really carefully when I go through a copyeditor’s work (they NEVER catch it) and now when I do e-books.
Do you guys use beta-readers at least? From what I hear they might find continuity errors and similar things – even if maybe not all. I just think you should have an equality of joy/remuneration and hassle with these editions, otherwise it will just become a chore to keep it up.
Hmm, at least with the fact that you have .html version you should be set up well to offer books to readers in whatever cool format shows up next. I wonder if that is the case with ebooks that aren’t as carefully curated as yours are.
We have used beta readers in the past, but unfortunately we don’t have anybody with c/e skills right now except us, and we’ve read this so often in so many different versions we’re snowblind.
Yaaaaaaaay, got the email from you with the new link in it, and it worked just fine. The new version is all nice and pretty without distracting little boxes. THANKS!