From netmouse and delosd:

I filled out the form, and was told that these are my top ten options for careers…

1. Costume Designer
2. Set Designer
3. Website Designer
4. Special Effects Technician
5. Desktop Publisher
6. Technical Writer
7. Industrial Designer
8. Animator
9. Computer Trainer
10. Cartoonist / Comic Illustrator

Well… at least my current career made the list.

If I look at the things I’ve done for fun, for school, or for money (and include some of the world-building I’ve done for gaming and for the strip) I can honestly say that I’ve done everything on that list. I was really, really good at #6 and #9, suck rocks at #3, and managed to make money at #10 by learning to do #5 (and #s 1, 2, 3, and 7.)

Neato.

A little back-story… I never really wanted to put the first 3 years of Schlock into print, but I’m going ahead and doing it. You folks demanded it, so here it comes.

But back when I first started prepping for books, I figured I’d provide a starting point for the printed matter that had decent artwork, and that introduced characters effectively. Thus it was that in the archives “Book I” was Schlock Mercenary: Under New Management.

Well, that’s changing, and I’ve updated the archives to reflect this. Under New Management is Book 3. When Schlock Mercenary: The Tub Of Happiness hits the streets, you’ll see a numeral “1” on the spine. When The Teraport Wars comes out next year (hopefully pretty quickly — we’re not going to waste any time on this next one) it will have a nice numeral “2.” And when Under New Management and The Blackness Between are reprinted, the 2nd editions will have (along with the various typo fixes) the numerals “3” and “4” on the spine.

I have to confess, at first this was confusing for me. Then I realized that the confusion was a result of having memorized the book numbers in Roman Numeral form, enumerated sequentially from what was the third volume in a chronology, and then being asked to change. But when I went into the archives and made all the changes it got much, much easier on my poor brain.

If you check out the Schlock Mercenary Archive Synopsizer you’ll see that right now we’re in the midst of Part II of Book 9: Schlock Mercenary: The Body Politic. See how easy that was? Easy-Peasy!

I’ll still tell people that Book 3, Under New Management is a good place to start. I’ll probably still kick off storylines with just a little bit of back-and-fill, re-introducing characters. But now your bookshelves (and my archives) can be properly sequential. Oh, and those first editions of UNM and TBB are clearly going to be collectors items, what with the absence of a number on the spine. Better buy those up now. We only have a little more than a thousand of each left…

So… more than a few of you would like to know exactly when pre-orders for Schlock Mercenary: The Tub of Happiness will open. Here are enumerated tidbits for you.

1. I’m putting a stake in the ground and saying “Next Thursday, September 20th, at 10am Eastern Time.” That gives you a week to plan, right?
2. If you are coming to Mountain-Con or Small Press Expo, you can place your pre-order there, including a pre-order for a sketch edition.
3. If you’ve got a really good excuse for why you can’t order a sketch edition inside a 24-hour window next Thursday, email howard.tayler or sandra.tayler at our gmail accounts, and we’ll try to find a way to accomodate you.

Let the deluge of email begin…

Schlock Mercenary: The Tub of Happiness is being sent off for printing this week. It is 240 pages long, including nine pages of what one trusted pre-reader called “the most satisfying bonus story ever.”

The full-color book includes all the strips from June 12th, 2000 through November 11th, 2001… that’s 507 days of Schlock, for just $25.00.

We probably won’t have books in hand for shipping until late November, but I’m very optimistic about being able to ship books in time for Christmas delivery, or any other end-of-the-year gift-giving you plan to do.

Did I say $25.00? The price for the book (not including shipping) is $25.00 US, but if you pre-order, it’s only $20. If you want to pre-order a sketch edition, that will be $30. We’re going to run things the way we did this time last year — if you want a sketch edition, you need to pre-order it during the 24-hour “window” right at the beginning.

Pre-orders are not open yet.

But they will open soon.

Watch this space…