Peter S. Beagle

[connorfc]

Originally Posted by ficbot

Does anyone know anything about the ebook situation with Peter S. Beagle? I know he was hurting for money awhile back (they were fundraising for him on BoingBoing) yet I cannot find any of his books in ebook, which you would think would be the first thing they'd do. I would love to get The Last Unicorn and A Fine & Private Place but they do not seem to be available.

Hi, Ficbot!

And since your question launched this thread, let my reply to you be the FAQ answer for everyone.

WHY ARE THERE NO PETER S. BEAGLE EBOOKS?

There will be. If things go well, then by the end of this year everything that is currently in print will be available in all major ebook formats. Apologies to everyone who has been hungering for them, but so far there's just never been time to get around to doing them. Producing new work and wrangling with Big Old Problems have eaten up all the hours that we had.

WHAT ABOUT THE STUFF THAT IS OUT OF PRINT?

Depends on the title. Some of Peter's older titles (like The Folk of the Air and The Innkeeper's Song) are going to be revised before they are reissued in any format, so for those there will be a wait. The ones that aren't going to be revised will obviously come out sooner, in a program that puts out print and ebook editions in whatever way makes the most sense for us.

WAIT A MINUTE -- YOU'RE REVISING THE FOLK OF THE AIR?

Yep. Extensively. The same goes for anything else Peter wasn't entirely happy with, for whatever reason. Author's prerogative.

WHAT ABOUT NEW TITLES?

Starting next year, the plan is to release ebook editions simultaneously with any original paper editions unless the paper edition publisher in question prefers a different schedule.

-- Connor Cochran

[connorfc]

Originally Posted by Graham

Connor - all I can say is "wow"!

Please keep us informed of progress, from time to time!

EDIT: I've just found your newsletter page on the Conlan Press website, and have signed up.

Graham

Thanks, Graham.

Peter's newsletter (THE RAVEN), the Conlan Press newsletter, and Peter's Facebook page will be the main way we spread the news...though there's talk of Peter finally doing some blogging. We'll see.

There's a lot coming up. Fans of Peter's work are going to find the next couple of years very satisfying, as work which has been in the pipeline for ages finally gets out into the world: two or three new novels, something like nine new collections, a couple of new nonfiction books, some children's books, and lots of old titles finally coming back. Plus we're doing certain things I think are very cool, like more plays based on Peter's work, a line of Last Unicorn-inspired scents from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, selling actual film frames from actual 35mm Last Unicorn movie prints, etc. Should be fun.

And within a month we'll be announcing either a settlement with Granada or the launching of a lawsuit against them, one way or the other. After six years of struggling with them over hundreds of thousands of dollars of nonpayment, either direction is welcome.

-- Connor Cochran

[ficbot]

Thanks for the reply, Connor. I am especially interested in The Last Unicorn and A Fine & Private Place. Any comment on plans for those specifically? It would be so neat if Peter could release them himself via a site like Smashwords so that people could get them without DRM and so that the money would go to him and not a greedy publisher

I admit I have not read any of his other books. But I would get those two ebooks in a minute.

[connorfc]

Originally Posted by ficbot

Thanks for the reply, Connor. I am especially interested in The Last Unicorn and A Fine & Private Place. Any comment on plans for those specifically? It would be so neat if Peter could release them himself via a site like Smashwords so that people could get them without DRM and so that the money would go to him and not a greedy publisher

I admit I have not read any of his other books. But I would get those two ebooks in a minute.

Can't give out details because they aren't settled yet, but we're going to try and be as widely available as possible. Still collecting data and making decisions.

Not to worry about "greedy publishers." It's taken a long time to work out, but we now control all of Peter's e-publishing, on all his titles, and all the US print publishing for everything except TAMSIN and THE LAST UNICORN. So whatever ebook deals we make will be to his direct benefit.

-- Connor Cochran

[crich70]

It sounds like they left Mr. Beagle a job much like J.R.R. Tolkien left to his son Christopher. He had to sort through all the documents that his father had left that were connected with the Silmarillion and the books that became the "lost tales." I can only imagine how labor intensive such a sorting out must be.

Originally Posted by connorfc

No...we withdrew the Pangborn titles from e-reads for quite a different reason.

When Peter inherited the literary estates of Edgar Pangborn and Mary Pangborn back in 2003, they came to him in the form of a mountain of manuscripts, correspondence, and assorted papers. (Well, not a mountain, precisely. But the boxes did fill an entire cargo van.) Examination revealed many previously-unpublished works and -- even wilder -- many new drafts and edits of existing works, since apparently Edgar kept tinkering and making changes to please himself after initial publication, even though none of those changes ever made it into any published editions. After some discussion Peter and I decided that to properly honor Edgar and Mary it was necessary to pull together texts that would best reflect what they actually wanted. That work is ongoing in the background and will eventually go public as part of a comprehensive program relaunching them as writers in all formats, including ebooks.

Mary Pangborn will be a big revelation to folks, I think. She published little during her lifetime, but she was every bit as good as Edgar was.

Another revelation will be Edgar the composer. Those familiar with his biography know that he studied music at Harvard and the New England Conservatory of Music when young, but no one ever knew any details, and (aside for playing for his own pleasure) he never did anything publicly with that training. But we found dozens of full orchestral compositions among his papers, and are arranging to have them produced so they can finally be heard.

-- Connor Cochran

[BWhite]

Originally Posted by connorfc

And since your question launched this thread, let my reply to you be the FAQ answer for everyone.

-- Connor Cochran

Thank you very much for all the news! Sounds like something to look forward to

[starrigger]

Any estimate on how long it will take to get the Pangborn stuff into shape for reprint?

[connorfc]

Originally Posted by starrigger

Any estimate on how long it will take to get the Pangborn stuff into shape for reprint?

Not the faintest right now, I'm afraid. It's an epic task and by necessity it's also on the backburner until (a) other more critical items are cleared away, or (b) we find someone local with the right skill set, available time, and interest.

It was being worked on pretty intensely for a while, by a two-person team we'd selected...but then one of the team members died, sadly and much too young, of sudden-onset melanoma. After that the other person moved away. This obviously delayed things. We'll just have to do the best we can and see what happens.

-- Connor Cochran

[Archergal5219]

Originally Posted by connorfc

WHY ARE THERE NO PETER S. BEAGLE EBOOKS?

There will be. If things go well, then by the end of this year everything that is currently in print will be available in all major ebook formats. Apologies to everyone who has been hungering for them, but so far there's just never been time to get around to doing them. Producing new work and wrangling with Big Old Problems have eaten up all the hours that we had.

WHAT ABOUT THE STUFF THAT IS OUT OF PRINT?

Depends on the title. Some of Peter's older titles (like The Folk of the Air and The Innkeeper's Song) are going to be revised before they are reissued in any format, so for those there will be a wait. The ones that aren't going to be revised will obviously come out sooner, in a program that puts out print and ebook editions in whatever way makes the most sense for us.

WAIT A MINUTE -- YOU'RE REVISING THE FOLK OF THE AIR?

Yep. Extensively. The same goes for anything else Peter wasn't entirely happy with, for whatever reason. Author's prerogative.

WHAT ABOUT NEW TITLES?

Starting next year, the plan is to release ebook editions simultaneously with any original paper editions unless the paper edition publisher in question prefers a different schedule.

-- Connor Cochran

WOOHOO! I have all these books in p-format. I can't wait to add e-format
editions.

I've been a subscriber of The Raven for a couple of years now. It's very good for keeping up with what's going on.

And let me say how much I enjoy my audio version of The Last Unicorn too (read by Mr. Beagle, who does a wonderful job.)

[starrigger]

(re Pangborn books)

Originally Posted by connorfc

Not the faintest right now, I'm afraid. It's an epic task and by necessity it's also on the backburner until (a) other more critical items are cleared away, or (b) we find someone local with the right skill set, available time, and interest.

It was being worked on pretty intensely for a while, by a two-person team we'd selected...but then one of the team members died, sadly and much too young, of sudden-onset melanoma. After that the other person moved away. This obviously delayed things. We'll just have to do the best we can and see what happens.

-- Connor Cochran

Ah, sorry to hear that. Best of luck moving ahead on all fronts.

[BookCat]

Thank you for the response. It's great to hear that Peter Beagle's books will at some point be available in eformat. Sounds like you and he have lots of work on your hands.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by connorfc

Not the faintest right now, I'm afraid. It's an epic task and by necessity it's also on the backburner until (a) other more critical items are cleared away, or (b) we find someone local with the right skill set, available time, and interest.

It was being worked on pretty intensely for a while, by a two-person team we'd selected...but then one of the team members died, sadly and much too young, of sudden-onset melanoma. After that the other person moved away. This obviously delayed things. We'll just have to do the best we can and see what happens.

-- Connor Cochran

What needs to be done to to get the Pangborn stuff into shape for reprint?

[connorfc]

Originally Posted by Archergal5219

WOOHOO! I have all these books in p-format. I can't wait to add e-format editions. I've been a subscriber of The Raven for a couple of years now. It's very good for keeping up with what's going on. And let me say how much I enjoy my audio version of The Last Unicorn too (read by Mr. Beagle, who does a wonderful job.)

You will certainly hear about the ebook editions, then, because the RAVEN is where we'll make the first announcement.

Glad you are enjoying the audiobook version of THE LAST UNICORN. May I relate one of the oddities of the recording sessions? I've read the book many times over the years, and in prep for the sessions I must have gone through it at least another half dozen times, in whole or in part. Yet as he read I kept hearing sentences that I would swear I'd never encountered before, and if I hadn't had a reference copy in front of me I would have accused him of making new stuff up. There's just something about his writing that keeps reinventing itself in a reader's (or listener's) mind

[connorfc]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

What needs to be done to to get the Pangborn stuff into shape for reprint?

A lot. Each title is something of a jigsaw puzzle.

There are, for example, at least six complete drafts of a Mary/Edgar novel collaboration called LIGHT ANOTHER CANDLE, all different from one another, plus hundreds of incomplete pages from the same. (Page numbers on these fragments don't align with any of the complete texts, of course. That would be too easy.) What you have to do is go back and forth with the complete drafts until you have a "final master" text, and then you have to laboriously hunt through that text and the fragments to see whether any of them should be integrated into the master, and if so how.

It isn't quite so bad on some of the old Edgar titles that had already seen print, but even there it takes a lot of time and careful thinking to integrate his post-publication edits with the familiar texts in a way that is faithful to Edgar's apparent intent.

[urania1]

What about Beagle's latest book Return, a limited edition that has been sold out for a while. Is there any chance that this book will be published in a non-limited edition run or in any ebook format?