WINNERS! And something's different…
What could it be? Hmm, let's see… it's not my hair, it's not my shoes… wait! I changed my shirt earlier! Yes! That must be… but no, no that's not it either. What's different…?
Ah, right. The site. Forgot about that.
Welcome to the new-new-new 1889.ca. There are many exciting things to explore, but before I get into that, I want to do something exciting: I want to recap the Party Like It's 1889 event!
We had tons of comments across tons of posts all over the place during May, and we met lots of exciting people who may or may not be as insane as we are. Although Anna will claim to have received the most comments, she's only counting the VISIBLE ones, so obviously she's incorrect, and I have in fact won. I believe my prize is a month of horrendous bugfixing, so the joke's on me.
There's some kind of prize thing, too, right? Hmm… I can't put my finger on it. Let's come back to that later, then.
What's new with the site? Well, aside from the multitude of glitches (oh, how I love glitches), we have some fun new features. There's a series page! Yes! And do you know what that's for? Series, dummy!
Starting today, we're hosting two new web fiction series! "Touchstone" from Letitia Coyne and starting next Tuesday, "Gangster" from M Jones! The series will run for a few months, but I've already seen what's coming, and I have to say, HA HA HA SUCKERS YOU HAVE TO WAIT!
That wasn't nice of me. Hmm. I apologize. I need to learn to be kinder to people, like for instance not teasing the identity of the winner of a Kindle but refusing to reveal it for a very long time. That kind of thing is downright scummy, it is. Goodness!
Here's another big change at 1889: we've got us an ezine! The old blog is being upgraded and overseen by the genius Terra Whiteman (of The Antithesis fame), who will be bringing you exciting information from all over the place, and wrap it all up into posts so informative, my brain will explode. No really, it'll explode. Grab a spoon, it'll be awesome.
Everyone say a big happy welcome to Terra. Go on, there's comments. Do it. I'll wait.
Well done. I'm misty, honestly. That was beautiful.
Okay, let me head off some of the more common questions you'll have about what you're seeing here, because I know they're coming:
Yes, I know the search function is broken. I'm gettin' there.
There are funny characters in posts. I think I have a UTF problem, and the ointment just ain't doin' what it's s'posed to!
Certain books, like The Pig and the Box, are not showing up. Most other books are missing metadata, and more importantly, the ability to read them online. I'll get that fixed soon.
Blog archives are inaccessible. That may or may not be on purpose…
Now. If you find things that are broken, feel free to tell me in the comments below, but please don't email them to me, because I quite literally have 900 emails in my inbox that I haven't responded to already, and if I get another 900 bug reports, a different part of me will explode, and you'll need a fork for that one.
By the way, if you've sent me an email in the last few weeks and I haven't replied, that's why. I'll get to it soon.
Wait, no, I have to finish prepping Polarity. Okay, you'll have to wait until next month.
RIGHT.
SO.
Let's look at the magic random number generator, shall we? Who do we see?
In THIRD PLACE, getting an advance ebook copy of the next title we'll publish this month… the winner is Bonnie Sparks!
Now then. In SECOND PLACE, nabbing a VIP ticket, granting them access to advance copies of every ebook we'll publish this year, before anyone else gets ahold of them… the winner is Jaidis Shaw!
Wow, you guys must be really excited. I would be excited too except Anna is reminding me I'm behind on my deadlines, and she has that whip with the barbed wire tip and please make the hurting stop! Please! Ohhhh…
Sorry, I got distracted there.
Finally, the one you've all been waiting for. The big cheese. The head honcho. The… yeah, the winner of the Kindle, really. It's exciting, it's dramatic, it's really quite…
Wait, hold on. Before I go on, I need to thank a few people for making this Party what it is. First of all, Anna, because she thought the idea up, and really, she ran the whole show. She's insane, but she does it well. And speaking of insane, I also want to thank Greg X Graves, who thinks I'm The Man and keeps throwing salmon at my head, but he's otherwise quite wonderful. And also wonderful is Kit Iwasaki, who writes about vampires and mermaids, so she can't be all that bad.
But really, I want to thank YOU. It's been a great month, and I think next month will be better, and the one after that even better… and it's all because of you.
Let me tell you a bit more about how great you are.
You're…
Right, sorry, the Kindle.
The winner of the Kindle (and all that other stuff too) is…
Drumroll please.
Louder, dammit, louder!
Okay, that's good. Hold it like that for a few more seconds…
And…
The winner is…
(how do you open this envelope?)
It's…
Hold on, this is my water bill. What's going on here? Oh, sorry, wrong envelope.
The winner is…
James R!
Confetti, champagne and hippos falling from the sky! Winners, please send me an email at mcm@1889.ca so I can get you hooked up, and congrats again, and be sure to check out the new site! Woo!
