Verbosity

I began compiling and editing the text for GameSpite Quarterly 2 yesterday. In the process, I discovered that we somehow created four times as many words as were published in the main 280-page portion of GameSpite Year One, Vol. 1, and I don’t even know how many more words than were in the first Quarterly. Year One, Vol. 1 represented six months’ worth of articles. This means that in the space of the past two months, we somehow penned as much text as had previously been published on this site over the course of two years.

I think we got a little carried away!

At any rate, that’s good for you, because that wordiness was the result of our enthusiasm for the topic. We’ll be breaking the second issue into two parts, meaning it is now the second and third issue (the latter to be published in November). This will keep the price reasonable for what is supposed to be simply a dense magazine, and it will also keep me from going insane trying to copy edit more than a quarter of a million words in the space of a weekend or two. I’m sure we can all agree this is for the best! Expect more concrete info on the second (and third, I guess) issue as we roll into August. If everything goes as planned, you will be reading your very own copy of our next quarterly journal a month from now. Or maybe reading a friend’s copy, ya danged freeloader.

Also in book news: the subscriber bonus book will be submitted for proofing today, and yes, I’m already plugging away at Year One, Vol. 2. What can I say? I like print. It’s so very visceral. I do have a plan in mind to make the bonus book available to interested non-subscribers; details to follow.

Edit: After thinking about it, those numbers seemed a little fishy, so I recounted. Turns out BB Edit’s word count feature tends to exaggerate! The complete issue is actually closer in length to Year One, Vol. 1 than a Robert Jordan novel… more reasonable, but still too long. So, I’ll sort this out and figure out what’s happening by the end of the weekend.

8 thoughts on “Verbosity

  1. Year 1, Vol. 1 was the perfect length. I wish all the GameSpite books/journals/whatever were that length.

  2. Realistically I would hope you’d understand that, perhaps, churning out four to six books of that length is not a feasible reality for a handful of people doing this stuff in their spare time on weekends.

  3. I like print too. All this news of stuff for my personal library makes me happy! I look forward to it!

  4. I’m waiting for the day when Parish cracks completely, and starts typesetting by hand. He’ll buy himself a press, and then start carving out letters for fonts; commission engraved plates and special inks.

    Once a year he’ll retreat to the mountains and, in a flurry of activity, illuminate the entire yearly into a leather-and-parchment tome.

  5. @nunix:

    Nah, no need to go all hermit-like; even were he inclined to go off the deep end with this, LaTeX would probably still be able to satisfy any esoteric need he has…

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