Asked & Answered - Part 1

[timk519]

This is a situation where I have to refer you to Captain Jaclyn at [email protected] I could probably make some educated guesses but it's she who actually makes these kinds of decisions. When you email her, put Attention: Captain Jaclyn in the subject line so the email will be called to her attention.

Cap'n J can confirm or deny this, but I asked a similar question when ordering the earlier books in the series, and apparently the discount period on book release is written into the contract with CafePress.

[Karen]

Thank you all for thinking of me earlier in the thread. I was on vacation with my daughter to Disneyland and realized as I replied to Glindros on the What's Next thread that the cure for my psychosis IS Disneyland. Since I can't afford to go every time a book comes out, I'm afraid I will never be truly well and must come here to let the crazy out once in a while.

I will be ordering first thing tomorrow. Must get some sleep.........


I have now ordered the book and will wait (im)patiently for it to arrive.

[nottenst]

I was looking at the first samples and then looking up the answers in the jmsnews database. For at the least the first two I looked up, the date on the question in the database and the date in the sample were off by one day.

For example:

From: STRACZYNSKI [Joe]
Subject: I believe G'Kar is about 50-60 in...
To: GENIE
Date: 5/2/1994 6:53:00 PM


No Thread

I believe G'Kar is about 50-60 in Earth terms, which is early middle age
for Narns.

jms

This one in the sample is listed as 5/3/1994.

and

From: [email protected] (Jms at B5)
Subject: More G'Kar questions
To: rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated
Date: 3/14/1994 3:06:00 PM


No Thread

Yes, he does have a wife, who may or may not show up in year two.

What does he mean by pleasure threshold? This is one of those
questions that can only be answered through demonstration....

I'd always conceived that the name was prounoucned GUH-kar. Andreas
started pronouncing it SHUH-kar. I asked him why. Andreas shrugged and
said that he'd decided his character was French.

jms

These in A&A are listed as 3/15/1994.

Any reason for this? Of the other few I quickly looked at, some of the dates match while others were also a day different. It seems weird.

[nottenst]

The sample pages do look nice, and the format seems straight forward. I do hope the books don't end up with as much wasted page space as the quote books had.

There does seem to be a good amount of wasted space on the examples for some of the longer replies. Are the longer posts by JMS still going to have the question margin? Things like the the crickets post in the samples or if the
JMS: Arc a Fake? question from Date: 10-May-96 14:01:14

http://www.jmsnews.com/msg.aspx?id=1-5083&topic=Writing

which go on very long or look like they would have saved some pages if they expanded to fill more of the page.

To answer my own question (if the answer is yes), though, is that I guess that there wasn't enough page savings to eliminate one book, so they were kept that way for consistency.

-------------------

Now I have another question - looking at the topics for Volume 1 I was wondering whether all the questions about those topics are in Volume 1. So, for example, if you get Volume 1 you get all the Vir Cotto, Marcus Cole, and Zathras Q&A? Is there any chance we can see what the topics are for the other volumes now?

[Jan]

I was looking at the first samples and then looking up the answers in the jmsnews database. For at the least the first two I looked up, the date on the question in the database and the date in the sample were off by one day.

For example:This one in the sample is listed as 5/3/1994.

and These in A&A are listed as 3/15/1994.

Any reason for this? Of the other few I quickly looked at, some of the dates match while others were also a day different. It seems weird.

The answer to that is...I don't know but I think it has to do with time zones and which date the database snagged. You can see in these posts the 4 hour window:

From Google Groups:

23. [email protected] View profile
(1 user) More options Mar 1, 6:41 pm

Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated
From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
Date: Sun, 1 Mar 2009 14:41:56 -0800 (PST)
Local: Sun, Mar 1 2009 6:41 pm Subject: Re: My Changeling Experience.
Reply to author | Forward | Print | Individual message | Show original | Report this message | Find messages by this author
Got the word the other day that the Changeling DVD sold 1.2 million
copies in just the first week of its release, which has made Universal
very happy.

I was terrified to look at the special features section because I
always come across looking like I just escaped from the third act of a
George Romero movie, but for a change it wasn't too awful this time.

jms

From the archives:

From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: My Changeling Experience.
To: rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated
Date: 3/1/2009 2:41:56 PM << Newer : List : Older >>

No Thread

Got the word the other day that the Changeling DVD sold 1.2 million
copies in just the first week of its release, which has made Universal
very happy.

I was terrified to look at the special features section because I
always come across looking like I just escaped from the third act of a
George Romero movie, but for a change it wasn't too awful this time.

jms

Since JMS tended to post in the wee hours of the morning it wouldn't be unusual for that kind of difference to occur. I don't know what the criteria were/are for the database that we were working from.

Jan

[Jan]

There does seem to be a good amount of wasted space on the examples for some of the longer replies. Are the longer posts by JMS still going to have the question margin? Things like the the crickets post in the samples or if the
JMS: Arc a Fake? question from Date: 10-May-96 14:01:14

http://www.jmsnews.com/msg.aspx?id=1-5083&topic=Writing

which go on very long or look like they would have saved some pages if they expanded to fill more of the page.

To answer my own question (if the answer is yes), though, is that I guess that there wasn't enough page savings to eliminate one book, so they were kept that way for consistency.

Yes, the format you see in the sample pages is the way it is in the book. Believe me, we played with *many* different layouts and this is the one that gave the best reading experience.

Now I have another question - looking at the topics for Volume 1 I was wondering whether all the questions about those topics are in Volume 1. So, for example, if you get Volume 1 you get all the Vir Cotto, Marcus Cole, and Zathras Q&A? Is there any chance we can see what the topics are for the other volumes now?

Let me check with Captain Jaclyn about that.

Jan

[Jan]

Response from Captain Jaclyn:

Layout is just now finishing on the last four so we don't
exactly what is in each volume. HOWEVER, specific questions about
every episode (110) and movie is certainly a large part of it.

Jan

[Jan]

The Scripts Team Speaks About Asked &amp; Answered

I emailed Captain Jaclyn of the Scripts Team a bunch of our posts (here and on the moderated newsgroup) about the new series, Asked & Answered, and she thought the information below would be helpful to fans.

1) WHY THE ASKED & ANSWERED SERIES LOOKS DIFFERENT
J. Michael Straczynski wanted this series' covers to look as different as
possible from the 14-volume series specifically so fans didn't feel
like they "had to buy" these books.

2) WHY GET THESE IF I CAN GET THE SAME DATA FOR FREE ONLINE?
The goal of this series was simple: offer a document to fans for whom
canon is everything and therefore would want a printed record of the
most important JMS posts in one place, with categories and presented
in the order they were written. In other words, the exact opposite of
the database experience...for those posts included that are online.

3) ABOUT THE TWO COLUMN LAYOUT AND WHITE SPACE
All of the books in the series average 115,000 words. For context,
the average novel is 90,000 words. Ditto for most non-fiction books.

4) WHY NO KINDLE EDITION OR EBOOK?
Contractually we can't do electronic versions for the time being.

Jan

[glindros]

So what color will the middle books be? I hope it's white as opposed to script book black. I rather like the sample mockup cover.

[Jan]

It is a great look, isn't it? The basic appearance is the same white, only the title and part # colors will be changing. And...I don't remember the middle colors anymore. I'll see if I can find one of the old emails later.

Jan

[JoeD80]

They are going the order of the spectrum right?

So Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue

[OmahaStar]

"Contractually" with whom?

[Jan]

They are going the order of the spectrum right?

So Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue

No, that *was* the original plan so as to match the Stations but one or two of the colors didn't work.

Edit: Found the email. Assuming JMS approved them, the colors should be red, gold, purple, green, blue. We at least kept the first and last station colors. <g>

"Contractually" with whom?

Dunno, none of my business. Why?

Jan

[Dan Dassow]

I definitely relate to the dÚjÓ vu, Dan! Old, however, is always going to be 10 years older than whichever one of us is the elder.

One of the files that we unearthed were many of the old "Ask JMS" files from AOL. I was like a giddy kid when I found the first question that I ever asked him.

Jan

I generally use the rule of thumb that old is defined as twice the chronological age of the eldest person in the group of people assembled.

I do not know whether I would have a giddy feeling or a feeling of dread upon finding the responses published to my earliest questions, especially if the response is "Eeek!" or "You know you'll go to [redacted] for that."

[Dan Dassow]

"Contractually" with whom?

Dunno, none of my business. Why?

Jan

This is pure speculation, but jms and CafePress would probably not be able to limit the published run with Amazon for "Kindle".