Most of my online fiction has vanished from the site.  Gone, without warning, never to be seen...well, maybe not never...

Savage.  Ascension.  Beginnings.  The Case of El Chupacabra.
 

Me.  Can't deny it.  I pulled it down at the request of...well, read on.

For years I've said I wasn't pursuing publication for the online fiction because the moment I signed a contract, it would have to come down, and I didn't want to do that.  So went the official line...

But if you've heard me talk in person or e-mailed me about wanting the online work published, I may have allowed that there was one circumstance under which I would agree to remove it from the site and have it published: if it could be done as a fundraiser, with all my proceeds going to a charity of my choosing.  So you can probably guess what happened...
 

I've always hoped that someday, when I had enough juice behind my name, I could go out and find a small publisher who'd help me achieve that fundraiser dream.  As it turned out, I didn't need to look.  I was approached with an offer for the online work, and my usual US publisher (Bantam) counter-offered.

So now I had the chance to do more than I'd imagined with the online fiction: keep some on the site as freebies, while seeing the rest released by a major publisher, working with my usual fantastic editor, and making money for a worthy cause.  How could I say no?  Well, I did consider it...

I'll admit I'm not entirely comfortable taking down work I wrote as a gift for readers.  But the number one FAQ on my site has always been about buying the online fiction in book form.  So long as I could keep some on the site, there would be plenty for new readers.  I'd be giving readers the bound copy they wanted and getting those stories out to a wider portion of my audience.  This was an opportunity I wasn't likely to get again, and I decided to trust that this is what my readers would want.

If you're one of those readers who've clamored for the novellas in book form, you're going to get your wish.  The four novellas and two short stories will be polished up and published as a "Men of the Otherworld" collection.  Details are still being worked out, but I'll post them when I have them.  And with all those stories in one book, it's going to be a hefty one!

The biggest benefactor will be the charity receiving my share of the book proceeds.  For years, these stories have sat here as gifts to readers.  Now, we're going to re-gift them for a good cause.