To all Full Members and Conditional Members of the Series,

This is Peter Schneider of Hill House, Publishers writing to everyone who replied to Hill House with the magic words, "I request Membership in the Neil Gaiman Author's Preferred Subscription series."

Many of you have already sent in your application forms and membership fee. Once I've received your material, I have—or will—send you a confirming email letting you know that it's arrived. I'm doing my level best to keep completely current on all of this—but to be honest it's been an incredible as well as overwhelming response. I just checked the mail a few minutes ago and there were thirty-two envelopes with applications and payment—and this is a lighter load than I've been receiving the last two weeks!

If you have any question or concern about your application or payment, please send me an email asking me about it. I'll get right back to you.

And I'm sure there are some of you who have not yet received your Membership materials in the mail as of yet—if you're getting this newsletter, it means that your materials have been mailed. Yes, I finally was able to catch up with the mailings of all the applications—until I check the Hill House email box again, that is.

Let us take this opportunity to thank all of you for joining the series and for putting up with a few delays along the way. As I've said too many times already (in emails to all of you), it's been a real whirlwind ever since Neil first mentioned the Hill House books in his on-line journal.

Multiple Email Addresses

One more administrative note. A number of you have sent us emails from two different email addresses—usually a work email and a home email. Please let me know right away if this newsletter has been delivered to the email address for which you want to receive future mailings. I'll make the change immediately.

Free Shipping

I'm sure at least some of you were surprised when you received the Membership document and saw that you would receive free domestic shipping on the two books included in the series. We made the decision to add this benefit because of the amazing response we received in just the first two days. (As our International Members know, they'll only have to pay the difference between domestic and international postage.)

We're also planning on sending out a few bonuses to all Members in the coming months. We can't go into the details now, but we are sure that you'll be pleased with them.

The Hill House Guarantee

When we were first devising our plans for the Series, we figured that most people would just want to reserve AMERICAN GODS and that perhaps only 10% would want to join the Series. Boy, were we off base! The fact is that 95% of the responses we've received have been about the Series—and 90% of those initial inquiries have turned into Memberships. Once again, we are grateful for your enthusiasm and your support—and we're sure you'll be glad you joined.

In order to guarantee your satisfaction, we've devised an actual Guarantee for all Series Members:

Once you have become a Full Member, you have the right to rescind your decision and get a full refund of your entire $400—that is, up until you are shipped the limited edition of AMERICAN GODS. From that point on, you can rescind and receive half your Membership fee ($200) up until the time we ship A SCREENPLAY. Once you have received A SCREENPLAY, you can no longer request a refund—but of course you'll still receive your limited edition of NEVERWHERE. And as Hill House continues to publish limited editions of Neil's works, you can remain in the Series for as long as you want. If at some point you decide you'd like to quit, just let us know and we'll take you off the list. If a Member does drop out, we will offer his or her spot to someone on the waiting list. Be assured, however, that only Charter Members will receive A SCREENPLAY.

The Lettered Edition

We've also received many inquiries about the lettered edition. Believe it or not, we are still waiting for costs from our production company. As you can tell from the photo on the website, the box for the lettered edition is very detailed. The wood used on the body of the box is a fine veneer from Africa. The sliding drawer uses a slide mechanism that is considerably shorter than most slides available. And the marble door (which will be engraved) involves a tremendous amount of handwork. We've made it clear to our production company that we need an immediate answer—and once we've received it, we'll send all Members the finalized information.

Some people might wonder how we got the original prototype featured in the photos. Back when we were having our first discussions about publishing Neil's books, I had an image in my mind of what kind of box to use for the lettered. I tried explaining this concept to various people, but as you know, seeing something in your mind and being able to articulate it properly can be two different things. "You see, the book will be held in this holder-thing that will slide out of the box on this slide. . .and the door will open like a real door, not like a traycase. . .and there'll be a ribbon that pulls the slide out of the box—the slide that holds the book, I mean. But there'll be sides to the slide that will hold the book upright. . . ." You get the picture.

So after dozens of blank looks and remarks like, "I don't quite get what you're talking about, Peter," I decided that the only way to communicate this concept was to build the damn thing myself. So I ordered the materials from all over the country (thank God for the internet), taught myself how to use wood veneer, and then spent several days in the basement hammering and cursing. But it was all worth it—once I was able to show the actual prototype to people, they immediately got it. ("Oh, now I see what you were saying. . . .)

One more quick note on the lettered and then I'll shut up—some people may hear the word "veneer" and think, "Gee, that sounds rather cheesy—why can't they make it out of solid wood?" The fact is that almost all fine furniture today is made of veneered material. Most hardwoods are simply not stable enough to create an object of significant size. In other words, if the box were to be built out of solid hardwood, a year or two down the road you'd find the seams beginning to crack and the sides start to warp. So the best way to fashion a truly beautiful and long-lasting piece is to use a very fine hardwood veneer over a solid substrate. That's more than you wanted to know, I'm sure, but I wanted to correct any misapprehensions.

The "Other Pete" in Hill House

Finally, many of you might wonder about the "other Pete" in Hill House, in light of the fact that you've only heard from me (Peter Schneider) through emails. I want to assure you that Pete Atkins does exist—he lives in Los Angeles with his lovely wife, Dana Middleton. (I've learned never to call her Dana Atkins.) As you probably saw on the website, Pete is an author and a screenwriter—he wrote the second, third, and fourth installments of the HELLRAISER movies and was the creator and only writer for the original WISHMASTER movie. He's also written two wonderful novels, MORNINGSTAR and BIG THUNDER, as well as dozens of short stories. And yes, I have got to get a better photo of him for the website. Pete comes from Liverpool, England, and he's been friends with Neil for many years. The reason I'm doing all the emails is that trying to divide that task with another person would leave an unacceptable margin for error—you know, the old, "Oh, I thought you were going to answer that email."

Wait. . .We're Almost Done!

So that's it for this, the premiere issue of the Newsletter. We'll try to get this out to all the Members on a regular basis—right now we're thinking of every two weeks. And of course if there's any breaking news we'll let you know right away.

As always, we want to hear your thoughts, comments, and questions, so please feel free to write to us at any point. If you raise a particularly interesting issue, we'll share it with the other Members in this newsletter.

With all best wishes,
Peter Schneider & Peter Atkins

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