The Casino Preface by Master Ivan

[mrivan]

THE CASINO

by Master Ivan

Preface

The concept for The Casino first came to me in the spring of 1992. I had already begun writing, had several short stories in print and a fair number of others in the works. I had the outline finished in twenty minutes and knew immediately it would be a major project.

My mundane job involves a lot of driving. The bulk of this work was written with old-fashioned pen and paper while parked at a major airport in an old Dodge minivan. The first draft was finally finished on 1/19/93.

At that time, I did not have a computer available to me, so I began typing out the story in hard copy with the intention of publishing it myself as I had already done with twenty-some-odd short stories and a couple of novelettes. When I got to a point of about two-thirds of the way thru it and I counted one hundred and fifteen single-spaced pages, it occurred to me that using photocopy services would cost enough to require a retail price on the book of over thirty dollars--a high price, even for the definitive work of an established writer. In the summer of 1996, I managed to find an affordable old Mac and began where the hard copy left off and typed the rest into TexEdit files. It was only a month ago (at this writing--12/99) that I finally acquired a scanner and now have put the entire work into the computer.

In the meantime, I sought a publisher. Letters were sent out to several publishers of similar material, most including brief excerpts from the book as well as rough descriptions of the storyline. I can tell you confidently that ninety percent of the publishers are not equipped to handle something this explicit and the other ten percent would jump into line for the chance to buy it outright at pennies a word. I would give it away into the public domain before letting it go that cheaply.

While I would enjoy making a buck with this beast, and I certainly retain the rights to do so in the future, there is something special about this one. It is by far the longest and, in my opinion, the best of my works by a country mile. Even if I never make a dime from it, I want it in the hands of people who can best appreciate it. So I am giving it out to my mailing list and posting it on my website, all rights reserved.

I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it!

Master Ivan

Copyright © 1999
Master Ivan Press

[Salamando]

Holy shit, dude. Not wanting to be a dick here, but If you're going to post such a huge multi-chapter story all at once, maybe it would be best to combine them into one thread?

[mrivan]

I talked to a few people about this issue, and frankly that is my preference. What I learned was that there is a way to go back and edit the posts, and add links so that one piece would link up to the next.

We learn by doing. I held off on posting the entire work until I was sure I could go back and link them later. When I learn how to do that, I will. Then we'll have what we both want -- links from each part to the next. Until then, I did the best I could by posting them all at once so at least they will appear together.

Originally I had all the material up on my own website hosted by Comcast. Now, thanks to Verizon making false promises and screwing me over, I no longer have a website. This is the next best thing. But there does appear to be a good group of people here, with common interests in this genre of material. Glad to have it here.

[Salamando]

Fair enough. I notice the chapters are rather long, so maybe is best for some that you post them separate, or one giant thread might be too intimidating for a fresh reader.

Sucks to hear your site got killed, dude. : (

I use Blogger to post my stuff, maybe you could try that or Tumblr or one of the other blog sites that allow adult content. While there's no guarantee that'll last forever, it might be more stable than using a direct service provider. Also, they're usually free.

[Nezhul]

I'd suggest next time you post it on Literotica and provide a simple link, rather than create a bazillion of forum topics which only a few people would ever bother to read.

[micheleFFS]

So far, I've read the first chapter and the preface. I liked the first chapter and I'll keep reading.

As Nezhul once suggested to me, Milovana's not the ideal place to publish a novel, but it's the easiest I've found. Guaranteed audience interested in the topic, no thicket of rules like Lush, and a more comprehensible UI than Literotica.

Thanks for publishing here.

Your obedient servant,

micheleFFS