HFQ Delayed to Tuesday, October 13, 2015 - Ref: Amazon

Could RFC or someone with inside knowledge please clarify what is going on? Do TOR intend to hold up the E-book for 5 weeks after the hardcover or is this just sloppy web-editing on Amazon's part?

Randomiser wrote:Could RFC or someone with inside knowledge please clarify what is going on? Do TOR intend to hold up the E-book for 5 weeks after the hardcover or is this just sloppy web-editing on Amazon's part?

Clearly the second. Amazon has since updated both the hardcopy and ebook dates to Oct 13. At least Amazon US has. I don't know about Amazon UK!

ksandgren wrote:

Randomiser wrote:Could RFC or someone with inside knowledge please clarify what is going on? Do TOR intend to hold up the E-book for 5 weeks after the hardcover or is this just sloppy web-editing on Amazon's part?

Clearly the second. Amazon has since updated both the hardcopy and ebook dates to Oct 13. At least Amazon US has. I don't know about Amazon UK!

Thanks. Yep, there too. Just checked and it must have been fixed sometime this afternoon.

clancy688 wrote:Oh come on. Not everything is the fault of us Germans. Apart from a couple of world wars.

Actually, I was thinking that in general, Germans were more like Vir Cotto regarding efficiency.

Randomiser wrote:Could RFC or someone with inside knowledge please clarify what is going on? Do TOR intend to hold up the E-book for 5 weeks after the hardcover or is this just sloppy web-editing on Amazon's part?

I can't speak to the reason for the shift to the October date, although I suspect the Sword of the South/Road to Hell conflict may indeed be the answer. As to why the book was delayed until 2015, though, as I believe I've said before, that was largely my fault. For a lot of reasons --- including Sharon's many spinal surgeries --- I was three months late handing in the manuscript. Previously, TOR had made the decision that if one of my books was late, they would ram it through crash production which (admittedly) takes rather longer than for Baen under normal circumstances, rather than reschedule it. There were some . . . ah, problems with that withMT&T (also delayed by Real World family health issues), and I did not have a Happy Experience with the copy editor assigned to the book. She was not my regular copy editor and she and I did not (to say the least) see eye-to-eye. (Among other things, when I had Merlin reflect that, unlike Hitler in the USSR, the Church had an ideology which would generate substantial support for an occupation even in Siddarmark, she informed that that Hitler did have an ideology "it was called [you may be as amazed as I to learn] National Socialism." She also informed that neither ships nor countries were female and it was therefore incorrect to refer to them with female gender pronouns. Trust me, it went downhill from there.) No one at TOR had any idea of just how much we wouldn't see eye-to-eye (and she won't be editing any more of my books), but it was a horrible experience (from both sides), and while the final result came out fine, I think, the entire reason she wound up assigned to me was because of the delay/crash it through production approach. So when I missed the delivery date on HFQ the decision was taken not to hold the originally assigned 2014 publication slot and move it to 2015. And, I can honestly say, the edit process on this book has been as wonderful as the process on MT&T sucked wind. I am completely satisfied with the editor they gave me this time, and while I probably can't have as many maps as I'd like (that's always a problem), I think this one is going to come out just fine.

As I say, I'm not sure about the delay to October, but I would suspect the release date conflict actually is the explanation. TOR and Baen work closely together to avoid those sorts of conflicts, and the slot fot SotS had already been assigned by Baen before HFQ was listed. The SotS slot was originally supposed to be RTH, but that was a collaboration involving a first-novelist, an 8-year writing hiatus, two very complex cultures evolving on physically identical but different worlds, and a storyline which had seen major changes in book two that had to be allowed for when we went back to the original storyline/outline/manuscript. Baen had originally scheduled it based on an over optimistic estimate of when it would be ready for production even if everything had gone perfectly; the odds that we could get it in on that schedule were vanishingly small, however, and I was then about half way (or a little more) through SotS, so the release dates were flipped.

In any case, it would make very good sense for one of the books' release dates to be adjusted backward to keep them from going head-to-head, both for my established readership and for any (hopefully!) new readers, as well. In short, there was absolutely no nefarious calculation on TOR's part, nor is the delay the result of shoddy production work on TOR's end. We might have gotten HFQ out a few months earlier, but because of their corporate relationship, TOR's schedule is "locked" somewhat earlier than Baen's is. In addition, I think, there was a desire to have the next book ship at about the same point in the annual release schedule, although I hasten to add that I never specifically discussed this with anyone. It's also my understanding that TOR would really like to be rather more . . . flexible in its releases of e-pub works but that it isn't a completely free agent in that respect. Indeed, Baen had to give up some of its own flexibility where e-books are concerned to comply with Amazon's rules and restrictions, I believe. The problem was that Amazon is so huge, and has such a commanding position in e-books that Baen really didn't have much choice but to acquiesce if they didn't want to lose a very, very large body of potential sales.

Anyway, that's more or less what I think is going on here, and I sort of wish people wouldn't hammer TOR too hard over the head for decisions which actually make a lot of sense looking at the production (and marketing) situation from the inside.

runsforcelery wrote:

Randomiser wrote:Could RFC or someone with inside knowledge please clarify what is going on? Do TOR intend to hold up the E-book for 5 weeks after the hardcover or is this just sloppy web-editing on Amazon's part?

[SNIP]
As I say, I'm not sure about the delay to October, but I would suspect the release date conflict actually is the explanation. TOR and Baen work closely together to avoid those sorts of conflicts, and the slot fot SotS had already been assigned by Baen before HFQ was listed.
[SNIP]

Figures. From what I understand, it could also be that HFQ's marketing campaign in relation to other releases by TOR in that period triggered the delay.
Whatever. Looking on the bright side, this means one month less to the next installment. And there's someone who can influence the length of that wait. So, pretty, pretty please....

runsforcelery wrote:... She was not my regular copy editor and she and I did not (to say the least) see eye-to-eye. (Among other things, when I had Merlin reflect that, unlike Hitler in the USSR, the Church had an ideology which would generate substantial support for an occupation even in Siddarmark, she informed that that Hitler did have an ideology "it was called [you may be as amazed as I to learn] National Socialism." She also informed that neither ships nor countries were female and it was therefore incorrect to refer to them with female gender pronouns. ...

OMG!!

Sounds like a grad from a really prestigious college with a degree in Wymn Genderism that required minimal encounters with actual history (vs herstory)! I guess that terms like 'Motherland' meant nothing and she never encountered any sea-faring ship references in her education(?) either!

Thank you for the explanation and from this evidence I think that we can more fully appreciate what goes on behind those curtains!

RFC wrote:
I can't speak to the reason for the shift to the October date, although I suspect the Sword of the South/Road to Hell conflict may indeed be the answer. As to why the book was delayed until 2015, though, as I believe I've said before, that was largely my fault. For a lot of reasons --- including Sharon's many spinal surgeries --- I was three months late handing in the manuscript. Previously, TOR had made the decision that if one of my books was late, they would ram it through crash production which (admittedly) takes rather longer than for Baen under normal circumstances, rather than reschedule it. There were some . . . ah, problems with that withMT&T (also delayed by Real World family health issues), and I did not have a Happy Experience with the copy editor assigned to the book.
Snip ....

It's called severe overcommitment of available resources coupled with an overly optimistic timeline of how the critical paths will perform, most of the time forced by outside interests for their own purposes and with a complete disregard for what you need no matter how much sympathy they tell you they have for your plight. Been there, done that, more times than I really want to count. With this type of a setup, one immediately loses all of the additional time that has been built into the project for the resolution of unknown unknowns. It also 100% guarantees the appearance, early and often of Mr Murphy. It makes for sleepless nights, working weekends, holidays and family get togethers and severe stress. The only thing one can do is keep their priorities in strict order. Family is always the first priority no matter what happens or who wants what when. My sympathies to RFC and his family.

runsforcelery wrote:... TOR and Baen work closely together to avoid those sorts of conflicts, and the slot fot SotS had already been assigned by Baen before HFQ was listed. The SotS slot was originally supposed to be RTH, but that was a collaboration involving a first-novelist, an 8-year writing hiatus, two very complex cultures evolving on physically identical but different worlds, and a storyline which had seen major changes in book two that had to be allowed for when we went back to the original storyline/outline/manuscript. ...

OK, I now call for an Acronym Key on this web site as it is becoming difficult to track RFC's prodigious output by initials/acronyms. At this point HFQ (Hells Foundation's Quiver) is quite familiar as is SotS (Sword of the South) but now reigns confusion. At this moment, I cannot parse RTH although as soon as some good soul enlightens me I'm sure I will do the classic 'head slap!'

Charybdis wrote:

runsforcelery wrote:... TOR and Baen work closely together to avoid those sorts of conflicts, and the slot fot SotS had already been assigned by Baen before HFQ was listed. The SotS slot was originally supposed to be RTH, but that was a collaboration involving a first-novelist, an 8-year writing hiatus, two very complex cultures evolving on physically identical but different worlds, and a storyline which had seen major changes in book two that had to be allowed for when we went back to the original storyline/outline/manuscript. ...

OK, I now call for an Acronym Key on this web site as it is becoming difficult to track RFC's prodigious output by initials/acronyms. At this point HFQ (Hells Foundation's Quiver) is quite familiar as is SotS (Sword of the South) but now reigns confusion. At this moment, I cannot parse RTH although as soon as some good soul enlightens me I'm sure I will do the classic 'head slap!'

Road To Hell- Multiverse.