Pat Rothfuss finishes A Wise Man's Fear

[Kadere]

Posted it on his blog yesterday along with a pic. That book is a BEAST!

 

http://www.patrickrothfuss.com/blog/blog.html

[Kivam]

Posted it on his blog yesterday along with a pic. That book is a BEAST!

 

http://www.patrickrothfuss.com/blog/blog.html

 

BTW, Pat is, in addition to being a hell of a writer and a very good dude, a Friend of Dragonmount.  He hosted a writer's chat with the Illuminators a few years back (just after his first book came out)

[Sirayn]

Yes! :D

[Barmacral]

About time!

[ulca]

I can't wait to get my hands on that book!

[Werthead]

Patrick Rothfuss was signing copies of THE NAME OF THE WIND at Forbidden Planet in London last night so I headed down there, meeting up with Graeme from Graeme's Fantasy Book Review along the way. We got our copies of the book signed and got some photos with Pat (including one which I suspect I'm not going to live down - see the link) before heading to a nearby pub for a Q&A. There was a good crowd, including fellow fantasy author Chris Wooding, and some funny stories from Pat, who'd make an excellent stand-up comic. He read a rude poem about Leonardo da Vinci needing to get out more and an old college advice column where he compared human/female relations to those of monkeys.

 

Among the questions addressed was the one about the trilogy being complete and the release dates that weren't met. Pat explained that he spent 13 years working on the rough draft of 'the novel' (meaning the trilogy, which was written as one giga-normous book) before breaking off the first third to become THE NAME OF THE WIND and working on revising it. The writing practices he used for 13 years to work on a book that might never be published had to suddenly be changed when he had to revise the second novel in a year, which would be hard enough under ideal circumstances (see Scott Bakker's note in THE WARRIOR-PROPHET on this) but Rothfuss lost his mother in that time and his father was seriously ill. It took him some time to adjust to those problems and also deal with the problems of being a successful author (constant interview and signing requests and other PR and business issues). As a result, work on getting THE WISE MAN'S FEAR into a publishable state went slowly until Christmas, when things 'clicked' for him and he tore through the rest of the book in four months before submitting it a few weeks back.

 

He read an extract from the 'new' opening, set the Waystone Inn the morning after the end of THE NAME OF THE WIND, and it was great (no spoilers!), so I don't think he's got anything to worry about. US publication is not set, but Gollancz don't seem to be expecting to publish it until early-to-mid 2010.

 

Anyway, great guy and an excellent evening.

 

Since the Gollancz people were there, I thought I'd ask about the radio silence on Scott Lynch's THE REPUBLIC OF THIEVES. Gollancz are very confident of publishing the book in the UK in April 2010 and there not being any more delays. Based on Gollancz being the 'main' publishers and the UK getting the books before the USA, I would not expect US publication until that time at the earliest, unless Bantam pulled out all the stops and rushed it to the presses. So, reasons for optimism there.

[Sirayn]

Since the Gollancz people were there, I thought I'd ask about the radio silence on Scott Lynch's THE REPUBLIC OF THIEVES. Gollancz are very confident of publishing the book in the UK in April 2010 and there not being any more delays.

 

So given lead time, it seems likely that the manuscript has already been turned in, right? I can't imagine that Lynch is still working on it less than 12 months before pub date.

[Werthead]

Not quite yet, but I gather they're expecting the MS imminently (i.e., within days or a couple of weeks). I'll keep on top of this one.

 

Manuscript turn-around time varies depending on author. GRRM, Jordan, Goodkind and maybe a few others are in that position where the publishers can get the books out 6 months after hand-in (the good old pre-credit crunch days of 3-month turnarounds are probably gone for the forseeable future). The average elsewhere is more like 8, but the issue is more to do with release slots and time booked at the printers. Now that The Republic of Thieves is locked for April 2010, Lynch could maybe hand the book in a little later (i.e. a couple of weeks) than is currently planned without any major issues, but if it was one or two months late than the printing time will be lost and the book will have to be bumped down a few release slots, maybe coming out six or seven months later for the sake of a one or two-month delay.

 

A good example of this is when Steven Erikson handed in the manuscript of The Bonehunters 'only' six weeks behind schedule, which turned into a six-month delay on the publication date. JV Jones had a worse time with A Sword from Red Ice, which was turned in almost eighteen months before it came out.

[Sirayn]

Thanks for the info, Wert. I'm glad you're keeping track of this stuff. Allows me to budget all of my disposable income according to release dates.  :D

 

I'm surprised the lead time is so short. I know they're kicking the next Wheel of Time book out of the door in only a few months' time, but I have a few friends who signed book deals for their debut fantasies recently and they're all waiting at least 18 months until release. Maybe they factor in a longer time for editorial/revisions for first-timers.

 

 

[Werthead]

First-timers are way down the pecking list, but these days for good reason. Gollancz, for example, like to market their debut authors pretty heavily as that had a great effect on the sales of Pat Rothfuss, Scott Lynch and Joe Abercrombie in the UK, whilst even lesser-known authors such as Kristin Cashore, Stephen Deas and Alex Bell all had a good spike in their sales for their debut novels from that kind of marketing.