Release Date Announced: Jan. 8, 2013

[Treemaster]

This is a novel that would be bought by every single WOT fan no matter WHEN it is released.

 

Exactly. Which is why Tor's decision to push the publication back a couple of months cannot be the result of an effort to increase profits. Tor makes the money either way.

[The Fisher King]

I will never understand the anger over having the release pushed back a paltry couple of months. The extra amount of time makes no difference for those of us waiting for the book. Once the book is published and we've read it, we will have read it -- we will never go back to the position we were in before the release. So, barring death -- and a dead person obviously wouldn't care about not being able to read the book anyway -- the delay cannot possibly make any difference to our enjoyment of the book. On the other hand, the extra amount of time may (not necessarily will, but may) make a huge difference in the quality of the final book.

 

Those who think the extra time is only for purposes of "hype" -- think about how it couuld possibly increase the "hype" or sales of the book to delay two months. The book is being delayed until after christmas, and so, if the change in date makes any difference at all (which I doubt), it could only reduce the number of sales. I'm sure Tor would like to publish it as soon as possible, but is being overriden by the wishes of Harriet in this instance.

 

Writing is incredibly hard, and for most writers revision is the most important part of producing quality work. Patrick Rothfuss, for example, spent four years revising the second part of his own trilogy. And the results of that effort are obvious: his prose is clean and sparkling, and probably better than I've seen in any other fantasy novel or recent mainstream fiction, for that matter. Brandon's position is even harder in that he is trying to write someone else's story and to do it right.

 

In short, there's no real downside to waiting a couple of extra months, and plenty of potential upside. Honestly, those demanding that the book come out RIGHT NOW sound like spoiled children.

 

Please be accurate. Originally the final book was to be released in November of 2009, in one volume. The volume was then, predictably, split in half - then, into THREE volumes. In an attempt to assuage outrage we were PROMISED November 09, November 2010 and November 2011. What happened to that promise? How did we get from THERE to January of 2013?

 

These are the questions nobody wants to examine - much less answer. But when there once was a point in time when we were told the ''final book'' would be released in 2009, do not call january 2013 being pushed back a ''paltry couple of months.''

 

 

Fish

[Werthead]

The Christmas market represents an absolutely massive boost in sales of novels, even of novels that are highly-anticipated anyway. Delaying a book from a pre-Christmas to a post-Christmas date represents the loss of at least a few thousand sales. Compared to the half-million or more novels AMoL will shift in its opening few weeks on sale, that's not a huge amount, but if Tor was angling to maximise its revenue stream they would push hard for the November release date.

 

Looking at Brandon's information, it appears that both he and Tor (and in the UK Orbit, who have been telling booksellers the date will be around 1-4 November this year for months now) were expecting this to be a November release and are surprised by the delay, which appears to be at Harriet's end. Harriet's very-well-documented unhappiness with the sloppy editing on ToM and several earlier books (Books 8-10 and ToM were released on three month turn-arounds from the submission of the final draft) appears to be her primary motivation for giving the book a longer-than-normal lead time before publiation, increased by her own slower pace of work these days (understandable) and also by the book's greater length (this is the longest WoT novel since LORD OF CHAOS).

 

The only other possible reason for the delay is that Tor have gotten wind of major developments with the WoT film project, and want to delay the book to cash in on any announcement. However, with the movie still apparently dead in the water, that seems a remote possibility.

[Werthead]

Please be accurate. Originally the final book was to be released in November of 2009, in one volume. The volume was then, predictably, split in half - then, into THREE volumes. In an attempt to assuage outrage we were PROMISED November 09, November 2010 and November 2011. What happened to that promise? How did we get from THERE to January of 2013?

 

These are the questions nobody wants to examine - much less answer. But when there once was a point in time when we were told the ''final book'' would be released in 2009, do not call january 2013 being pushed back a ''paltry couple of months.''

 

These questions have been examined quite thoroughly. The blame, to some extent, is Tor's for insisting that Sanderson continue his solo career simultaneously alongside working on the WHEEL OF TIME books. Though Brandon tried to sell it that the WAY OF KINGS and ALLOY OF LAW did not take significant amounts of time away from the WoT books, this is clearly not the case. The UK-only afterword to WAY OF KINGS in fact says that the novel-as-published, all 395,000 words of it, was completely written from scratch with no material reused from the earlier (pre-publication career) drafts. Those old drafts helped pave the way, but ultimately he had to write and edit the whole thing as if it was a new novel, which was not exactly how it came across in 2009-10 when he was working on it. Throw in ALLOY OF LAW and we can see that he probably spent 10-12 months of the WoT writing period working on other projects, apparently at Tor's insistence (and their insistence that he continue to develop independently as an author rather than just trade on his WoT credentials is laudable, though also lucrative for them playing the long game of building him up as 'Robert Jordan's successor').

 

According to Sanderson himself, this break was also necessary to prevent burn-out on the WoT books. Originally he thought he could work straight through and complete the three books quickly, but this was not the case. His explanation was that trying to continue writing WoT when he wasn't feeling it and Tor was pressuring him for a non-WoT novel would have resulted in bad books. We simply have no way of knowing if that is true or not, but I see no reason not to give him the benefit of the doubt on the matter. I think people sometimes forget that Sanderson's career was going very well indeed pre-WoT and handling this project could have backfired spectacularly and ended his writing career altogether if he hadn't handled it as well as possible, so accusing him of lying or exaggerating for some kind of financial gain doesn't really seem to make sense.

[The Fisher King]

The Christmas market represents an absolutely massive boost in sales of novels, even of novels that are highly-anticipated anyway. Delaying a book from a pre-Christmas to a post-Christmas date represents the loss of at least a few thousand sales. Compared to the half-million or more novels AMoL will shift in its opening few weeks on sale, that's not a huge amount, but if Tor was angling to maximise its revenue stream they would push hard for the November release date.

 

Looking at Brandon's information, it appears that both he and Tor (and in the UK Orbit, who have been telling booksellers the date will be around 1-4 November this year for months now) were expecting this to be a November release and are surprised by the delay, which appears to be at Harriet's end. Harriet's very-well-documented unhappiness with the sloppy editing on ToM and several earlier books (Books 8-10 and ToM were released on three month turn-arounds from the submission of the final draft) appears to be her primary motivation for giving the book a longer-than-normal lead time before publiation, increased by her own slower pace of work these days (understandable) and also by the book's greater length (this is the longest WoT novel since LORD OF CHAOS).

 

The only other possible reason for the delay is that Tor have gotten wind of major developments with the WoT film project, and want to delay the book to cash in on any announcement. However, with the movie still apparently dead in the water, that seems a remote possibility.

 

Wet, I appreciate seeing your take on this situation. I hate that I disagree with so much of what you are saying.

 

First, any ''loss'' from not having AMOL released in Nov/Dec will be more than negated by several side progects dependant on being anticipatory to AMOL's release (thereby neccesitating AMOL's actual release be pushed back a bit).

 

Also, I have never seen Harriet criticize ANYTHING since the end of KOD. Where is her ''unhappiness'' with TOM's mistakes ''well-known?''

 

She expressed unhappiness about there being an Ebook for TOM - but that is about it. She even defended the handling of a certain well-loved character in TGS calling Brandon's portrayal of said character ''Spot on.'' I understood that - you gotta have your guy's back.

 

But for such a refusal by so many to at least partially admit that Tor certainly has their hands in the cookie jar on this one is beyond disapointing.

 

 

Fish

[Treemaster]

Of course TOR wants to make as much money as possible -- and there is nothing wrong with them doing so.

 

But is Tor's delaying of A Memory of Light's publication from November 2012 to January 2013 the result of a secret plan to maximize profits? I just don't see it.

[Werthead]

Wet, I appreciate seeing your take on this situation. I hate that I disagree with so much of what you are saying.

 

First, any ''loss'' from not having AMOL released in Nov/Dec will be more than negated by several side progects dependant on being anticipatory to AMOL's release (thereby neccesitating AMOL's actual release be pushed back a bit).

 

Are there any side-books coming out prior to AMoL? There's the WoT Encyclopedia, but last I heard that was going to be 12-18 months after AMoL at best, not before it. I assume Tor will release the prologue and charge for it again, but that's been par for the course for a decade now. The re-releases of the earlier books with the new artwork is something that would happen regardless of AMoL's exact release date and probably won't have tons of people running out to buy it. The computer game is apparently still 2+ years away and there's been no indication of any movement on the movie project.

 

So I'm not seeing any side-projects emerging that would be dependent on AMoL's release date for making money for Tor.

 

Also, I have never seen Harriet criticize ANYTHING since the end of KOD. Where is her ''unhappiness'' with TOM's mistakes ''well-known?''

 

From Brandon's blog:

 

You'll get the book when Harriet is ready to give it to you. Not before. If this were just me, I could work a big pile of 16-hour days and get it to you in the fall. But it's not just me, and beyond that, the last time I did that (on TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT, which went through eleven drafts) we ended up with a pile of typos and wore Harriet out so much she said she didn't recover for well over six months.

 

But for such a refusal by so many to at least partially admit that Tor certainly has their hands in the cookie jar on this one is beyond disapointing.

 

Oh, Tor are in this for the money, certainly. You can see that by them carefully ensuring that Sanderson would write his own books even mid-WoT to protect him from too bad a backlash if the later WoT books went south (and Tor are definitely setting Brandon up as hopefully a writer they can make money from for several decades to come, which negates any short-term advantages from releasing the final WoT books a year or two early or late).

 

I am wondering if there is any overspill from the recent, massive editorial crises that have wracked Tor and seen dozens of novels delayed for 2-3 years and have only recently been sorted out. The core franchises - Jordan, Sanderson, Goodkind etc - have been handled separately by different editors, but it's possible there is some impact from that (and a lot of those books are being rushed out at once at the end of this year to clear the backlog, which may have made delaying AMoL to January where it won't overshadow them a more preferable idea).

[PaulChauvet]

As disappointed as I am, I agree with some others that it isn't a matter of marketing (or if it is, its by someone who doesn't understand the subject at all). Releasing after December 1st, makes it not relevant for the holiday season. If anything the previous estimate of November would have been better for marketing reasons.

 

That being said, I don't think it needs to take a year in this day and age, but so be it. I definitely can't fault Brandon at all on this knowing how hard he works on it.

[The Fisher King]

She is not doing the work on the now three-part AMOL as a ''favor'' - being an editor is her JOB! The fact that post-editing on TOM ''debilitated her for more than six months'' is a huge red flag to me and makes me more curious and more concerned about the state of Harriet's health and stamina than about the release of any book.

 

 

 

Fish

[PaulChauvet]

She is not doing the work on the now three-part AMOL as a ''favor'' - being an editor is her JOB! The fact that post-editing on TOM ''debilitated her for more than six months'' is a huge red flag to me and makes me more curious and more concerned about the state of Harriet's health and stamina than about the release of any book.

 

 

 

Fish

 

I don't know Harriet beyond what I've read in the forums/interviews but I THINK she's retired for the most part. These are not a 'favor' but they are the completion of her husband's magnum opus. Other than these, I don't believe she is an active editor anymore.

[Southpaw89]

I seriously can't believe how much people are freaking out. It's two freaking months. If they said it was November 2013 instead of 12 yeah I'd be pissed as well but it's two months from when we expected. And another thing, isn't Harriet retired? I thought her only editing was done on WoT nowadays and she volunteered to help Brandon on his Stormlight Archive books

[Treemaster]

 

I am wondering if there is any overspill from the recent, massive editorial crises that have wracked Tor and seen dozens of novels delayed for 2-3 years and have only recently been sorted out.

 

Just curious -- what happened?

[Suttree]

I use to work corporate for Virgin Megastores as the Retail Marketing Manager and I can assure you Wert & Jennifer have the right of it. This is no Marketing ploy. There have been delays in the writing and I prefer to not call BS a liar when he tells us the reason Harriet wishes to push the date back. The problems with TGS and ToM have been well documented. Rushing the editing/revision process caused meajor headaches all around and the quality of the books suffered. This is a book I want to be able to reread over and over for the rest of my life, the extra wait matters little when viewed from that perspective. This is the FINAL book on which RJ's LIFES work will be judged. It is imperative they get it right and I commend them for doing so.

[The Fisher King]

I seriously can't believe how much people are freaking out. It's two freaking months. If they said it was November 2013 instead of 12 yeah I'd be pissed as well but it's two months from when we expected. And another thing, isn't Harriet retired? I thought her only editing was done on WoT nowadays and she volunteered to help Brandon on his Stormlight Archive books

 

 

NO. It is NOT. This repeated obfuscation really makes my ears steam.

 

Please be accurate. Originally the final book was to be released in November of 2009, in one volume. The volume was then, predictably, split in half - then, into THREE volumes. In an attempt to assuage outrage we were PROMISED November 09, November 2010 and November 2011. What happened to that promise? How did we get from THERE to January of 2013?

 

These are the questions nobody wants to examine - much less answer. But when there once was a point in time when we were told the ''final book'' would be released in 2009, do not call january 2013 being pushed back a ''paltry couple of months.''

 

 

Fish

[Mats Spare Hat]

Low and slow, low and slow. The way the best barbeque is meant to be.

 

*swaps in fresh bed of coals, closes lid. Slow nod.

[Bob T Dwarf]

Come on you lot. This isn't hype, this is Harriet wanting the last book of her husband's legacy to be as perfect as possible. I for one will gladly wait; the book will be perfect, Harriet will be happy, and we can all enjoy a re-read in the meantime.

 

Total twaddle. No book is ever perfect. The more they try to make it so, the worse it will become.

 

The sad fact is that Harriet just can't bear to let go. Perhaps understandable as a wife, but the editor in her should know better.

[Guest PiotrekS]

The WoT series has been on an accelerated schedule for at least a decade, with the books coming out almost as fast as they can be written. Guess what? Those rushed books are the middle books of the series that everyone complains are "slow". Jordan insisted on extra editing time for KoD and everyone loved that one. Sanderson took more time revising TGS than he was able to with TofM and TGS is generally considered the better book of the two.

 

Seriously? I would say the exact opposite. ToM had a typos problem, but correcting them wasn't the general editor's job in the first place and it is still puzzling to me how that could happen, irrespective of how the book was rushed. In terms of writing quality, TGS is for me the only non-rereadable book of the series.

 

Still, I agree with the rest you said. They're not rushing it and taking their time and that's good, it is a final book, once it's out then it's all over.

[JenniferL]

The typos occurred because Brandon missed a deadline by about 12 hours. The scheduling was so tight, it meant the copy editor never got o see it,

 

And I'm not saying that TofM was a bad book. I enjoyed it greatly. But I think the reception to it was more critical than to TGS. There's a lot of great, individual moments, but it doesn't cme together as well as TGS. Your opinion may vary, however, and that's fine.

[Sakaea]

Come on you lot. This isn't hype, this is Harriet wanting the last book of her husband's legacy to be as perfect as possible. I for one will gladly wait; the book will be perfect, Harriet will be happy, and we can all enjoy a re-read in the meantime.

 

Total twaddle. No book is ever perfect. The more they try to make it so, the worse it will become.

 

The sad fact is that Harriet just can't bear to let go. Perhaps understandable as a wife, but the editor in her should know better.

 

Not total twaddle at all. I said as perfect as possible. Obviously nothing is ever perfect, but I choose to believe that Harriet wants to honor her husbands memory, and I'm sure she wouldn't delay the books premiere to hang on to it. After all, she will have these to read and remember for the rest of her life.

 

Honestly, I'm a little disgusted by how many of my fellow WoT fans are complaining about the release date. I'm just ecstatic we have a release date. Maybe I'm naive in thinking it was pushed back to make sure it's the best it can be, and not Tor trying to hype it up...but seriously, we've been hyping it up ourselves for years, I don't think them pushing it back from the November date we all hoped for to January is going to make any difference at all.

[khutch8]

I'd like to point out that there is going to a full-length motion picture of the musical version of Les Miserables. It has a release date of Dec. 7th - they have yet to start filming. There is something not quite right when a 2.5 hour movie (if its similar to the musical) can be produced in less time than it takes to edit a book.

I understand that Harriet wants to make this the best book possible, but editing should not take a year (Brandon has said that the second draft will be completed within a week or so, and that Harriet has already received portions of the book). I also find it laughable when people say that getting the book ready quickly would be "alot of hard work," and "last time it gave everyone a headache." Maybe it did - it's called a job - everyone's job is hard work and gives them headaches on occasion - but no one else delays doing their job to make it easier. I'm in university right now, and I don't think saying to a prof. "well that last assignment was really hard, so, you should give me an extra year to do the next one" would go over very well.

The point is, it should not take a year to edit a book.

[drizzt_scimitar]

While I can understand the disappointment from the point of view of "we expected the final book to be one novel and released in 2009", the fact is that we have known for AGES now (basically since ToM came out) that AMoL was expected to be released sometime in November 2012. Anyone who actually thought it would come out earlier than that was deluding themselves. Hence the "two freaking months" comment; it's only two months after we thought it would be released. Besides, what is everyone who is upset going to do about it? Protest the delay by not buying the book? I really doubt it, so just chill and relax. Honestly, just be a little bit patient. It'll be ready when it's ready.

[Suttree]

I understand that Harriet wants to make this the best book possible, but editing should not take a year (Brandon has said that the second draft will be completed within a week or so, and that Harriet has already received portions of the book). I also find it laughable when people say that getting the book ready quickly would be "alot of hard work," and "last time it gave everyone a headache."

 

Anyone that understands the how revisions work knows how much needs to be done after the 1st draft is turned in. This is even more of an issue with the way BS handles the writing process, "rough draft" would be an extreme understatement.

 

As for "headaches" you misunderstand the point. The "headaches" came from how rough and unpolished TGS and ToM were, not because they got them from some sort of work overload(which they had with how severely limited the time was). Both the author and Team Jordan have admitted quality was compromised by how much things were rushed. They are taking steps to avoid that as they should.

[Luckers]

I wouldn't be surprised if the release date gets brought forward a month like they did with tGS--if for no other reason than that Brandon doing a signing tour during early january is exceedingly odd. But in truth, the fact is they needed the extra time for editing--and for more than just continuity errors and typos--and knew the fandom would devolve into paroxysms of rage over the injury to our sense of instant gratification, so why not offset that by making the official release date later, in order to be able to 'give' the fandom the gift of an 'early' release.

 

Incredibly manipulative, you say? Well, yeah it is that--though it's also good for the fans. If we approach the book angry over the release we're less likely to enjoy it. Therefore, given there HAD to be a delay--and there did, for all that I know many of you didn't mind the quality issues--then why not play it this way? After all, it worked when they did it with tGS following the split anouncement and the rage that caused.

 

Mark my words. They'll bring it forward.

 

Now, if there is anyone I havn't insulted in this post, let me know and I can come back. (I also hate Santa, the Easter Bunny, and small puppies).

[MrWOTjunkie]

My 2 bob's worth: Inwardly seething at the release date (I'm with Fish: we have been told too many constantly revised dates for years) and quietly fearful that they won't even make January 2013......

[Werthead]

Just curious -- what happened?

 

One of Tor's editors dropped the ball big time and a whole load of manuscripts which were supposed to go into production ended up sitting on their desk for months with nothing going on. Quite a few books were affected. One author - Peter David - got so annoyed he pulled his book, re-bought the rights to its predecessor and self-published both. Some other authors - Ian Tregillis, I believe David Keck as well - are seeing books coming out two years behind schedule. It's been a pretty big problem for Tor.

 

NO. It is NOT. This repeated obfuscation really makes my ears steam.

 

Please be accurate. Originally the final book was to be released in November of 2009, in one volume. The volume was then, predictably, split in half - then, into THREE volumes. In an attempt to assuage outrage we were PROMISED November 09, November 2010 and November 2011. What happened to that promise? How did we get from THERE to January of 2013?

 

These are the questions nobody wants to examine - much less answer. But when there once was a point in time when we were told the ''final book'' would be released in 2009, do not call january 2013 being pushed back a ''paltry couple of months.''

 

I believe I examined and answered them - or at least as much as we can form an answer based on incomplete information - a few posts ago.

 

To reiterate, Tor basically asked Sanderson to produce 1.4 million words worth of fiction (the 1 million words of WoT 12-14 and the 400,000 of WAY OF KINGS) in a ridiculously short period of time. As of now he has actually produced 1.5 million (counting the unexpected ALLOY OF LAW) in less than four years, which is writing at an astronomically fast pace. A third of that material was his own work rather than WoT. If he'd put 100% of that time into WoT in terms of writing time, AMoL would have been out months ago. As it stands, Sanderson did not feel that would produce good WoT books and Tor didn't want to put his solo career on hold for long-term financial benefits. Hence the situation we have now.