Theoryland of the Wheel of Time

A Dance With Dragons, I'm hoping for an announcement soon.

I have a feeling we waiting for all the Harry Potter Hype to die down.
The show coming out has to be putting preasure on him.
A few months ago he said he only has 5 chapters left to finish. He's almost DONE with it!

TL;DR I'm expecting the release date to come out some time around April.

A timeline for reference:

I turned in Towers of Midnight somewhere around July First. It was done being edited by mid-August. Book was on shelves first week of November. I'd guess this speed would be similar for ADWD. On our part, we'd done some editing along the way (as I was turning in chunks to the editor all through the first half of the year.)

GRRM might have been doing the same, though I'd suspect—in all honesty—GRRM is edited less than me, and needs editing less than I do. He's been at this much longer, and he labors over his prose long enough to get things perfect before sending it in.

So...minimum turn-in-to-shelves will be three months. I'd honestly guess it at five or six here, as Tor would have rather taken that long, but felt they really wanted TofM out for the holiday season. Without the holiday worry, they'd have taken a few more months.

CatfishRadiator

Are you... Brandon Sanderson?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, I am. Also, I should have mentioned why this timeline is relevant. I sometimes forget that people don't know the insides of publishing.

Normally, turn-in to on-shelf time for a book is at least a year, usually longer. One of my books (Warbreaker) was turned in (first draft) in mid 2006, and came out in mid 2009. That's not uncommon.

With a book expected to sell more copies, you can push things faster. You pay overtime at the printers, you shove other projects aside for the designers and typesetters, that sort of thing. In addition, book scheduling has to do with 'slots.' You don't want to self-compete too much, or compete with other books of the same nature from other publishers, so you make a schedule where you're trying to give each book the best fighting chance of survival.

That means for a newer author, there may not be a 'slot' for your type of book until months and months after you turn in the book. However, a GRRM book will set the schedule for everyone else—they can drop it where they want, and shuffle everything else. However, a GRRM book will ALSO involve a lot more publicity and marketing—which means that once you pick a month, it's much harder to change, as you are losing marketing momentum.

It makes them a little more hesitant to name a month on a book that has been floating for a while—but once they're confident, it's got a very good shot of not changing months. (Unless Grisham decides to release a book the same week after you've slotted, which happened with us on The Gathering Storm. So we bumped back a week.)

I should probably start doing a TL;DR with these posts of mine, eh?

BunjiX

Did you ever meet GRRM in person?

Brandon Sanderson

I have met him, actually. Several times. One of the two years I lost the Campbell award (the year I lost to Scalzi, I think) GRRM lost the Hugo. At the party, we were chatting, and he told me about how he lost the Campbell to Jerry Pournelle the first year the award was offered. Then he gave me the 'Hugo Loser' badge he'd been given by someone and told me to wear it with pride. Extremely awesome person.

A Dance With Dragons, I'm hoping for an announcement soon.

I have a feeling we waiting for all the Harry Potter Hype to die down.
The show coming out has to be putting preasure on him.
A few months ago he said he only has 5 chapters left to finish. He's almost DONE with it!

TL;DR I'm expecting the release date to come out some time around April.

A timeline for reference:

I turned in Towers of Midnight somewhere around July First. It was done being edited by mid-August. Book was on shelves first week of November. I'd guess this speed would be similar for ADWD. On our part, we'd done some editing along the way (as I was turning in chunks to the editor all through the first half of the year.)

GRRM might have been doing the same, though I'd suspect—in all honesty—GRRM is edited less than me, and needs editing less than I do. He's been at this much longer, and he labors over his prose long enough to get things perfect before sending it in.

So...minimum turn-in-to-shelves will be three months. I'd honestly guess it at five or six here, as Tor would have rather taken that long, but felt they really wanted TofM out for the holiday season. Without the holiday worry, they'd have taken a few more months.

CatfishRadiator

Are you... Brandon Sanderson?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, I am. Also, I should have mentioned why this timeline is relevant. I sometimes forget that people don't know the insides of publishing.

Normally, turn-in to on-shelf time for a book is at least a year, usually longer. One of my books (Warbreaker) was turned in (first draft) in mid 2006, and came out in mid 2009. That's not uncommon.

With a book expected to sell more copies, you can push things faster. You pay overtime at the printers, you shove other projects aside for the designers and typesetters, that sort of thing. In addition, book scheduling has to do with 'slots.' You don't want to self-compete too much, or compete with other books of the same nature from other publishers, so you make a schedule where you're trying to give each book the best fighting chance of survival.

That means for a newer author, there may not be a 'slot' for your type of book until months and months after you turn in the book. However, a GRRM book will set the schedule for everyone else—they can drop it where they want, and shuffle everything else. However, a GRRM book will ALSO involve a lot more publicity and marketing—which means that once you pick a month, it's much harder to change, as you are losing marketing momentum.

It makes them a little more hesitant to name a month on a book that has been floating for a while—but once they're confident, it's got a very good shot of not changing months. (Unless Grisham decides to release a book the same week after you've slotted, which happened with us on The Gathering Storm. So we bumped back a week.)

I should probably start doing a TL;DR with these posts of mine, eh?

BunjiX

Did you ever meet GRRM in person?

Brandon Sanderson

I have met him, actually. Several times. One of the two years I lost the Campbell award (the year I lost to Scalzi, I think) GRRM lost the Hugo. At the party, we were chatting, and he told me about how he lost the Campbell to Jerry Pournelle the first year the award was offered. Then he gave me the 'Hugo Loser' badge he'd been given by someone and told me to wear it with pride. Extremely awesome person.

Reread Wheel of Time 1-10 or find summaries somewhere and start on 11?

I'm really torn on this one. It's been nearly 7 years since I've read any of the books and 10+ for some of the early ones.

I'm leaning toward a reread but, damn, i know it's going to take me nearly 10 months to get through them all. Probably about the time Sanderson has the last one done.

Are there even any good thorough summaries out there for each book?

Edit\Update: So I decided to start rereading them and am nearly done with the first book. I'm really glad I'm not doing the summaries, it's almost like reading them the first time since it's been so long. There's so much I had forgotten and I'm really enjoying the read.

SgtPsycho

I just purchased the last few books, and am restarting the series from the beginning. As you say, I'm pretty good up until Lord of Chaos. After that... will be a bit of grind. The one where nothing happens in the entire book (brings all characters up to 'a great disturbance in the Force') shits me.

I think I will stick in there, but it will take some time.

Linky time for CrypticDemon
        Dragonmount Summaries
        Tor's comprehensive chapter-by-chapter summaries
        Compiled Summaries by P.Korda

DiscursiveMind

I've always liked Encylopaedia WoT's summaries, they break down each chapter for each book with plenty of embedded references.

Encyclopaedia WoT is basically my go-to quick reference in working on the books. I went so far as to get a copy from the creators to upload locally on my machine so I'll have it for internet outages. It's great for quick reminders, or for locating the right scene I need to re-read in the books in order to get a viewpoint or scene right.

Don't know that I can weigh in on this more than that. What has been said here is excellent. The summaries sgtpsycho posted are great. TarValon's wiki is a good resource too. But whether to reread or not...depends on personal preference. I will say that the books that people tend to feel drag felt a lot less draggy to me during my last reread, as I knew the ending.

Having an ending in hand changes things, at least for me. Instead of raging about a book because it makes such little progress, and one has waited for it for years, one can read the slower book and appreciate the side stories being told, as you know the ending is right there waiting. I suspect more people will have this response once the last one is done.

Do you ever think "I hope this author finishes the next book before he dies" then feel guilty and selfish afterwards?

I'm looking at you, George RR Martin. I mean, he's only 62 it turns out, I thought he was older, but anyway. His first books of that series were only 2 years apart, then it took 5 to come out with a feast for crows, and it's been six years since then. At this rate, if it's released this year, he will be wrapping up the series at 74. And it's turning out longer than expected.

Not just him though, I remember thinking "Will Robert B. Parker ever do something major with Spenser, or the new guy?" and then he dropped dead.

TTChopper

I was incredibly saddened when Robert Jordan didn't get to finish his series before he passed away. Even though the series gets some hate here on reddit, it has been something I've enjoyed reading over the years.

Currently, I am really hoping Terry Pratchett can keep churning out the books.. hearing about his Alzheimer's makes me scared that the world will be robbed of his talent prematurely.

CreeDorofl

man I didn't even know about robert jordan. I got through like 5 books then the thrill was kind of gone. That's a shame he didn't finish the series. On the other hand, it was up to like ten books, I think the guy needed a new editor or something. I can't imagine anything staying interesting for that long.

TTChopper

He spent the last year or more of his life in a hospital bed explaining how the story ends to his wife, Brandon Sanderson (the guy who is now finishing the series) and a tape recorder so that the story could be finished after he died.

That's dedication to your craft and your characters.

And tens of thousands of fans breathed a sigh of relief at the same time that they mourned his passing.

mrgreen4242

Actually, I don't think Brandon was brought into it until after Jordan died. He wrote a bunch of the final (three) books, dictated some, created outlines, and told his wife (who was also one of his editors) a lot of it.

But, ya, pretty dedicated.

TTChopper

Yeah, you are right. I was under the impression that Jordan actually chose Sanderson to finish it.

Still, I'm now looking forward to when the final book is published and I can put that series to bed once and for all.

Yes, I wasn't brought on until after. (Robert Jordan's wife Harriet chose me, after he asked her to pick someone. She worked as an editor in New York for many years, so he knew this was something he could lay at her feet.)

The part about the tape recorder on the death bead is right, however.

Within 5 Years, Digital Books Will Only Cost $0.99

AnalyticContinuation

It is amazing to see sales take off when the price falls below some resistance point.

But $0.99 seems very low for a full-length novel. Such a novel probably takes a year to write, and I would have though it was similar in terms of creative effort to a complete album rather than just one song.

muhfuhkuh

See, that's the magic of volume pricing. When it's priced to sell at $.99, an author (no doubt indie, because there is no possible way a publisher, with all their overhead, can price like that and still remain viable) gets two substantial effects: They get the "cash register candy" impulse buyer to pull the trigger without much thought; and, because there are alot more of those readers (as evinced by the explosion in sales of ereaders), they make up in volume what they sacrifice in price.

If you're #60 in the Kindle top 100, you're selling something like 500 copies a day. These ebooks stay for (afaict) an average of 8 weeks on the charts. So 500 x 56 days = 28000 sales. If you're pricing at, say $2.99, you'll get $2.10 a copy after Amazon's cut. 28000 x 2.10 = $58,800. In 2 months of being on the charts. Not saying everyone will do that, but let's put it this way: You have as much a chance as anyone with a novel of similar quality and luck. Now, if you wrote 3-4 breezy, genre novels of sellable quality, and you had even 1/4 of the sales, you can see how this volume pricing can provide you with a pretty comfortable living, even if Amazon takes 65% of the 99 cents.

Such a novel probably takes a year to write

That's the romanticized "Great American" notion of the Novel as singular artwork and the novelist as auteur. It aggrandizes people like Hemingway and Fitzgerald and Salinger to the level of genius (which, arguably, is well-deserved), but not every novelist is like that and writes those kinds of timeless classics.

The two darlings of the 99-cent authors, Amanda Hocking and John Locke (yeah yeah...) are absolutely brand-spanking new to fiction writing. She's written 6 novels, he has 7. Almost all their novels were written within the last year or two (Locke, I believe, never wrote any of his novels before last year, Hocking had one or two of the 6 novels done before hitting it big).

All of their novels are in the top 100 Kindle store, selling, on average, between 500-6000 ebooks a day. Last I heard, Hocking was selling something like 100,000 ebooks a month, priced between 99 cents and 2.99. And, there are hundreds of previously mid-list writers publishing their back catalogs this way and making more on 99-cent or 2.99 ebooks than they ever did as a published mid-lister, even with the modest advances.

There are things you aren't taking into account here. The biggest one is this: all books are not the same. The Gathering Storm took me eighteen months to write. That's not a romanticized "Great American" novel. That's me, writing commercial fiction. True, I hope there's some strong literary value to it. But at the end of the day, I'm a craftsman—and I'm writing every day, working full days. It just takes a lot of time to create a 1000 page novel.

Selling a book at .99 is one thing if it's a short book (which the ones selling for that price are) that is very episodic (which they are.) Write a book at 400k words instead of 70k words, and the difficulty of managing plot lines grows exponentially, not to mention the months it takes to worldbuild a realistic epic fantasy world.

Beyond that, Epic Fantasy—which I write—has a shorter 'amplitude' than something like Hocking is writing. The biggest bestselling epic fantasies—at any price—sell far fewer copies than the best selling romance or paranormal romance books do. There are fewer people who want to read them, and for those who do read them, time is less of a barrier (to many) than price. You can only read so many books of that length. (Well, you can only read so many of any length, but you get what I mean.)

Even accounting for collectors grabbing everything they can at low prices, if you drop epic fantasy books to $.99, the genre will probably no longer be able to support full time writers. That's not to say it won't happen, and maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised at how many new readers we can pick up. But I'm skeptical.

I find the $.99 ebook thing kind of baffling, honestly. We'll pay $10 to go to a movie, we'll pay $10 for an album, but we want a book to cost a fraction of that?

Phinaeus

Wait wait. Are you saying you're Brandon Sanderson? I'm honored. I was a big fan of the WoT series but haven't caught up fully due to no time.

I don't know if it's been revealed in TGS, but who exactly killed Asmodean?

Brandon Sanderson

It's me. And the killer of Asmodean is revealed in Towers of Midnight. (Brows through the glossary if you want a 'quick fix' answer. It's in there, though the text of the book makes it pretty clear too.)