The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers

Peace Talks First book that made Dresdenverse feel smaller -Spoilers

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Mira:

--- Quote from: JumpyDragon on September 21, 2020, 02:38:44 AM ---In a ComicCon interview this year, Butcher said that the best his publisher could do was 60 days.

--- End quote ---

  I find it hard to believe that though, but then what do I know about the publishing business?  However it still doesn't make logical sense, they print books everyday, since both books were done and edited, then all one has to do is print them and get them out to be sold.  I think it is more about hyping it for sixty days, then when it comes out,  you sell more books and make more money. 

CrusherJen:
If it was a smaller publisher, with less books to publish, that might have been simpler... but Penguin is huge, with many authors under its imprint, and print schedules planned months in advance. With all their other commitments in place, putting out both books at once probably wouldn't have been possible, especially considering the quantities needed for a best-selling series like this one. Yeah, we think Jim's a big deal (and for good reason!  ;D ) but fast-tracking Battle Ground more than 60 days would have likely meant delaying other, even bigger authors' works, and that's something Penguin probably couldn't do, contractually or physically.

That's my guess, anyway. It might not be completely accurate, since I never worked in publishing, but I did work in bookstores for many, many years, and I remember seeing some lines' publishing schedules worked out months in advance. That might not be the only reason, but I'd figure printer limitations and scheduling was part of it.

Mira:

--- Quote from: CrusherJen on September 21, 2020, 05:34:09 AM ---If it was a smaller publisher, with less books to publish, that might have been simpler... but Penguin is huge, with many authors under its imprint, and print schedules planned months in advance. With all their other commitments in place, putting out both books at once probably wouldn't have been possible, especially considering the quantities needed for a best-selling series like this one. Yeah, we think Jim's a big deal (and for good reason!  ;D ) but fast-tracking Battle Ground more than 60 days would have likely meant delaying other, even bigger authors' works, and that's something Penguin probably couldn't do, contractually or physically.

--- End quote ---

I think it is more about the original contract that was signed between them, it was carefully planned in advance, before Jim ever put a word down on paper.  Big publishing companies would have insisted upon it.

CrusherJen:
I'm not saying you're wrong... but sometimes there's a certain amount of flexibility in writer's contracts. Things happen, and books aren't always completed by a deadline. Some authors get contracted for a certain number of books in advance, say, "three novels in two years, with at least one belonging to a particular series." Nobody expected Peace Talks to get split until it happened, so I'm not sure it would have been planned for in the original contract.

(Rob Thurman, an author I adore, only had two books come out in a series I loved, because the publisher didn't pick up the option to print the third. The first two didn't sell enough to merit it, according to the publisher. :-\ I still mourn not knowing what would have happened next... hopefully we'll find out someday.)

Bad Alias:
I will say that just about everything is much more complicated than someone who doesn't have a lot of experience with it tends to think. I remember seeing a video of a college age girl running a tractor. It looked more complicated than Houston space command during the Apollo era. I mean, I knew farming is a lot more complicated than putting a seed in a hole in the ground and making sure it got enough water, but I don't think I could run a tractor on a serious farm without training.

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