[RodeoRanch]

I'll read his books when they come out. Then be happy that it's good or sad that's it not. Then either way wrestle a bear.

[amphibian]

Abyss, on Mar 5 2009, 02:19 PM, said:

No no no and dear god no.

Publishing is a business. 'Self-publishing' aside, publishing consists of decisions made by business people.

You want authors to focus on writing good books. You want businesspeople to make business decisions. When the two overlap, you get WINTER's HEART and its ilk.

The better the author, the more they can push back when publishers push for deliveries, but the publishers retain the option to tell the author the deal is off. Crap authors lose publishing deals. Annoying publishers lose good authors.

It's the circle of life.

- Abyss, *cues Lion King sountrack*.

How many albums did Nine Inch Nails just sell? How about Radiohead with In Rainbows? Reznor made so much money with the self-release that he's pretty much set for life now.

You are stuck in the old way of doing things. Publishers mostly suck balls and the market for good content has been wandering away from them for a while now. Look at Jeff Jarvis putting up most of his book for free on his website - guess what? He's selling way more books than he would have otherwise.

I'm not talking about taking complete control of the publishing process like "Ok... I want this type of paper from this company in Kentucky and that type of glue...." I'm talking about being much more involved with the process of communicating with the intended audience that occurs after the book's been through the final edit. I can point to Tucker Max and Tim Ferriss as perfect examples of what I'm talking about. Granted, they're much, much more savvy about marketing than most authors, but that's not the key point. Having good content worth putting out there is. Hell, Stephen King actually made more money on The Plant in terms of content out and money in than he did on all but maybe two of his other books. The Plant failed because the PUBLISHERS decided it was a good idea to jerk people around with pricing on a piece of content that wasn't that good.

Someone like Martin who blogs regularly, who appears at conventions and has all this goodwill towards him can really channel that into increased sales (which would put him in a better position to write those good books). All he has to do is be truly honest and overdeliver on his low-key promises. Why let the publishers piss off/drive away a significant portion of your audience with short-sighted stupidity?

This post has been edited by amphibian: 05 March 2009 - 10:18 PM

[Werthead]

amphibian, on Mar 5 2009, 10:13 PM, said:

Someone like Martin who blogs regularly, who appears at conventions and has all this goodwill towards him can really channel that into increased sales (which would put him in a better position to write those good books). All he has to do is be truly honest and overdeliver on his low-key promises. Why let the publishers piss off/drive away a significant portion of your audience with short-sighted stupidity?

The problem is that publishing doesn't work that way. And first-run hardcover sales for ADWD will be higher than for AFFC (and I believe the preorders are already way over what AFFC had for the same time period). A four-year wait between books (especially for a guaranteed bestseller) is seriously not a big deal in publishing, and the only reason it's being made a fuss of for this book is because he overpromised on when it would be released and is three years late on it.

First-run sales for WoT kept going up even after Jordan lost the plot and started delivering really crap books, despite all the people moaning that they were quitting the series and not reading the next book. Remember that well over 90% of the readership for these books never post about the Internet, and of the ones who do and are moaning about the release date, there are another ten saying, "Meh, whatever," and don't really care.

[Malaclypse]

So your position is that it's a ploy, for real?

Please...it's obvious he's struggling and *gasp* maybe he doesn't even care any more.

The people who care diminish in number by the minute.

He said some things, didn't follow through on those things. Where I come from that's called lying.

He's floundering, it's obvious. I wish him well, I think he has a gift worth communicating but he has to step up and to be perfectly honest, I don't think he cares anymore. I think we've seen his best and he just wants to chill out and watch his wife
sell t-shirts at this point.

[teholbeddict]

I used to get really pissed off at all the delays and changes of release dates. Now I'm in the I don't care camp, like alot of the rest of you. There's so much excellent material out there and the quality of the writing being released is improving constantly. I've discovered new authors and series that I really love, so Martin and ASOIF keep getting bumped further and further down my favourites list. It'll come out whenever it comes out, but I'm past the point where I'll need to pick it up the day it's released to eagerly tear through it. I will eventually get around to reading it but I'm not going to bypass all of the other books in my to read pile for it.

I agree with the above post, it's obvious he's struggling, he's either out of ideas or just doesn't want to do it anymore. By this point the excuse that's he's trying to write the best book he possibly can so it's taking years worth of time just seems weak. If he's tired of writing that's fine, he's entitled, or if he just has better things to do than good for him. It's a shame though and I for one am not waiting around!

[Werthead]

Quote

So your position is that it's a ploy, for real?

Sorry was this a reply to my post? I couldn't tell.

It's not 'a ploy', but Bantam Spectra need a hit and want to generate confidence in their output. What Bantam are doing are taking the 'most likely based on current information but not set in stone' date and putting it up. Which is somewhat foolish of them, but there you go. Their previous approach, and the one they've been following with Scott Lynch, of having a rather vague and far-off date was the one they should be sticking with.

Quote

Please...it's obvious he's struggling and *gasp* maybe he doesn't even care any more.

The 'struggling' part has been accurate in the past, although less so now. The 'doesn't even care' thing is right off-base. The problem is he cares 'too much'. It would have been very easy to simply churn out something 'that would do' and to have published it one or two years ago (also called the Crossroads of Twilight Gambit). Stepping back, ditching a lot of work and restructuring the whole thing having already promised to publish the book a few months later was, from a delivery point of view, not a great idea. From a qualitative view, it was the right choice. Twenty years from now no-one will give a damn when the book came out if it is good. Twenty years from now Crossroads of Twilight will still suck and still be dragging the reputation of the rest of that series down with it.

Quote

The people who care diminish in number by the minute.

Nope. Sales of the books have boomed in just the last three or four years and are continuing to accelerate. 'Most' people just get the next book when they see it on the shelf and don't really give a toss about the situation because they aren't following it really closely.

Or to put it another way, if Jean Auel can go twelve years between books in her series and still deliver a bestseller, GRRM has nothing to worry about after just three and a half years.

One of the things I'm constantly hearing from publishers is that whilst the 'online SF community' is now large enough to have an impact on sales (maybe up to 10% of their target audience), it still represents a minor fraction of the total number of people buying their books.

Quote

He said some things, didn't follow through on those things. Where I come from that's called lying.

He made some estimates and missed those estimates because he was over-optimistic. That's actually called 'being wrong'.

[Malaclypse]

my responses in red.

Werthead, on Mar 6 2009, 02:11 AM, said:

Quote

So your position is that it's a ploy, for real?

Sorry was this a reply to my post? I couldn't tell.

Does it matter?



It's not 'a ploy', but Bantam Spectra need a hit and want to generate confidence in their output. What Bantam are doing are taking the 'most likely based on current information but not set in stone' date and putting it up. Which is somewhat foolish of them, but there you go. Their previous approach, and the one they've been following with Scott Lynch, of having a rather vague and far-off date was the one they should be sticking with.

I told Simon Taylor to his face that if Scott Lynch could make a credible 7-book series out of this, I would stab myself in the eye with a fork. SE was there and was amused. Very few people care about the intricacies of the publishing business and the fact that you go this far in defending GRRM is enough to feed the fire.

Quote

Please...it's obvious he's struggling and *gasp* maybe he doesn't even care any more.

The 'struggling' part has been accurate in the past, although less so now. The 'doesn't even care' thing is right off-base. The problem is he cares 'too much'. It would have been very easy to simply churn out something 'that would do' and to have published it one or two years ago (also called the Crossroads of Twilight Gambit). Stepping back, ditching a lot of work and restructuring the whole thing having already promised to publish the book a few months later was, from a delivery point of view, not a great idea. From a qualitative view, it was the right choice. Twenty years from now no-one will give a damn when the book came out if it is good. Twenty years from now Crossroads of Twilight will still suck and still be dragging the reputation of the rest of that series down with it.

Less so now? by what measure? He said that ADWD was more or less finished when he finished AFFC. He said so outright in the prologue to AFFC. And yet here we sit with no book. If you really believe the things you're saying then great, more power to you, but as time goes on, you'll be less and less credible. You know that and I wonder how you've planned your exit.

Quote

The people who care diminish in number by the minute.

Nope. Sales of the books have boomed in just the last three or four years and are continuing to accelerate. 'Most' people just get the next book when they see it on the shelf and don't really give a toss about the situation because they aren't following it really closely.

Funny. You are most likely right about this. But we are not the average reader, Wee
Or to put it another way, if Jean Auel can go twelve years between books in her series and still deliver a bestseller, GRRM has nothing to worry about after just three and a half years.

One of the things I'm constantly hearing from publishers is that whilst the 'online SF community' is now large enough to have an impact on sales (maybe up to 10% of their target audience), it still represents a minor fraction of the total number of people buying their books.

You're right about a great many things here. However, GRRM feels pressured enough to respond to his detractors. I wonder why that is. To say that he is succesfull regardless of his shitty treatment of his fans is beside the point. He's backtracking - he has no interest in finishing the series properly - he just wants to milk it for all it's worth. And it's obvious.

Quote

He said some things, didn't follow through on those things. Where I come from that's called lying.

He made some estimates and missed those estimates because he was over-optimistic. That's actually called 'being wrong'.

haha, all of this has been dealt with above. "Over-optimistic," you have to be fucking kidding me.

[amphibian]

Werthead, on Mar 5 2009, 09:11 PM, said:

One of the things I'm constantly hearing from publishers is that whilst the 'online SF community' is now large enough to have an impact on sales (maybe up to 10% of their target audience), it still represents a minor fraction of the total number of people buying their books.

The publishing industry has not had the best track record at predicting and analyzing anything, much less how the internet is affecting their readership. For the vast, vast majority of book publishers, it's been a scattershot approach that hopes something sticks, takes off and makes enough money that the other 99% waste doesn't matter. The vocal "online SF community" may be at most 10%, but the effects of jerking around the release date are still affecting the audience at large.

Your most ardent fans are the ones that push you to overdeliver and they're the ones that'll spread the word of mouth. Don't buy full page spreads in the NY Times - just let your fans do the work and get the local bookstore/chains to put it somewhere prominent.

William Gibson has been doing an amazing job at keeping people involved and interested without ever mentioning a publishing date or when the book is coming down. And I'm completely cool with that. I've even mentioned his blog to other people - eyeballs are staying on him and more are being added.

This post has been edited by amphibian: 06 March 2009 - 05:37 AM

[Werthead]

Quote

I told Simon Taylor to his face that if Scott Lynch could make a credible 7-book series out of this, I would stab myself in the eye with a fork.

Well, we'll have to wait and see. Two credible and reputable publishers on both sides of the Atlantic seemed to think so. The authors who gave him ringing endorsements did as well. So did the Hollywood producers who gave Scott a lot of money for the film rights to the series. So we'll see how that works out.

Quote

SE was there and was amused.

Well, good for him. I'm not sure how that is relevant, but okay.

Quote

Very few people care about the intricacies of the publishing business and the fact that you go this far in defending GRRM is enough to feed the fire.

People wanted to know why the publisher was actively releasing unreliable dates over the author's protests and that is the only answer I am aware of. Bantam Spectra are really not in a great place at the moment and need a big hit.

Quote

Less so now? by what measure?

By comparing the chapters released whilst AFFC was underway to those featuring the same characters that have appeared since. The improvements are pretty notable.

Quote

He said that ADWD was more or less finished when he finished AFFC. He said so outright in the prologue to AFFC. And yet here we sit with no book. If you really believe the things you're saying then great, more power to you, but as time goes on, you'll be less and less credible. You know that and I wonder how you've planned your exit.

He said it in the afterword to AFFC, true, and that is the source of all the trouble. He changed his mind, because he didn't think the next book was going to work if it was 'just' the flipside of AFFC, and if it was, then the series was going to go to eight books which he wants to avoid if at all possible, so he combined what was just going to be the flipside of AFFC with a lot of the events from what was going to be the following book as well. This has introduced significant structural and timeline problems which are a bitch to resolve.

Of course, none of that makes any difference to most people. You only find out about that if you go on the Internet, which we've already established only a small number of readers do. The original promise in the back of AFFC is there for all 1 million + people who've bought it to see.

Quote

He's backtracking - he has no interest in finishing the series properly - he just wants to milk it for all it's worth. And it's obvious.

If he wanted to milk the series, he would actually have done exactly what he failed to do. He would have released ADWD 12 months after AFFC, regardless of if it sucked or not, regardless of if it was only 300 pages long or not. People would still have bought it, so what the hell? He'd have expanded the series to 15 books and planned prequels, sequels, side-novels and who knows what else? He'd have sold the TV and film rights to the first person who made him an enquiry (and that wasn't HBO, by the way). He'd have flogged the computer game rights to the first fly-by-night company who offered him cash for them years ago.

To milk a product, you need to release a product. Until ADWD comes out, he doesn't get paid for it.

I'm not entirely sure where your belligerence here is coming from. This is an Erikson forum which you're an admin of and if someone started calling Erikson a liar and a cheat, you'd certainly come out and bat for him. I'm in the same position on Westeros. You want to criticise GRRM for the way he's mishandled things (and Christ, he certainly has in the PR department), that's fine, but calling people liars and money-grabbers is a bit extreme.

[ssd]

Werthead, on Mar 7 2009, 02:11 AM, said:

If he wanted to milk the series, he would actually have done exactly what he failed to do. He would have released ADWD 12 months after AFFC, regardless of if it sucked or not, regardless of if it was only 300 pages long or not. People would still have bought it, so what the hell? He'd have expanded the series to 15 books and planned prequels, sequels, side-novels and who knows what else? He'd have sold the TV and film rights to the first person who made him an enquiry (and that wasn't HBO, by the way). He'd have flogged the computer game rights to the first fly-by-night company who offered him cash for them years ago.

Sir, you are a COWARD. Do you mean Robert Jordan? Then say it!

[Tsundoku]

My snark-o-meter is currently making funny "ding ding ding" noises. The odd part is I usually have the damn thing switched off so I myself don't activate it all day by mistake.

I'm not a Mod, so I can't do anything, but you two guys especially should know better than to carry on like this.

@ssd
Not being able to pick up on your tone (what with this being all text-based and such) I'm just going to assume you're being a "cheeky fellow" and not making a personal attack. But like I said, I'm not a Mod and can't do anything about it even if you ARE being naughty.

I mean, it could be far worse. This could all be about some Goodkind release ...

OK, maybe not.

If even an idiot such as myself can pick up on the slide from "polite disagreement during intelligent discussion" to "thinly veiled schoolboy name-calling", then it's pretty frickin' obvious.

Chill, lads. Remember that which brings us all together as fans - boobies.

Cheers,

La Sombra, thinks this place would get way more hits if we changed the name to "Malazan Breasts of the Fallen"

PS - Poo. Bum. Wee. And that's the extent of my capacity for intellectual discourse.

[Gem Windcaster]

First off, like Cold Iron said, the series is not that good, so people should just get some other books to read or something. Secondly he should using a pseudonym. Thirdly, fantasy fans are crazies; SE didn't call people here the scary mod for nothing.

Disclaimer: I only read like the first couple of posts, so sorry if I'm a bit OT.


7thly: Is it just me that find the situation he describes hilarious? I mean come on, emails telling him not to pull a RJ - it's funny. (even though I know those who sent the emails probably didn't mean it to be.) (actually the whole thing GRRM wrote is funny too)

This post has been edited by Gem Windcaster: 08 March 2009 - 02:01 PM

[Werthead]

ssd, on Mar 7 2009, 09:19 PM, said:

Sir, you are a COWARD. Do you mean Robert Jordan? Then say it!

I was actually thinking of Raymond E. Feist (although Betrayal at Krondor was actually a pretty good game), but it is applicable to Jordan as well (and I did say it earlier when referencing Crossroads of Twilight). The difference is that Feist admitted he needed to spam out his Riftwar series for the cash (and needed it, after an apparently costly divorce) whilst I think Jordan genuinely lost control of his series and went way off-base before he was able to drag it kicking and screaming back to where he needed it to be (although it took 3 books and seven years to do it).

[Skywalker]

I should probably know better and let the *coughleadbyexamplecough* mods duke it out, but...

The book will come out when it comes out. It will be as good as it will be. Some will like it (to the extent of calling it a game changer), others will hate it (to the extent of calling it - well, bad things). People will buy memorabilia/ comic books/ watch TV series based on it or not.

In the meantime, with a whole freaking smorgasboard of genre and non-genre fiction, why get worked up about this?

Seriously... I can't remember a better time for genre fiction than right now.

Practice Jedi Patience!!

[Nakorite]

I would laugh if GRRM came out in the future and goes "Oh, yeah i've done Dance, and BTW i've also done the next book"... would certainly put his fans in their place, making them wait 2x as long for the books.

Though obviously not going to happen, pretty clear to me the guy has just lost interest in the books, he has made them so complex writing them has become a job instead of a labour of love.

[Nakorite]

Werthead, on Mar 9 2009, 04:24 AM, said:

ssd, on Mar 7 2009, 09:19 PM, said:

Sir, you are a COWARD. Do you mean Robert Jordan? Then say it!

I was actually thinking of Raymond E. Feist (although Betrayal at Krondor was actually a pretty good game), but it is applicable to Jordan as well (and I did say it earlier when referencing Crossroads of Twilight). The difference is that Feist admitted he needed to spam out his Riftwar series for the cash (and needed it, after an apparently costly divorce) whilst I think Jordan genuinely lost control of his series and went way off-base before he was able to drag it kicking and screaming back to where he needed it to be (although it took 3 books and seven years to do it).

Feist actually went as far as getting other people to write the books then putting his name down as a co-author. After his last book i wouldn't be surprised if he wasn't writing some of his books at all - the amount of continuity errors were too glaring for anyone to have written all the most recent books.

If GRRM fans want an example of something going that way, he should just point em to Feist.

This post has been edited by Nakorite: 09 March 2009 - 07:28 AM

[Malaclypse]

Right, well, I have to apologize for my belligerent tone in this thread straightaway. I was dealing with a ton of other things and just lashed out here. That being said, I would take very little back, just perhaps phrase it differently

My responses in red within the quote.

Werthead, on Mar 7 2009, 01:11 AM, said:

Quote

I told Simon Taylor to his face that if Scott Lynch could make a credible 7-book series out of this, I would stab myself in the eye with a fork.

Well, we'll have to wait and see. Two credible and reputable publishers on both sides of the Atlantic seemed to think so. The authors who gave him ringing endorsements did as well. So did the Hollywood producers who gave Scott a lot of money for the film rights to the series. So we'll see how that works out.

Well, we'll se what happens there. I think 'The Lies of Locke Lamora' was an exceptional book, debut notwithstanding - which is why I was so disappointed with 'Red Seas Under Red Skies.' which was average at best, imo. I'd like to hear a passionate defense of this book. The best thing about it was the 'reverse burglars' line. The capers were pedestrian and credulous on their own merits, let alone in comparison to the ones planned, executed and/or described in Lies and the cliffhanger is possibly the lamest I've seen - as if Locke can really die at this point, with 5 books left to go - ridiculous. The adventures of Jean Tannen for five books is the result in such a case That's insulting.

Quote

SE was there and was amused.

Well, good for him. I'm not sure how that is relevant, but okay.

I thought it was a good story and it's true, so why not tell it? It's relevant because you brought up Scott Lynch and so I chimed in with my brief opinion of how his series is going and a snippet of a conversation I had with the author this site is dedicated to and his editor on the subject - I don't even know if Simon is Lynch's editor and I don't care. Incidentally, it was Simon that asked me what I thought of Scott Lynch - not my problem if he didn't like my answer. You go on about the publishing industry and the strategies involved, etc. I don't sympathize with the business aspect of the published author's perspective and I don't think many others do either. The fact is that authors must deal with their fans and the way they choose to do so has consequences and repercussions. To my mind, SE is unique among the long fantasy series authors in his treatment of his fan base in that he signed on to do ten books and *gasp* actually went ahead and produced them in a reasonable amount of time. What a concept! I wonder if it will catch on.

Quote

Very few people care about the intricacies of the publishing business and the fact that you go this far in defending GRRM is enough to feed the fire.

People wanted to know why the publisher was actively releasing unreliable dates over the author's protests and that is the only answer I am aware of. Bantam Spectra are really not in a great place at the moment and need a big hit.

poor Bantam Spectra. My heart bleeds for them. As you say, GRRM's next book is a guaranteed bestseller so perhaps they will be motivated to light a fire under his ass. I'm pissed off with GRRM but I will buy and read the next one if it ever appears, so you're definitely right on that account.

Quote

Less so now? by what measure?

By comparing the chapters released whilst AFFC was underway to those featuring the same characters that have appeared since. The improvements are pretty notable.

This is madness, imo. This interminable process of GRRM releasing chapters and then revising said chapters a year or so later without getting visibly closer to finishing the book is a deeply strange way of going about the process, imo. He should be teaching a master class in prevaricating with these sample chapters as handouts. Any fan of the ASoIaF series should be worried. GRRM has created a special class of fan, I think - people that have infinite patience and sympathy for him,in all cases and circumstances. Good for him, but I'm not signing up for that nonsense. He should start a cult, really. Look how it worked out for L. Ron Hubbard

Quote

He said that ADWD was more or less finished when he finished AFFC. He said so outright in the prologue to AFFC. And yet here we sit with no book. If you really believe the things you're saying then great, more power to you, but as time goes on, you'll be less and less credible. You know that and I wonder how you've planned your exit.

He said it in the afterword to AFFC, true, and that is the source of all the trouble. He changed his mind, because he didn't think the next book was going to work if it was 'just' the flipside of AFFC, and if it was, then the series was going to go to eight books which he wants to avoid if at all possible, so he combined what was just going to be the flipside of AFFC with a lot of the events from what was going to be the following book as well. This has introduced significant structural and timeline problems which are a bitch to resolve.

Of course, none of that makes any difference to most people. You only find out about that if you go on the Internet, which we've already established only a small number of readers do. The original promise in the back of AFFC is there for all 1 million + people who've bought it to see.

you're right, it was the afterword, careless of me to say otherwise, mea culpa. Why is he so desperate to avoid going to 8 books I wonder? Could it be he wants done with this albatross around his neck? I rather think so

Quote

He's backtracking - he has no interest in finishing the series properly - he just wants to milk it for all it's worth. And it's obvious.

If he wanted to milk the series, he would actually have done exactly what he failed to do. He would have released ADWD 12 months after AFFC, regardless of if it sucked or not, regardless of if it was only 300 pages long or not. People would still have bought it, so what the hell? He'd have expanded the series to 15 books and planned prequels, sequels, side-novels and who knows what else? He'd have sold the TV and film rights to the first person who made him an enquiry (and that wasn't HBO, by the way). He'd have flogged the computer game rights to the first fly-by-night company who offered him cash for them years ago.

To milk a product, you need to release a product. Until ADWD comes out, he doesn't get paid for it.

I'm not entirely sure where your belligerence here is coming from. This is an Erikson forum which you're an admin of and if someone started calling Erikson a liar and a cheat, you'd certainly come out and bat for him. I'm in the same position on Westeros. You want to criticise GRRM for the way he's mishandled things (and Christ, he certainly has in the PR department), that's fine, but calling people liars and money-grabbers is a bit extreme.

This has all been said before, and it makes me feel dirty reiterating it, but he has been doing merchandising deals left, right and centre all this time, since the publication of ACoK - touring, trying to keep interest high without actually producing much of anything. He doesn't have to produce the next book to be milking the success of the first three books. Your suggestion would be another way to milk it and it may yet play out that way. We'll see.

Regarding my belligerence, I have already apologized but I will do so again. I'm sorry, sometimes I get carried away. My being admin here is purely functional, ie., malazites are generally lazier than westerosi and I need access to the admin cp to help keep things running relatively smoothly around here. My contribution here is my own and does not reflect the views of the site at large or its other staff. That being said, I have no problem accusing GRRM of lying and money-grubbing. The evidence is there and I'm not drinking his poisoned kool-aid For me, he should just be honest - there have been times that the timing of other series have been mobilized to defend him, can't be bothered to hunt down the references, but I'm sure you know what I mean. Yes, other authors have let decades go by before continuing a series and if he came right out and said that, great. I think that would be courageous and I could move on with a tantalizing prospect waiting in the wings for my twilight years, but that's not what he's done - he's said ' just a bit longer' for years. It's shameful and speaks to a fundamental disconnect in his internal dialogue with regard to this series, which he started so brilliantly. It's damned sad is what it is

[Werthead]

Quote

Well, we'll se what happens there. I think 'The Lies of Locke Lamora' was an exceptional book, debut notwithstanding - which is why I was so disappointed with 'Red Seas Under Red Skies.' which was average at best, imo. I'd like to hear a passionate defense of this book. The best thing about it was the 'reverse burglars' line. The capers were pedestrian and credulous on their own merits, let alone in comparison to the ones planned, executed and/or described in Lies and the cliffhanger is possibly the lamest I've seen - as if Locke can really die at this point, with 5 books left to go - ridiculous. The adventures of Jean Tannen for five books is the result in such a case That's insulting.

Red Seas was a troubled book and I think part of that trouble comes from it being rush-released in less than a year after the first one. Scott certainly took a lot longer to write the first book (four years, IIRC). Whether the longer wait and writing time benefits Book 3 we will see, but I think after one really good book and one fairly mediocre one (which a lot of people still enjoyed and still sold well), we don't have enough of a sample to write him off just yet. For Lynch, his next book is pretty critical to his overall reputation.

Quote

I thought it was a good story and it's true, so why not tell it? It's relevant because you brought up Scott Lynch and so I chimed in with my brief opinion of how his series is going and a snippet of a conversation I had with the author this site is dedicated to and his editor on the subject - I don't even know if Simon is Lynch's editor and I don't care.

No. Bantam US - who publish Lynch and GRRM - have no connection with Bantam UK, who publish SE.

Quote

To my mind, SE is unique among the long fantasy series authors in his treatment of his fan base in that he signed on to do ten books and *gasp* actually went ahead and produced them in a reasonable amount of time. What a concept! I wonder if it will catch on.

True, although PF Hamilton and, erm, Goodkind are in that bracket as well (for the latter, not such a good comparison). However, SE has also said that writing at that pace is exhausting him and the sequels/prequels will follow at a saner pace. I imagine every two years rather than every one, and maybe that not every book in the series will need to be a thousand pages long either.

Quote

Poor Bantam Spectra. My heart bleeds for them.

Well, no publisher going under is ever a good thing, although most of the authors will probably find good homes elsewhere.

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This is madness, imo. This interminable process of GRRM releasing chapters and then revising said chapters a year or so later without getting visibly closer to finishing the book is a deeply strange way of going about the process, imo. He should be teaching a master class in prevaricating with these sample chapters as handouts. Any fan of the ASoIaF series should be worried.

Well, it's exactly the same process that worked for the first four books and not in too different a time frame. And it's the same writing process a lot of authors have used, just not SE (GRRM, Jordan when he was still around, Donaldson and Tolkien come to mind off the bat).

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you're right, it was the afterword, careless of me to say otherwise, mea culpa. Why is he so desperate to avoid going to 8 books I wonder? Could it be he wants done with this albatross around his neck? I rather think so

Well, you can put it like that. It's probably more that he doesn't want to add another 3-4 years onto the writing time of the series if he can avoid it and also that resolving the series in two more books after ADWD is easily possible, it'll just require discipline. He definitely 'indulged' himself a bit with AFFC and it backfired a bit. Straightening that out is possible, but whether he can do it is another question altogether.

Plus HBO would probably get pissed off if they found they had to make another season of the TV show at another $30 million. Although if the show makes it to eight seasons it'll be such a huge smash hit they probably won't care too much.

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This has all been said before, and it makes me feel dirty reiterating it, but he has been doing merchandising deals left, right and centre all this time, since the publication of ACoK - touring, trying to keep interest high without actually producing much of anything. He doesn't have to produce the next book to be milking the success of the first three books. Your suggestion would be another way to milk it and it may yet play out that way. We'll see.

Since AFFC, I think you mean? Although you are actually right. The merchandising kicked in after ACoK came out and started ramping up after that. But the problem is that you can only milk the existing books for so long. At some point the interest will drop off, and all the money he has ever made from the swords, comics, roleplaying game, T-shirts and whatever is massively eclipsed by what he makes from the books. The only thing that outstrips that is the money from selling the TV rights, and he only gets all of that if HBO commit to a full series rather than just the pilot they have at the moment.

This post has been edited by Werthead: 12 March 2009 - 11:20 PM

[Slow Ben]

So GRRM put up on his blog today that he's added a partner to help him finish ADWD.

http://grrm.livejournal.com/

Howard Waldrop, anyone read anything by him?

I'm not sure what this means, he must be really stuck to share something like this with someone. I....guess its a good thing.

[teholbeddict]

Oh FFS! I thought ADWD was supposed to be nearly complete! Now he's telling us he needs a partner to finish it! Fuck why the hell didn't he figure this our last year or the year before! I suppose we're supposed to be impressed with the fact that he's finished all the other books he mentioned at the beginning of his message! What any of those works has to do with ASOIF is beyond me! It was clear he's been struggling, he admits as much, I just don't understand why it took him so long to come to this conclusion! I wanted the book to come out, but I'm not entirely thrilled that he's partnering up with someone. I'm really at the point of thinking this book is just going to be garbage, and I wonder about the rest of the series as well. I'm irritated with this to the point of not even wanting to read the rest of the series! there are so many excellent books and authors out there and I'm tired of GRRM's ever changing excuses!

This post has been edited by teholbeddict: 01 April 2009 - 11:54 PM