Timing

Fierce media attention to the security measures that kept each new Harry Potter book locked away until the moment sales officially began impressed me that the release date must be important.

Then I read that Gail Carriger’s Changeless, sequel to Crompton Crook nominee Soulless, is already popping up in bookstores like an impatient Spring bloom.

Whether it’s a few days or weeks early — Amazon says the book will be released March 30, Orbit’s catalog says April 10 — Carriger is taking the news quite tranquilly. She sounds positively cheerful about a photo showing copies already on sale:

Blake snapped this shot of Changeless ~ on shelves (apparently) now! Look, Gentle Reader, I practically have a whole shelf to myself. This is very exciting for an author and some sort of mile marker that I am convinced should be rewarded, if not with shoes, at least with a very large piece of chocolate mouse.

Wouldn’t J.K. Rowling have called Interpol, MI5, the Ticktockman or somebody?

4 thoughts on “Timing

  1. It’s only for phenomena on the order of Harry Potter that such embargos are enforced, and only in fairly recent years. The Silmarillion appeared in bookstores a full two weeks before its official release date.

  2. Considering the sales volume of the Potter books, it was probably wise of the publishers to give all the booksellers a “level playing field” (the current indie mantra).

    That said, many major books do have embargos. The recent Dan Brown novel comes to mind.

    Regretfully, the sales of Ms Carrigers books are not on a Rowling or Brown scale – but then few are.

  3. Clicking through, I was happy to learn that Ms. Carriger was actually hoping for a piece of chocolate mousse and that she misspelled the word “mousse” on purpose.

  4. @Joshua: That was my guess and the reason I didn’t “correct” the spelling. (And besides, there was always a chance that the blog was being typed by her cat.)

Comments are closed.