Ancillary Sword coming October 7, 2014

[ann_leckie]

So, the other day a blogger posted their predictions for next year’s Hugo ballot for Best Novel. (Strikes me as a bit early in that game, but hey, de gustibus, and if that’s what they enjoy thinking about and writing about, I genuinely wish them all the enjoyment the topic can afford them.)

Flatteringly enough, they considered Ancillary Sword to be a likely candidate. Unless, of course, AS turns out to be an utter disaster. Or unless it didn’t actually come out this year–they cited the lack of a pre-order button on Amazon and the lack of marketing push to be signs that perhaps the book would be delayed.

So. Just so it’s clear. I’ve been largely silent on the Amazon business, but I’ll say explicitly here that yes, Orbit is part of Hachette, and all of that Amazon vs Hachette business is indeed affecting my books. Amazon is delaying shipment of paper copies of Ancillary Justice, and has removed the pre-order button on Ancillary Sword. It has nothing to do with the book not coming out on time.

(I am not happy with Amazon right now, and have stopped buying anything at all through them. I probably won’t go back to it if I can possibly help it. But I haven’t called for any kind of Amazon-avoidance, largely because I’m pretty sure a lot of readers are more or less locked into Kindle at this point. Personally I’d have advised against getting into that position to begin with, but cost is a factor there, with vanilla e-readers being cheaper than the tablets that let you run various bookstore apps, and besides I can’t tell you all how to run your book-buying lives. So, buy your books wherever works best for you.)

The marketing push? Well, you know, you push too early and by the time the thing comes out everyone’s either sick of it or has forgotten. Push too late and you don’t get the buildup you want in time for release. Early reviews are only just now coming out. Things are moving along as they should be.

At any rate, here are a few of those early reviews: Publishers Weekly liked it, Kirkus liked it. There’ll be a (starred, I’m told!) Library Journal review come September. There was a lovely review in RT Book Reviews, which I can’t link to because it’s in the latest issue.

Here’s the publisher’s page.

So. Mark your calendars! Ancillary Sword will be out on October 7.

I’ll be doing some signings in the St Louis area in the week or two following its release, by the way, so watch this space for times and locations.

Mirrored from Ann Leckie.

Comments

[queenoftheskies.livejournal.com]

I'm looking forward to reading the sequel, so this is where I'm happy I opted for a Nook. :)

[veregava.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for the good news. I'm excited! October!!! (dancing) :)

[c-maxx.livejournal.com]

Looking forward to it!

[c-maxx.livejournal.com]

Looking forward to it!

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

I misread the title as October 7, 2015 at first and was like, OK, what's the big deal? Starting marketing pushes a year out? Huh?

Then I got to the end of the post and was just a little bit too excited.

Pre-Hachette-controversy, was Amazon a good option for you? I've been thinking recently (especially in light of the Kindle Unlimited thing, which seems to be not so great for writers) of how nice it would be for Amazon or whoever to have a line under the price that says "author receives $X amount of the purchase price".

Obviously that's not always an 100% perfect indicator (http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/02/cmap-2-how-books-are-made.html), but would be helpful if I'm willing to go to Store X even if they charge a dollar more but that dollar goes to the author.

[ann-leckie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've always been a bit wary of Amazon, but I also have a Kindle app on my tablet and have bought many things from them.

I do get royalties, pretty much no matter who readers buy from, so it's all good. I think having a "the author gets $X of this purchase" thing would actually be a good idea. Like you, I'm willing to pay a bit more for some things if it means the producer gets paid a bit better. Just like I'm happy to pay a bit more for locally sourced things sometimes, because I know that's money that goes back into the community here.

At this point, though, I'd have at least half a side-eye if Amazon suddenly put that up, just because of the "well we're willing to give authors a bigger cut if Hachette does!" thing--it was obvious manipulation, there's no possible way for Hachette to have agreed (there are existing contracts that already detail what authors' cuts of sales are and you can't just suddenly void those, for one thing) and Amazon sure as hell knew that. Or if they didn't, well, that's its own problem.

Anyway. Yeah, I was wary of Amazon but not to the point of cutting off all purchases from them, and Amazon sales still do get me royalties, so.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

...I'd have at least half a side-eye if Amazon suddenly put that up...

Definitely. It was more of an 'in a perfect better world' kind of thing. Another of my pie in the sky ideas is a 'Please, Amazon, charge me more!' petition, asking for them (or anyone, really) to certify that their entire distribution chain is fair trade, good benefits, stuff like that. Amazon specifically was in the news not too long ago for their physical warehouses being terrible places to work, long hours, bad conditions, low pay, etc. If Costco can be a good employer, Amazon certainly can.

[nadya duke (from livejournal.com)]

My lovely local, Annie Bloom's, let me preorder it right from their website and will call me when it's in. Thanks for letting us know it's so close!

[damerell.livejournal.com]

A Hugo for Ancillary Sword? You're going to need a bigger mantlepiece. :-)

I don't touch Amazon or DRMed ebooks anyway, but I'm quite content getting physical copies IRL.