Friday 24 July 2015

Audience pressure pays off: Update on Scott Bakker's THE UNHOLY CONSULT

A month ago I reported that Scott Bakker's sixth Second Apocalypse novel (and the concluding volume of The Aspect-Emperor sub-trilogy), The Unholy Consult, had been delayed for absolutely no reason at all.



Fortunately, the resulting noise (from here, other blogs and, most notably, the Second Apocalypse Forum and westeros.org) resulted in Overlook being contacted by fans eager to find out what was going on with the book. As a result Overlook have kicked the publication process into gear and we should soon have an idea of when the book will be released.
"I’ve finally spoken to my Overlook editor: apparently they’ve been deluged with emails and even phone calls! It has him excited about the book at least. We still have a couple more details to hammer out, and things need to be squared away with Orbit, but hopefully I should be able to make an announcement soon."
Good job everyone. Just goes to show that the Internet can be a force for positive pressure and change as well as unnecessarily cute animal pictures.

The White-Luck Woofter. The Canine Who Comes Before. The No-Walkies.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

So exited about this. About f*cking time, this is one of the best fantasy series ever.

Bob/Sally said...

Awesome news. Good to hear a collective fan voice can make a difference.

James said...

Now we need to start a movement to get Kearneys last Sea Beggars book published!

Homedawg said...

Just shows the power of social media. Maybe Scott will realize that this fun thing know as the inter-web can be beneficial when it comes to promoting book sales. Hint hint.

Mr Fixit said...

So, do we yet know what caused this delay? I don't think a publisher can simply "forget" about a submitted text. Some behind-the-scenes disagreements? Publisher financial troubles?

Gabriele Campbell said...

Yep. Though we need to be careful to walk the line between expressing strong interest in getting that book out and downright stalking. It seems some of the mails and calls backfired on Bakker because a few fans were too eager.

Jim Korasi said...

And finally I can pick up his books.. :)
I wanted to do it for years but I vowed to myself, after Rothfuss and Martin, not to begin another series with questionable publishing delays..

I pretty sure the (disappointing) sales from all of his books will rise after this development because of people like me.

Good luck Mr. Bakker!

Adam Whitehead said...

Financial troubles are possible, or it might be that Overlook are a small publisher with a lot of books and they've created a logjam situation. It also sounds like Overlook have had a lot of staff turnover since even 2011 when the last book came out, and there was no-one at Overlook really championing Bakker inbetween. That seems to have now been rectified, at least.

Funksoul123 said...

I'm glad this is going to be released finally. I think he should dump these guys as publishers though as soon as the book is out. From what I've read on his blog, it's been a nightmare.
Makes a contrast I guess, having an author who has actually finished but the publisher is the laggardly one. Unlike Rothfuss or Martin...

Unknown said...

I am eager for the conclusion of the series and I also admit, that it is a shame how the whole process turned out. But then again Scott Baker should look out for a new publisher or try using Kickstarter for his next project. Actually crowdfunding for self publishing could work for him, as his fanbase is mostly based on 20+ nerds with a good amount of money.

Jens said...

@ Unkown: more like 250,000+ nerds* - unless each of these nerds all bought more than 12,000 copies to boost sales...


* cf. http://thewertzone.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-updated-sff-all-time-sales-list.html ; ¼ * 1,000,000 = 250,000

Jens said...

Wert, do you know whether Bakker has commented on his current activities?
Even though it's certainly just as frustrating for him than for the fan that the publication of TUC is being delayed, he could use this time to work on another project (Disciple Manning, stand-alone novel, or even the third set). But since I'm not informed about his literary activities, he might be doing exactly that!

Anonymous said...

@Jens: I think Unknown rather meant "20 years old and over nerds".

C.B.

Jens said...

@ Anonymous/C.B.: You're probably right, that makes more sense, especially in connection with crowdfunding!

@ Unknown: Sorry about the misunderstanding.