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Gaunts Ghosts The Founding Boxset


Angel_of_Blood

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Personally I've been dreading this ever since I bought the Eisenhorn and Night Lords box sets. I can't resist these awesome looking sets, and I love Gaunts Ghosts. But :cuss, when they inevitably release The Saint and The Lost. It's going to be £150 worth of books!

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http://www.blacklibrary.com/Images/BL/product-pages/2017/08-02-Gaunts-TriBox-page-750.jpg

Personally I've been dreading this ever since I bought the Eisenhorn and Night Lords box sets. I can't resist these awesome looking sets, and I love Gaunts Ghosts. But censored.gif, when they inevitably release The Saint and The Lost. It's going to be £150 worth of books!

That's low even by BL standards. To create that ... re-release on the day they announced 'Warmaster' release date... Not nice BL, not nice - that's called profit from the corpse

Don't forget the newer books are working towards a fourth trilogy, too... ;-)

it's so long past salvation reach release that almost all of us forgot what that was about, lol.

Tempted indeed. But I have the first editions of each of the Ghosts books... Still, I'm tempted. The old books are getting a little bit tatty (First and Only does have a fair few signatures in it though, including Abnett, King and Paul Sawyer). 

Special tree destroying edition. Ebook is the only way. Plus I've never read this series ever. I don't want trilogy. I want all books! Together!

 

Seeing as there's reasonable 'arcs' to the overall story of the Ghosts, getting the trilogy (or the omnibuses, come to think of it) is not a bad idea... :wink:

 

That's low even by BL standards. To create that ... re-release on the day they announced 'Warmaster' release date... Not nice BL, not nice - that's called profit from the corpse

 

No, no, NO. You don't get to act like that now, Andrey. You've been demanding to know when this book is coming for like, THREE YEARS.

 

Suck it up. Buy it. Be *bloody* happy for once.

 

 

That's low even by BL standards. To create that ... re-release on the day they announced 'Warmaster' release date... Not nice BL, not nice - that's called profit from the corpse

 

No, no, NO. You don't get to act like that now, Andrey. You've been demanding to know when this book is coming for like, THREE YEARS.

 

Suck it up. Buy it. Be *bloody* happy for once.

 

Ahem no LaurieJGoulding

You know why? CAUSE DECEMBER 2017! Really?

Why the book finished in January 2017 would be piling on a shelf at a warehouse till December 2017 - 11 months from then it was finished?

Edits? Ok - up to March/April - print  - in May/June. Even in that worse case - BL should have released it in July 2017!

You clearly have no understanding of how long it takes to edit, print and ship a full novel, for simultaneous global release.

 

For reference, it's eleven months. The stock will (probably) arrive in GW's warehouse in September, and be shipped globally. That takes three months. Blame Australia.

You clearly have no understanding of how long it takes to edit, print and ship a full novel, for simultaneous global release.

For reference, it's eleven months. The stock will (probably) arrive in GW's warehouse in September, and be shipped globally. That takes three months. Blame Australia.

Damn Aussies :)

But thanks.gif - now it is a little bit clearer. But 11 months wallbash.gif 300 pages with 1,5 interval take half a year to edit? What is an editor workday - 3 hours per day?

In my humble opinion I do not understand

How do you know it's 300 pages?  Sure the finished product of the previous ones have been round that size but how do you know it hasn't been edited down from something far more substantial?  Patience (Daniverse pun intended) my man...

 

Incidentally on editing, Laurie how does it work?  Does a writer submit a draft which is final and then they're not allowed to touch it until it comes back or is more of an organic conversation toing and froing?

How do you know it's 300 pages?  Sure the finished product of the previous ones have been round that size but how do you know it hasn't been edited down from something far more substantial?  Patience (Daniverse pun intended) my man...

 

Incidentally on editing, Laurie how does it work?  Does a writer submit a draft which is final and then they're not allowed to touch it until it comes back or is more of an organic conversation toing and froing?

Seconded the question - how does it work?

it's 300 pages after edit. Every BL contain a lot of blank pages, another book advertisement, general preludes, list of other book etc. - usually they take up to 40 pages!

So, the process might differ from publishing house to publishing house, but this is the general gist of it. (This is NOT exclusive to BL, or anything like that. It's fairly standard across major publishers.)

 

An author submits their first draft. An editor receives it, and reads it. They can't skim it - they have to assess it critically, word by word, and make notes, check facts, confer with their peers. In general, for a book between 50k and 100k words, this takes 1-2 weeks but can be more.

(Depending on how many projects an editor has stacked up, they might not be able to START reading for up to 6 weeks. Editors aren't waiting around for a specific book to show up, they have other stuff to do every day, and other books.)

 

The editor then gives feedback to the author. This is usually typed up and emailed, but sometimes you can do it face to face - if 1) the author is available, and 2) the feedback is quite light. The author is then given a new deadline for redrafts, depending on the amount of work involved. The longest you'd expect would be another month, because authors have lives outside of writing...

 

The author submits the revised draft, and the editor checks what has changed throughout. This can take a day or so, maybe a week at most. If the new draft is good to go, then the process moves on. Otherwise, it's more feedback and repeat the previous step.

 

Next, the book goes to a desk editor. They tidy up the manuscript, format it and get it ready for copy-editing. It then goes to an external freelance editor who is familiar with the author and/or series, to make sure there is consistency from the ground up. The external copy-edit can take up to 6 weeks, as they read it line by line and make changes, plus they compile spelling lists and any queries that they can't immediately answer (IP stuff, especially).

 

Then the desk editor reviews those changes, to make sure it's good quality and nothing has gone crazy or off the rails with the author's original work. They might make some more tweaks as well. This can take up to a week (but this was always the biggest bottleneck at BL as we only had ONE desk editor for a long time... for ALL books...)

 

They then send the edited manuscript to be laid out as a rough version of the book, with Production. They might be able to do this within 30 minutes, or it can take a week. It depends on whether they are experimenting for a standalone book or new series, or following a template from a previous series.

 

The rough layout then goes to AT LEAST 2 external proofreaders, who check for typos, comedy hyphenation across lines (a$$-orted and ar$e-nal are two of my favourites!) and any last issues that have slipped through. (For HH products, I used to also give it one last continuity check at this stage, for added consistency across the series.) This takes about 2 weeks, but can be longer if the book is longer or there is more to check in other books.

 

Assuming the cover art and adverts are ready to go, the book can then be fully laid out, with graphics and internal art where needed. This takes a week, minimum.

 

Then the book goes into sign-off. It has to be peer-reviewed by people from EVERY team in the department who worked on it. Any issues have to be fixed now, or they are going to be in the final printing. This can take a day for super-urgent products that HAVE to go to print right now, but you inevitably get mistakes that are missed... and the longest I've ever known was 2 weeks for a proper, thorough sign-off. The overall manager of the department also has to look at every single product, at least quickly, so they know everything that their name is indirectly attached to within the company - this can be another bottleneck if that person is out of the office, or on holiday.

 

(At this stage, there is usually a reprographic check, to make sure that the colour values will work when printed. This can take as little as a couple of hours, but it depends on what else the guys there are doing at the time. If there are errors, it has to roll back to sign-off again.)

 

The files then get uploaded to the printers' file servers. Most English BL books are now printed in China, because the quality is better and the cost is lower. (Sorry, UK printers! It's just business.) This takes 30 minutes.

 

The printers then print out a proof copy, and send it back to the publishers. This has to physically arrive in-house to be checked over, which can take a few days even by air courier from China to the UK, and then it has to be looked at by at least 3 different people to check for any final-final issues. Generally, this is all good and nothing changes... otherwise, repeat sign-off AGAIN, and all the subsequent steps.

 

Once that big red button is pushed, the publishers have no further control over the printing process. It takes MONTHS. They will receive early samples to check (Correct paper? Gloss? Foil? Any issues at all?) but all being good the stock will arrive 4-5 months after final approval, ready to be shipped. And shipments only go out once a month, because that's how sea freight containers work. If a book misses the container, it's waiting 28 days minimum - so you have to plan this stuff VERY carefully, allowing plenty of time.

 

===

 

AAAAAAAND, bear in mind for all of this, people only work office hours. There are national holidays. There are unforeseen problems. Always.

Laurie thanks THAT surely closes the issue of why Warmaster is slotted for December 2017!!!!

 

Also interesting insight into just how far ahead the writers are working from what we punters eventually get in to see.

 

Does make me wonder how it impacts on the actual enjoyment of the book when you as editor (and all those other folks) have to look at it with their professional eyes. Perhaps for another thread though.

'The external copy-edit can take up to 6 weeks, as they read it line by line and make changes, plus they compile spelling lists and any queries that they can't immediately answer (IP stuff, especially).'

- what? what's his doing 6 weeks. I know that by some happenstance we all see this world differently - but 6 weeks? Even through 'only work office hours' as you said - tis still a long time.

'The overall manager of the department also has to look at every single product, at least quickly, so they know everything that their name is indirectly attached to within the company - this can be another bottleneck if that person is out of the office, or on holiday.' - aren't holidays rule shouldn't be applicable to the case of book reviews? Someone always should be present as a charged person for holidays.

Laurie thanks THAT surely closes the issue of why Warmaster is slotted for December 2017!!!!

Also interesting insight into just how far ahead the writers are working from what we punters eventually get in to see.

Does make me wonder how it impacts on the actual enjoyment of the book when you as editor (and all those other folks) have to look at it with their professional eyes. Perhaps for another thread though.

Usually up to 1-2 years into the future - right Laurie? Are the HH books take priority over everything else? Are they edited quicker? thanks.gif

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