New releases and re-releases

Few things happen quickly in the book world.  The gestation period of a novel, from conception to completion, is usually measured in years rather than months and, though e-publishing may change this, the process of getting a book into the marketplace isn't much quicker, if and when publishers get involved.  Similarly, an author might think there's no longer any interest in something they wrote, when it's been out of print for several years, only to find that's not the case.

Take Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist.  Written in 1987 and published by a small Brazilian publishing house, with a limited print run of 900 copies, Coelho later sold the rights to a larger publisher who turned it into a Brazilian best-seller.  Since then, it's grown into a world best-seller, translated into 67 languages and has sold many millions of copies.  Film rights for The Alchemist weren't purchased until 2004 - some 17 years after first publication - and, even then, filming came to nothing... until the rights were again sold on in 2008, although (4 years later) the film is yet to appear.

All this by way of saying that things are slow in the publishing industry and you just can't tell when a book is going to rise from the ashes and live again.  Which, in turn, is a roundabout  lead-in to giving a shout-out to Louise Cusack, whose fantasy trilogy Shadow Through Time is about to be re-released after being out of print for some time.  First published by Simon & Schuster 10 years ago, Pan Macmillan's ebook division, Momentum Books, will be releasing the digital version on 15th February.  She is understandably ecstatic, and you can read about the journey of the trilogy at Louise's website, where you can also pre-order the books.

While I'm shouting and congratulating about the place, congratulations to Jason Nahrung, who I've also mentioned here before. Jason's novella Salvage is being published by Twelfth Planet Press, and can be pre-ordered here, where you'll be able to read what it's about.  (And ain't it great, by the by, to see more and more publishers investing in novellas?)