From The Wertzone:
Just a brief update from Gollancz. Whilst The Way of Kings will be a simultaneous launch with the US edition in August 2010, the UK edition is being held back to February 2011, to give Gollancz a little more time to prepare the book for release, as they see it as a major title. Slightly disappointing news, but given that the sequel is probably not expected until 2012 or later (with Sanderson having to deliver the last two Wheel of Time books on a tight schedule), not too much of an issue.
An odd decision, given Sanderson’s popularity and the ease at which books can be imported (I certainly know that it’s not uncommon, at least in the online world, for North Americans to import novels from the UK) with relative ease, thanks to the likes of Amazon.com and Chapters.ca. Still, Sanderson’s Mistborn trilogy is still fresh on the shelves of UK bookstores, so it may not be so egregious a delay as it might seem to folk on my side of the pond.
Given that Sanderson is still working on revisions (or, was, until a few days ago), one wonders if we might not see a similar delay from Tor Books.
I messed up the update. The UK edition is being delayed until February, but the Australian edition will be out in August. As far as I can tell, this is down to the Australian edition needing a much smaller print run, whilst the UK one will be much larger and, as we already know, this is a huge book, longer than anything Erikson or Jordan have put out.
Given that the three-year delay between the US and UK editions of MISTBORN didn’t hurt its sales, and the UK editions of ELANTRIS and WARBREAKER are still not scheduled yet, I don’t think the Brits are going to be going hungry for more Sanderson just yet.
It doesn’t seem like Tor US will be delaying their edition as galleys are very much in the works according to Sanderson’s assistant, which fits the normal publication time frame. And with the edits he has done the page count should be less than originally thought as well.
The page count estimate already assumed the cuts and hasn’t changed.
Tor won’t delay it, but it is a much tighter schedule than normal for anything but a Wheel of Time book.
I hope Gollancz (Australia) knows what they’re getting into as far as production goes, since we have given them nothing at all yet, and art-wise this book is much more complicated than the average.