Arse

[blufive]

The seacon '03 website (with its easy-to-read¹ blue-on-blue text) reveals that Guest of Honour Mary Gentle has pulled out at the last minute. Damn.

¹NOT!

Comments

[bugshaw.livejournal.com]

I mean, surely deadline and con come with considerable advance warning? Which allows, like, planning and stuff?

Not neccessarily. According to the mary_gentle conference on Cix, the deadline for the book was the end of March. A lot of 15hr days were pulled, and the book handed in. Phew!

Then they said they were putting it into production at the beginning of May, which is a ludicrously tight schedule for completing all the editing, polishing, rewriting bits that don't quite make sense etc. More 15hr days pulled. It transpires that a long weekend "break" over Easter is not actually feasible unless the book is to go into print not-quite-finished.

[blufive.livejournal.com]

Personally, I'd be tempted to tell the publisher to wait a week. But then I've never published professionally, and probably never will, and it's probably not a terribly good idea to piss publishers off.

[bugshaw.livejournal.com]

I believe there were other knock-on events, like scheduling, advertising campaigns, all sorts of bizarre publishery things that are important and interdependent and can't be shifted by a week. I think the book is to be ready for production by beginning of May or it waits till November (which also knocks the schedule around).