On Wed, Apr 07, 2004 at 02:56:21PM -0400, Joy Jennifer Nicholson <jjnichol at MIT.EDU> wrote: > Mine apparently hasn't even been shipped yet. If it was officially out > on the 1st, why didn't they ship it then? > *waiting in frustration* They can't ship it until they have it. It's only with big-name books (eg, the Wheel of Time books) that publishers set and enforce a sell-by date. Otherwise, the release dates tend to be "within a month or so"; that is, the publisher says "I'll publish this in April", makes arrangements to print a run in that month or shortly before, then ships the books to their distributor. The distributor then ships to individual bookstores. In the case of Amazon, they then ship it to you. (This is why Amazon is slower than bookstores, usually -- amazon gets the book at the same time as bookstores do, then has to package and ship it to you). So far as I know, Brust is still firmly in the realm of "No, we don't expect to see this on the NYTimes bestseller list". Now, with a big name book, it's different. I'm going from memory here, so anyone actually intimately involved in the publishing industry should feel free to correct me, but as I understand it, there is usually an official release date, and bookstores are not allowed to sell the book before that date. However, they usually RECEIVE the book days or weeks in advance. The book then gets stored in a back room or the like until it can be placed on shelves or whatever cardboard displays the publisher has arranged for. Sometimes books leak, if a bookstore puts it out early "accidentally", but there are penalties if caught. Employees, of course, can snag the books early if they are stealthy. This is where it pays to know/bribe/seduce someone who works at a bookstore. -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp