Another month. What on earth is happening?! Who is stealing all the time. I’d like to know which one of you is responsible for the time theft, and I want to know now. This is no joke, any form of theft is illegal, so please send the hours back to me… please.
Until I get those days back then, I’d best update everyone on what’s happening at CK Towers at the moment. A lot is the answer! It’s been a really busy month both personally and professionally, but the good news is I’m living at the new place and have made progress sorting the office. Just need shelves put in now, which some might argue is the most important part!
The big news this month is we have a date for the reveal and public pre-order for our upcoming release (and Publishers Rights certified) The Martian by Andy Weir. To be clear the dates are below:
– The Martian – Production reveal and beginning of Rights Holder window
o April 29th 2025 at 15:00BST
– The Martian – Public pre-order for all Standard Editions and remaining Deluxe and Lettered Editions
o May 6th 2025 at 20:00BST
We’ll be releasing images on our social media of the prototypes up until the production reveal, something to whet your whistle before the public pre-order! The Standard is already out there!
The website rumbles on but looks like we’re very close to launching the new site (Phase 1). Once that’s up we’ll continue testing the backend (rights management) until it’s ready to launch.
For the rest of the books then please read on:
Legend
We’re binding! We’re actually binding the darn things which is great news. The colour pieces of art have been signed off by Stella Graham and the proofs approved for printing. This means the bindery now have the printed pages and shortly the tipped in images.
The last piece of the puzzle is the limitation pages, which are nearly signed by each contributor and should be with the bindery soon.
Bookblocks are being folded and prepped for binding/gilding so things are moving very nicely in the right direction. When will these be seeing sunlight as finished books? I’d say June at this stage, but will keep everyone posted as things move forward.
The Fall of Hyperion
The paper is at the printers and the plates have been made! This means letterpress printing at Nomad Letterpress will commence in the next couple of weeks, with them due to land with the bindery June/July.
Jaime Jones, the artist, is finalising the last couple of bits on the tipped in colours and will be proofed and printed ahead of schedule for the binding process. The leather order has been put in ready for binding too by Ludlow Bookbinders, so making good progress.
I’m expecting to ship these out in autumn/fall this year should everything go to plan, which bodes very well for working on Endymion!
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Hot on the heels of Legend as far as printing goes. The interiors were fully finished by Gary Gianni and we even had a bonus painting done for this release! We’re going to be using this image as an endpaper for the Standard and will tip it into the Deluxe and Lettered Edition. Sorry to those who wanted it as a dustjacket, but it makes more sense as an endpaper.
We’re preparing the imposition for printing the colour vignettes by Gary Gianni for the offset printing and this will then go to Hand & Eye for the letterpress printing of the text in two colours. So we’re looking good to get this out this year.
Also I’m pleased to announce that the original Zaphod Beeblebrox, Mark Wing-Davey will be contributing an afterword and signing these editions! Mark played Zaphod in the radio show as well as the BBC TV series and was a very good friend of Douglas Adams having been on many family holidays with him and his family.
It really felt right to have someone from the original radio show as it preceded the novel and feels canon to us here at CK. Mark is a wonderful chap and we’re really pleased to have his contribution to this release!
Shipping should be something like Winter this year for this, but will know more once the printing has started.
Last Argument of Kings
We’re about halfway through the printing of LAOK with the final half scheduled following The Fall of Hyperion at Nomad Letterpress. This means binding should start around summertime for this release!
Greg Manchess has fiddled with his dustjacket painting and I’m pleased to share the updated image prior to scanning professionally. We’re also excited to release the other colour paintings Greg has done over the coming months as we move toward shipping.
Shipping should be autumn this year from what I can tell, but will depend on the schedule at Ludlow Bookbinders which I’ll know more about as time goes on!
The Martian
The full reveal is planned for Tuesday coming and we’ve released images of the Standard prototype already! This has been a lot of fun to work on since securing the rights and I really think the prototypes have come together nicely, but you’ll need to be the judge of that!
Yuxing Zhang has produced 10 colour images for this release and we had a very good response to the wrap-around dustjacket art he produced. For those not on social media, here is the piece in all its glory!
The interiors are being proofed at the moment ready for printing and this will go on the press at Hand & Eye sometime after Hitchhiker’s Guide. So we’re in a good position with this in the schedule currently.
For those that didn’t see the Standard prototype images, we’ve got you covered:
There are more prototype images being released today (Deluxe) with the Lettered to follow on Monday!
Will it make it out the door this year for buyers? I sincerely hope so, but we’ll have to see how things pan out over the next few months. As always, I’ll keep you updated.
We also released the Dustjacket art on social media too!
