I know what you’re thinking, this is a bit early isn’t it? You’re not wrong! I rarely get the production updates out until the last bloody minute, but there are a couple of reasons this one is going out today.
Firstly, I’m going away at the end of next week for a week so will have limited access to emails and a mountain of stuff I need to do before I go away. Please note responses on emails will be considerably slower from the 23rd to the 30th of May, so please don’t worry if you haven’t heard back for a few days.
The other reason is due to a title we’ve had approval from the estate on that we’re working on. Whilst not set in stone, it looks like we’re going to be publishing Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock next year! I can talk about this title until the cows come home, as I genuinely believe it is one of the best fantasy novels ever written. This however is not the official announcement, which should come down the line.
What else has been happening in the world of Curious King? Well, it looks like phase 1 of the website is ready. This is great news, I think it looks great and is much more functional! I’m sure some people will tell me it’s awful and we should go back to the old done, but they don’t run CK. I do. Hah!
I also wanted to reference the issues that some people had with the cart button when trying to purchase The Martian. I’m rather devastated by what happened, and it has taken some time to realise what happened. As I’m an open-book I’ll explain: Whilst the website didn’t crash under the load as we have a meaty server and utilise CloudFlare and Shopify there were still issues. It appears that it is down to using an embedded Shopify button on the site rather than using Shopify hosted product pages is the reason. I had no idea this would cause an issue, nor did my web guy so I can only apologise profusely.
We are working on a new method of purchasing for a public sale ahead of Assassin’s Apprentice early July. This method will give everyone ahead of time the product page link for the edition you want to purchase, which is hosted on Shopify. This should solve any of those issues as it won’t be going through a javascript button on the site and will be directly on Shopify itself. Shout to Tony from CTP for walking me through this, and I also believe it’s how Suntup take their orders. Hopefully no more issues once that’s set up…
Right, books? Yeah, we’ve got some in the works. Read on!
Legend
Folding has finished at the bindery and they also have allllll the requisite parts too. Signing sheets, dustjackets, endpapers, interior illustrations and bookmarks. During the folding a couple of sections were found with some printer marks/splodges on but worry not, these are being printed next week and doesn’t hold up the bindery for casemaking. Hoping this one will be hitting the shelves at the end of June! I’ll be visiting the bindery on Monday so should be able to get a more accurate update then.
It’s coming though guys, and I’m VERY excited about it! Who wants to see what the Standard Edition looks like with Justin Sweet’s dustjacket on? All of you? You guys…
Here it is!
The Fall of Hyperion
Plates are in and prep is almost ready for printing, which looks like next week for kicking things off. The maestros at Nomad Letterpress will be printing The Fall of Hyperion and it’s in very good hands. This is a big undertaking at over 500 pages with something like 45 second colours.
Should be finished by the end of June I think, give or take a week or so. Realistically this should be with the bindery in July, which is great news. No Standard on this one, so hoping it will only take a couple of months at Ludlow Bookbinders before winging its way across the world to owners of the book. Shipping looks like September/October based on that schedule working out.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Moving nicely along. Mark Wing-Davey (Zaphod in the radio and tv series) has finished his afterword and will be signing the limitation pages in the next month along with Gary Gianni. This is due on the press in July at Hand & Eye Editions, London. We’re printing the colour vignettes with Gomer Press and we’re just getting the imposition nailed down. This is a larger run (750/250/26) so may take a couple of months on the Heidelberg to finish for binding.
So, we’re cooking with gas on this one guys and hope to have it in the bindery late Summer/Autumn for shipping Q4 this year or maybe Q1 2025.
Last Argument of Kings
This one will be on the press at Nomad Letterpress immediately following the finishing of The Fall of Hyperion, which is rather exciting. So it should finish printing in July/August by my calculations and assumptions of no delays. Binding depends on the other projects at Ludlow Bookbinders. We can’t say for sure when this one will be bound at the moment as we don’t want to jump the queue for TFOH and HHG. However, it will be ready for binding in Summer and if we have any delays on other projects then it’ll step in for finishing.
As you all know, living legend Greg Manchess is doing the art for this one. Myself and Joe have had some enjoyable sessions with Greg on art direction and we have seen some phenomenal prelims so far. Yes, we will be doing Logan vs the Feared, I’d have to close up shop if that didn’t make it into the book…
What are the other images? Oh, you’ll have to wait for those. As we get closer to shipping we’ll release a couple of them on social media. I forgot to add in the modified dustjacket art by Mr Manchess last month. So here it is!
