Oooh, I can almost taste 2026! It smells good. Very good in fact. But alas, we still have 2025 to deal with and it’s all change here at the moment – don’t you just love the fine press industry????
What’s changing? Quite a bit actually. Due to delays at the bindery on finishing The Fall of Hyperion, the Deluxe owners won’t get theirs until mid-December and the Lettered toward the end of the month. With that in mind we’re pushing back the release of Endymion until the end of Jan/Early Feb for customers. I promised I wouldn’t pre-order on a title when the previous title in the series hadn’t shipped and I’m sticking to that. We may tease pictures this side of Christmas though to keep you happy!
Not only that we’re changing our release schedule for 2026 too (for some secret reasons we can’t divulge currently). Following Endymion in Jan/Feb, the next title is up for pre-order in March and this is a new unannounced series and subject to Publishers Rights. This means Wizard of Earthsea is NOT the next title up for Publishers Rights and is pushed back to May/June 2026. Apologies about this, but I feel you’ll all understand when I’ve been able to give full disclosure.
The remaining titles to be released in 2026 are still uncertain as it depends on how well the bindery can perform and catch-up with our titles in production. This is something that has been on our radar for some time and we’re working closely with them to ensure we can hit the targets set last year.
As we so ruthlessly pushed Endymion back a couple of months then we have a big hole for the end of the month! Worry not, we’re planning a sale of extra and dinged copies from our last few releases. How exciting! Fio has been trawling through boxes and cupboards at CK HQ and we have a number of Legend, The Fifth Season and Before They are Hanged that we can put up for sale (more below). We’ve also got some replacement dustjackets and bits like that.
Anything else before we move on? Hmmm, well I’m going Dragonsteel Nexus armed with prints, pins and bookmarks. Come and find me if you’re there!
We should also have the next print in our cover collection going live at some point. The proofs are just being approved by the artists then we’ll get them scheduled in!
Right, books. Where are they?
Ding and extra-copy sale!
We’ve found quite a few books that we can put up for sale including some dinged copies. Quite a few are books in hand (BTAH, Legend, TFS, TFOH) and we also a couple of pre-orders we can put up after a full review of our database. Please don’t email asking what exactly is going up, it can be a nice surprise.
This is planned for Thursday 27th of November at 20:00GMT and I’ll send a newsletter out on Monday with more details including the link etc.
The Fall of Hyperion
We’re very close to shipping The Fall of Hyperion at the moment – half of the Deluxe have been picked up by our distributor and the other half is being picked up a week on Friday (28th of November). This means they won’t be shipped out until the first week of December, and for overseas customers could take a week or two to arrive due to Christmas shipping bottlenecks.
The Lettered are well on the way too. We’ve had to get the endpapers marbled by Renato Crepaldi in the end as the previous marbler has had some ill health (this also impacts Hitchhiker’s but we’ll reference this later). I’m hoping the Lettered leave the bindery before the end of the year, but I should know more in the coming weeks!
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
All printing done and finished after a bit of back and forth between our offset and letterpress printer on this one. So the folding begins at Ludlow ready for binding, woohoo! Also, the signing sheets are in as well so that’s good.
The big news is we are having to change the marbler for the Standard Edition due to ill health unfortunately. As you can imagine this is rather late notice and frustrating for all and sundry. However, we hopefully have a marbler ready to step into those shoes and create their own take on the marble we originally chose. We will of course share images of the new marble once we have it, and will ensure it works with the spine and slipcase colours – it might even be better!
I can see this one shipping out Spring next year as it’s a big one and we might not receive the marbled papers on the standard until Q1. We may well ship out the Deluxe and Lettered early as they will be ready before then most likely. Watch this space!
Last Argument of Kings
Pages in hand at the bindery which is great and folding is underway. I’ve also signed off the proofs this week for the interior art, so they will be with the bindery next week at the latest. There is a chance this one may in fact jump in front of Hitchhiker’s at the bindery now, so for First Law Series Rights holders, that could be quite exciting indeed!
The limitation pages are winging their way across the Atlantic for Sir Greg of Manchess to do his thing, then I’ll get old Abercrombie to do his thing on them for binding. I’d like to say Q1 2026 for this one to reach owners and complete The First Law trilogy. How exciting!
The Martian
We’re about to start printing this beauty, which is very exciting. Gomer Press are offset printing the chapter heads with Hand & Eye Press doing the letterpress printing. This should be on the press in the next couple of weeks and I’d like to say the pages will be with the bindery by the end of Jan.
Then onto binding, of course. We have all elements for this one in hand, the art, the signed pages etc so depending on the bindery we should get this out by late Spring? Maybe Summer based upon lead-times at Ludlow Bookbinders at the moment. I’ll be monitoring closely.
Assassin's Apprentice
This one is about to hit the press as well, but at Nomad Letterpress which is very exciting! The plates are made and paper ordered, so once the press is free (next week or two) it’ll be on and printing.
Also we’ve had the Lettered Box inlays done and are on the way to the box maker for finishing. We’ve had the art in for quite some time now, and next on the list is to produce the limitation pages for signing by Robin and Lixin.
Pages to hit the bindery Q1, with likely binding Summer 2026. Again, too hard to say with any more accuracy than that at this stage.
The Obelisk Gate
Barely pre-ordered, behave yourselves! In fact, we’ve just officially sold out the last Standard Edition, woohoo. We’re just in the process of setting out the interiors so these will be ready for printing early next year. Hopefully have them on the press Spring 26 for binding in Summer. But we’ll see…
Endymion
Pushing this one back to end of Jan/early Feb now for reasons explained above. Worry not, this doesn’t slow the production process down, it just gives your wallet/purse a couple more months of respite!
The prototypes are very nearly done and they look fantastic, really pleased with how they turned out. Not only that Thomas Elliot is doing an incredible job on the art for this. The B&W’s he’s handed in are stunning and the colours are starting to hit my desk as well. An incredible artist indeed and the perfect person to take on the mantle with the Cantos.
We’ll likely share some teases over the next few weeks as I know some were excited to catch a look at this one. Genuinely can’t wait to see the full cantos on the shelf when finished!
Future Titles
There are a few in the hopper, some you guys even know about! So, we’ve announced Mythago Wood, and the good news is I can finally confirm Jaime Jones as the artist for this one. Jaime is one of my all-time favourite artists as you all know, so I’m thrilled he’s working on this iconic novel. Hopefully pre-order in 2026, but may slip to 2027, we shall see.
We also recently announced Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin with art from Tom Kidd. This was originally planned for Feb/March but has been pushed back for an unannounced title now.
Best Served Cold is also in the works with Tyler Jacobson as the artist. We’re planning to pre-order this one in 2026 currently, but don’t want it to get in the way of some of our unfinished series. So again, we shall see!
We’re certain to release Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb in 2026, the art is already underway which is great. Likely mid-2026 as we want to ensure we get AA out the door before doing a pre-order on this.
Will we do The Rise of Endymion or The Stone Sky in 2026? Too early to tell I’m afraid, but as the months roll by, it becomes clearer. So, watch this space.
Lastly, what is the unannounced title? I can’t say. But I’m hoping we announce it before the end of the year, that’s the plan. It’s a belter that’s all I’ll say! I’m hopping with excitement about it.
Right, I have some mountains to move, so I’ll leave it here. Have a nice weekend everyone!