"Not close to finishing"
Until recently, I had sort of been tentatively assuming that JKR would finish the manuscript of Book 7 sometime around the end of this year, and that it would be released sometime in the summer of 2007 (indeed, I was quite fond of the 7/7/07 theory, even while recognizing the uncertainty as to whether the publishers would release the book within a week of the OotP movie).
My doubts about this timetable had been increasing in recent weeks, however; and now JKR's Rubbish Bin update seems to give further evidence for a pessimistic view, saying that she's "not close to finishing it yet."
Recall the following:
September 19, 2002 (Hermione's birthday): JKR tells Lizo that OotP now has "a beginning, a middle and an end - you could read it all the way through," but that she wants "a bit more time to tweak."
January 15, 2003: Bloomsbury and Scholastic announce OotP publication date as June 21.
June 21, 2003: OotP released.
********
June 28, 2004: JKR.com's "Room of Requirement" announces title of HBP.
August 16, 2004: JKR.com gives "Old Lion" excerpt (which turns out to be a description of Scrimgeour).
October 31, 2004: JKR.com gives three chapter titles: "Spinner's End," "Draco's Detour," and "Felix Felicis."
December 20, 2004: JKR announces submission of HBP to publishers, followed shortly by publishers' announcement of book release the following July 16.
July 16, 2005: HBP released.
********
So by this time four (!?) years ago, OotP was more or less readable, and just needed some tweaking. By this time two years ago, JKR had long since given us the title, and had added an excerpt from what turned out to be chapter one (and, as it turned out, was three months shy of submitting the manuscript). And now she says she's "not close to finishing."
I stress that I am not complaining. I'd rather have a realistically-optimal Book 7 in 2008 than a rush job in 2007, of course! But this re-setting of my expectations seems significant enough to be worth discussing publicly. (And I recognize that it's not impossible that JKR could still finish the manuscript by December or January, allowing a midsummer release next year. But that has come to seem unlikely.)
One question that naturally arises is: Suppose JKR finishes the manuscript in, say, May of 2007. What then? Would the publishers violate the usual midsummer-release pattern and give us a pre-Christmas Book 7? I tend to think they probably would; they'd probably make themselves a target for a good deal of public complaining otherwise; and, besides, the time value of money means that businesses generally prefer to get our dollars sooner rather than later. I can't see that the incremental sales advantage of a midsummer release would outweigh the disadvantages of holding on to it for much longer than they need to. (Indeed, I was surprised that the editing-and-publishing process took as long as 7 months for HBP.)
Or-- looking at the question from another angle-- what if JKR finishes in, say, March? In that case I could see a release in July or August; the publishers did a pretty quick job of it for GoF, as I recall (although at the cost of having to correct the wand-order mixup after the release, and then having to deal with some public complaints from fans whose sense of reasonableness in their theories wasn't perhaps quite what it might have been).
If they can't do August (i.e. when most Northern-hemisphere schools are on summer holidays), then I could see them holding it until maybe November or so, to get in on a pre-Christmas rush. (No, Halloween 2007 isn't on a weekend. I checked.) The value of catching customers in a holiday-purchase mode would probably justify holding onto the "inventory" for an extra couple of months.
So perhaps the real question is: Will JKR finish in time for a release by the end of next summer? This would probably require a completed manuscript by the end of April or so. That still seems realistic to hope for; after all, she wrote pretty much the whole of HBP in calendar year 2004 (recall that JKR spent most of 2003 full-time mothering her then-infant son David, as she did with Mackenzie in 2005).
And so I'm still giving us about a 50-50 shot of having the book in our hands next summer-- but probably more like August than the usual June or July release dates. This would be followed by maybe a 30% chance of pre-Christmas 2007, with the remaining probability assigned to "spring or summer 2008" (I'm not sure how a Spring release would work; if she finishes the manuscript in September 2007 or so, a Christmas release would be too soon, but the following June would be an awfully long time for the publishers to let that extra cash sit in our pockets).
We'll see what JKR has in store for us. (A title announcement would be nice, though! ...Surely it's got to be better than my suggestion of "Harry Potter and the Great Horcrux Hunt," or "GHH" for short.) :-)
My doubts about this timetable had been increasing in recent weeks, however; and now JKR's Rubbish Bin update seems to give further evidence for a pessimistic view, saying that she's "not close to finishing it yet."
Recall the following:
September 19, 2002 (Hermione's birthday): JKR tells Lizo that OotP now has "a beginning, a middle and an end - you could read it all the way through," but that she wants "a bit more time to tweak."
January 15, 2003: Bloomsbury and Scholastic announce OotP publication date as June 21.
June 21, 2003: OotP released.
********
June 28, 2004: JKR.com's "Room of Requirement" announces title of HBP.
August 16, 2004: JKR.com gives "Old Lion" excerpt (which turns out to be a description of Scrimgeour).
October 31, 2004: JKR.com gives three chapter titles: "Spinner's End," "Draco's Detour," and "Felix Felicis."
December 20, 2004: JKR announces submission of HBP to publishers, followed shortly by publishers' announcement of book release the following July 16.
July 16, 2005: HBP released.
********
So by this time four (!?) years ago, OotP was more or less readable, and just needed some tweaking. By this time two years ago, JKR had long since given us the title, and had added an excerpt from what turned out to be chapter one (and, as it turned out, was three months shy of submitting the manuscript). And now she says she's "not close to finishing."
I stress that I am not complaining. I'd rather have a realistically-optimal Book 7 in 2008 than a rush job in 2007, of course! But this re-setting of my expectations seems significant enough to be worth discussing publicly. (And I recognize that it's not impossible that JKR could still finish the manuscript by December or January, allowing a midsummer release next year. But that has come to seem unlikely.)
One question that naturally arises is: Suppose JKR finishes the manuscript in, say, May of 2007. What then? Would the publishers violate the usual midsummer-release pattern and give us a pre-Christmas Book 7? I tend to think they probably would; they'd probably make themselves a target for a good deal of public complaining otherwise; and, besides, the time value of money means that businesses generally prefer to get our dollars sooner rather than later. I can't see that the incremental sales advantage of a midsummer release would outweigh the disadvantages of holding on to it for much longer than they need to. (Indeed, I was surprised that the editing-and-publishing process took as long as 7 months for HBP.)
Or-- looking at the question from another angle-- what if JKR finishes in, say, March? In that case I could see a release in July or August; the publishers did a pretty quick job of it for GoF, as I recall (although at the cost of having to correct the wand-order mixup after the release, and then having to deal with some public complaints from fans whose sense of reasonableness in their theories wasn't perhaps quite what it might have been).
If they can't do August (i.e. when most Northern-hemisphere schools are on summer holidays), then I could see them holding it until maybe November or so, to get in on a pre-Christmas rush. (No, Halloween 2007 isn't on a weekend. I checked.) The value of catching customers in a holiday-purchase mode would probably justify holding onto the "inventory" for an extra couple of months.
So perhaps the real question is: Will JKR finish in time for a release by the end of next summer? This would probably require a completed manuscript by the end of April or so. That still seems realistic to hope for; after all, she wrote pretty much the whole of HBP in calendar year 2004 (recall that JKR spent most of 2003 full-time mothering her then-infant son David, as she did with Mackenzie in 2005).
And so I'm still giving us about a 50-50 shot of having the book in our hands next summer-- but probably more like August than the usual June or July release dates. This would be followed by maybe a 30% chance of pre-Christmas 2007, with the remaining probability assigned to "spring or summer 2008" (I'm not sure how a Spring release would work; if she finishes the manuscript in September 2007 or so, a Christmas release would be too soon, but the following June would be an awfully long time for the publishers to let that extra cash sit in our pockets).
We'll see what JKR has in store for us. (A title announcement would be nice, though! ...Surely it's got to be better than my suggestion of "Harry Potter and the Great Horcrux Hunt," or "GHH" for short.) :-)