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05 February 2007

A Question about Harry Potter

Author Gail Gauthier recently pointed something out on her blog which gave me pause for thought.

-In this news article, JK says that she finished writing HP7 on Jan 11, 2007.

-On her website, she mentioned in December 2006 that she was writing scenes which had been planned for twelve years.

-The publication date of HP 7 is 21 July 2007.

It can be deduced, then, that JK was writing original material last December, implying that the draft she finished two weeks ago was the first draft.

Leaving five-and-a-bit months to edit, redraft, re-edit, redraft again, pageset, copyedit and proofread an 800-plus page novel.

Now, I know I am a new author, and my books probably need more polishing than average. But I am currently working on draft THREE of my novel, which won't be published until August!

Hmm. Answers a few questions I had about the quality of the last two HP books.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, what can you say about the editing job of Order of the Phoenix? Dismal, at best.

audrey said...

Agreed. The editing of OOTP was utterly awful.

I did enjoy HBP though, but that was probably because the idea of horcruxes appealed to by buffy geekness.

Penni Russon said...

Drift is out in April and is already at the printer. One would assume, considering how big the job is that it would have to be at the printer at least a month before.

audrey said...

I've also read her say that she wanted to get it out for the 7th of July, but she needed the extra two weeks to ensure the editing process was perfect.

Explain to me authors - does two weeks make a difference if you're working against marketing gold?