October Projects Update

October Projects Update

Hello again, Grim Oak Community!

It has been a few months since we last updated you on our ongoing projects here at Grim Oak Press... and so much has happened since!  As many of you know, Shawn and I took on our first major trade publication as a small press.  I want to thank all of you for helping Street Freaks be a major success.  It is hard to convey just how important the support from the community is when you take on something that the big New York City publishers have a huge staff to handle.  And despite all of the folks that said we couldn't do it - WE DID!  Street Freaks was officially published on October 2nd and we couldn't be more proud.  It is a great book written by an unbelievable author, has been getting great reviews, and most importantly been supported by his wonderful fans!  Thank you so much!

So how are all the other projects going, you ask?  That is what I am here to answer.  Remember to visit our Project Statuses page for more detailed information.

  • Sometimes the Magic Works
    • We needed to hold onto this project a bit longer with the publication of The Skaar Invasion and Street Freaks but the files are now at the printer and it is queued!
    • Estimated print date from our printer is mid-November which means (barring some major error by the printer) you WILL be getting this book in December after it arrives in the warehouse and is inspected. 
  • Unbound Signed & Numbered
    • All signatures have been collected and we completed layout/design, sent all digital files to the printer, and it is queued as well!
    • Estimated print date is also mid-November so the same story holds true. These should be arriving at your mailbox in December. If you have moved in the years since this project went live, do contact us with a new mailing address please.
  • The Wishsong of Shannara
    • Marc Simonetti has been delivering the interiors each week and they are AMAZING!  He has been able to capture many of your favorite scenes in incredible detail and Shawn and I could not be more impressed.  
    • Marc has also completed the signature pages and Terry Brooks now has them. He promised to finish this month which will allow us to get this laid out, edited, and to the printer.
    • Estimated print date would then be mid-December, meaning there is a good chance you will be getting this book before Christmas!
  • Street Freaks
    • Uprooted
      • Award winning artist Donato Giancola has completed all artwork, including an interior for each chapter, a special signature page, and the wrap around cover.  Absolutely astonishing work!
      • We are complete with the interior design and are making some small changes to the dust jacket.  That means we are only weeks away from hitting the print queue and we should be right in that end of year time frame to get this to your mailbox.  
      • We are going to spend a little extra money on this book - adding some special edition touches that you haven't seen in other Grim Oak Press books quite yet.  If you haven't bought one... well don't say I didn't tell you so when they are sold out! Ha!
    • Faerie Tale
      • Artist Don Maitz has completed brand new interiors for this dark fantasy. 
      • Signature pages are with the author and artist now.
      • We have hit one of those major snags with this book; the files from the publisher are so old that any conversion to modern InDesign files for layout and publication are requiring thousands of edits.  We are literally reading through this line by line correcting spacing errors.
      • If anyone is interested in doing a read through and catching some of these errors, please let us know!
      • With that, I am sad to say this probably pushes us into early 2019 for publication.
    • Magician
      • Artist Don Maitz has now turned his attention to the interior artwork for Magician!
      • He is creating some cool signature pages for us too! When he is done with the interior illustrations, we should have a better idea of when this can go to the printer. The same will be true of the InDesign files for this as Faerie Tale, so if you want to be an early beta reader, let us know!
    • Dragonsbane
      • Things are mostly in the same place with this book as the last update.
      • Isaac Stewart is currently working on a graphical map, Michael Whelan found us some potential interior artwork, and Brandon Sanderson has not yet finished his introduction.
      • This book will publish and ship in 2019.
    • Lord Foul's Bane
      • Yes, we heard you! This book finally went on presale last month and became our fastest seller to date.  
      • Contractually we can print anywhere from 500-750 copies so we are looking at adjusting the print run based on sales.
      • We have been getting some cover sketches from our artist Allen Morris and should be revealing the chosen one shortly!
    • Unfettered II & III
      • We are inching closer and closer to having all signatures on Unfettered II complete. Once we finally cross the finish line we will be able to go to the printer and get this beautiful limited edition out the door.  Thank you so much for your patience over the year(s).  2019 this will be done!
      • We obviously have learned a few lessons when you need to collect 20+ author signatures for a single title... so with Unfettered III having even more stories and authors we will break up the signature pages into two, allowing us to send to multiple authors at once to sign.  We will also do this as soon as we get the finalized list of contributors. That should greatly reduce the time to complete this anthology.

    Shawn and I have been thinking about how we announce new projects, and in particular, when to do it.  Our goal is to shrink the time from announcing to publishing down to 4 months. This still allows everyone to guarantee their numbers and letters - but cuts down on the address changes and disappointment when things stretch waaaay out.

    Here are some those titles you will see us doing soon:

    • Daughter of the Empire by Janny Wurts & Raymond E. Feist (Janny Wurts art)
    • The Red Queen's War by Mark Lawrence (Jason Chan art)
    • Elegy for Darkness by Jacqueline Carey (Donato art)
    • Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey (Todd Lockwood art)
    • The First King of Shannara by Terry Brooks (Marc Simonetti art)
    • ...and many other HUGE surprises I won't tell you about yet!

    Now, if you have a series or book that matches our style that you would like to see us put the #grimoaktreatment on it, please put it in the comments on our blog page!

    That concludes our wrap-up on projects for October.  Feel free to reach out directly to Shawn or I any time if you have questions or concerns. This will be a busy fall and winter for the Grim Oak Press warehouse for sure!

    Thanks again for all of your support and allowing us to do what we love!

    Sincerely,

    The Grim Oak Team, Shawn & Jeff

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