‘Clockwork Princess’ and ‘City of Heavenly Fire’ on a ‘crash schedule’

On July 4, Cassandra Clare turned in the first complete draft of Clockwork Princess to her editor. But that was only the first step in a long (but not as long as you’d think) process in completing Clockwork Princess.

Clare wrote a detailed post describing the process a book takes from draft to revision to final edition and in so revealed that both Clockwork Princess (The Infernal Devices #3) and City of Heavenly Fire (The Mortal Instruments #6) are on a “crash schedule.”

Basically it means that both books could be coming out much later then their already set release dates, which means no ARCs or advance copies. 

Clockwork Princess will be released on March 19, 2013, and City of Heavenly Fire is set for a March 2014 release.

Here is an outline of the timeline for Clockwork Princess:

• July 5, 2012: First draft of Clockwork Princess is submitted to editor (who takes about a month to edit the book)
• Early-August 2012: Clare receives the Clockwork Princess edits (and spends about six weeks revising)
• Mid-September 2012: Clare sends the revised book off to the copyeditor (who takes 3-4 weeks to correct typos before sending it back to Clare)
• October 2012: Clare receives the edits and must approve them
• Early-November 2012: Clockwork Princess will be keyboarded (which means somebody has to type the entire book with both the copyeditor’s and Clare’s changes [written in pencil].) Then someone lays out the book (with the chapter titles and designs at the top and bottom of the pages)
• Mid-November 2012: Clare receives the 1P (first-pass proof pages), which are laid out as the book will look. Clare and her editor have one last chance to make any small changes. Then Clare and her editor give those pages to a proofreader, who “reads both the copyedited and the proofed pages side by side to make sure all the changes are made.”
• Mid-December 2012: The book is complete and shipped off to the printer (but won’t print until January due to the holiday)
• January 2013: The printer has eight weeks to print 500,000 copies of Clockwork Princess and ship them from  ship them from Asia to Canada and the United States.
• March 19, 2013: Clockwork Princess is released

Read the full (more detailed) post by Cassie.

Clockwork Princess was originally supposed to be released in September 2013.

Clare said that the schedule for City of Heavenly Fire will be similar, as it was also earlier slated to be released in September 2014.