On the Pace of Publishing
"Cheap, fast, good: pick two."
I just saw a comment on Bransford's blog about the glacial pace of publishing. Definitely, that's a frustration for the authors who are caught in it. The reality is that there are only so many books a limited staff can work on at once, so publishers use a schedule to keep things moving at a reasonably steady pace.
But the other portion of reality is that if you throw all of your resources at ONE book, you can crank it out pretty quickly.
Case in point: GRRM hasn't actually turned in the final ms for the book coming out on July 12th. (But he himself confirms the date, so I'll take him at his word that the ms is just about ready.) Assuming he turns it in this week, we're talking a four month schedule from author to bookstore. That's stunningly fast.
But hey, Bantam knows that the book will sell a kajillion copies in the first week it's available, so it's worth it to them to pay the cost of getting the book through the production process in a hurry and get the book out and earning its keep. (Piggybacking on the HBO series's promotion is probably also a factor.)
Specifically what this will entail, I can't say. I can guess, though, based on my own 17 years of doing that job. Everyone--the c/e, the typesetter, the proofreader, the printer--will be asked to do their job lightning fast, and for this they will get paid a premium.
The print run on this will be big, so the printer probably already has been scheduled very precisely, as in "the files will upload on May 24th" precision. (That is not an unrealistic date, by the way. You can rush everything except the printing, packing, and shipping. Machines will not work twice as fast no matter how much you pay them.)
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The primary determining factor in when a book is published is how important it is, coupled to any special outside factors that may affect sales (this is why there are a lot of fancy, expensive, books are published in October, when they have a couple of months to be bought as Christmas presents).
Sometimes importance means time: a new author's big launch will not be rushed, because they can only get one shot at doing it right. And sometimes it means getting the book out to shake its money-maker ASAP.