Steady Beat Delayed, Not Cancelled
- Posted by Johanna on February 7, 2008 at 7:18 pm
- Category: Graphic Novel News, Manga News
I was dismayed when I noticed in the latest Previews that Steady Beat Book 3 was listed as “cancelled by publisher”, because I have very much enjoyed the previous volumes. Then I saw that the author was having discussions with her publisher over whether the series should end with book 3 (Tokyopop’s choice) or 4 (her preference). Uh oh. (That thread also has some interesting lessons about art as a profession and speculation about the publisher’s decision-making.) So I emailed Tokyopop, who reassured me that the book was just running late, with no reschedule date yet. Whew! I’m glad there’s still hope, assuming all the decisions can get hammered out.
February 7, 2008 at 11:43 pm
Good to get an update on this series, since I knew it seemed a long time since the previous volume.
February 11, 2008 at 7:18 pm
FWIW, this sounds pretty similar to my own Tokyopop experience. Divalicious, a three-volume series, suddenly became two volumes, and Amy and I were asked to compress our ideas for the third volume down to two extra 23-page chapters, added to the end of the already completed second volume.
Nobody loves to be asked something like that, but our editor, Bryce Coleman, handled the matter with a lot of tact and diplomacy, allowing us to tweak the completed work and showing a lot of concern about its story needs. I think we managed a satisfying ending despite the space limitations– but we were lucky that I’d had somewhat open-ended plans for Volume 3. Other writers might have a harder time packing things down.
(And we lost the chance to riff Jem and the Holograms. Amy was sad about that.)
March 3, 2008 at 6:56 am
[…] T Campbell went on to say that they were told that they weren’t getting a third volume only after they […]