Yep

Silicon Valley has forgotten what normal people want Did the tech industry get high on its own supply?

"The people who tell us that AI will dominate our future and take our jobs are the people who are hoping that will be true. They may be hoping this because it makes them feel important, or because they want to be billionaires, or because they simply do not understand other people."

And also very stressful for authors tbf, as all the books are coming out in the same few weeks so it's sink or swim!

But the upside is that if you are a writer, you and all your writer friends are on the same schedule and for 2 months everyone in Iceland is talking about books.

... near the numbers for a book that comes out in November. And you basically can forget selling a hardcover unless it's Christmastime. So a HUGE part of the yearly sales for a publisher is probably between December 22st-23rd, so it's a stressful time!

Yep, that's basically what it's like. Publishers have been trying pretty hard to make the "book season" longer, and publishing titles at other times of the year, but there is such a strong tradition here of the book as Christmas present, and sales for a book that comes out in May is nowhere ...

Haha!

Thank you!! :)

🥰

peter griffin from family guy is standing on a stage in front of a large red ted talk sign . ALT: peter griffin from family guy is standing on a stage in front of a large red ted talk sign .

THE END

And we probably won't start talking about them until probably in November or December, when my editor gets a breather from the Christmas Book Flood, but that gives us pleeeenty of time to publish it in February, or whenever it'll come out.

Down Where Monsters Dwell From Hildur Knútsdóttir comes Down Where Monsters Dwell, a dark, twisted fairytale steeped in Icelandic folklore about the powerful bond between mothers an...

But back to this book.

It was written in Icelandic, and then translated to English, but because of how different the publishing schedules between the US and Iceland are, it doesn't have an Icelandic title, or a publishing date, but it has a publishing date in the US and a title in English.

... until the book is out.

And blurbs aren't really a thing here, either, for some reason.

AND THEN Icelandic publishers treat books like a secret until they are out and available in stores. That means that they will do absolutely no marketing until the book is out, because Icelandic readers will just get angry to read about a book that they can't go out and buy, so they just wait ...

And if you are an author and you have your manuscript ready in January, other writers will think you are weird, and you will probably not have a cover or a publishing date or anything until July or August anyway.

... or The Christmas Book Flood (look it up) so almost all the books come out at the same time in the months leading up to Christmas. And almost all of them are finished in the summer months, and that includes covers and copy edits and everything.

And why wouldn't she have read it yet, you ask?

That's because we are now working on my novel that's coming out THIS fall. It doesn't have a publishing date, it doesn't have a cover, it doesn't even have a TITLE yet. And that is 100% normal here. We have this crazy thing called Jólabókaflóðið ...

Now, my Icelandic editor has read it too, and it's coming out in Icelandic sometime in the beginning of 2027.

But the only reason my Icelandic editor has read it already is because I find it very very useful to also have her opinions in the mix as I'm rewriting it after my US editors feedback.

... and the first cover sketches will probably be arriving in my inbox soon. I'm doing the last revisions now, and then it will go to copyedits, almost a full year before it comes out. AND they will probably start sending it out for blurbs and stuff soon.

And it's SO DIFFERENT!

Let me take this particular book, Down Where Monsters Dwell, which will be my third book out in English, as an example.

I wrote it in Icelandic, translated it to English, and it's coming out in March 2027. It already has a title, it's ONLINE so you can PREORDER it ...

OK so one of the things I find so fascinating with being published in the US is getting a peak behind the curtain and seeing how publishing works there.

Because I've been published in Iceland for 15 years, I've published over 20 books and I feel I know almost everything about the industry here 🧵

Ham!

Uggi the dog squinting at me

The Bedlington squint is also something to behold

But jokes on him because it’s not open yet

And of course he got what he wanted and of course it was to go here:

Uggi the dog standing in a window looking down at me and the camera intently

These are the conditions to which I am subjected while I sit and try to finish my morning coffee.

(Yes he wants a walk and yes he has the most intent stare of anyone I have ever met.)

Would immediately buy the mid-century novel that began with this sentence.

Six women win 2026 Goldman prize, world’s top environmental award

Six women win 2026 Goldman prize, world’s top environmental award https://aje.news/d1zgl2

Almost everything we argue about is a substitute for the thing we should be arguing about: the immense wealth & power of an oligarchic class, which captures governments, ruins lives and wrecks the living planet.
This class redirects our rage at scapegoats. To resist its lies is to resist its power.

A white moomin cup with a blue drawing of flowers and moomin trolls

Whenever you go to Finnland you have to come home with a new Moomin cup. Sorry I don’t make the rules.

Dead Weight Amazon.com: Dead Weight: 9781250329295: Knútsdóttir, Hildur, Kowal, Mary Robinette: Books

Reading @hildur.bsky.social's Dead Weight, translated by @maryrobinettekowal.com. God dang, this is so much fun. You can tell things are inching towards doom, but not how.

Exactly the book I needed tonight. It drops next month!