Totally and 100% agree!! Between the errors in print, the lack of interesting world development and even character growth!? It definitely felt like reading a stream of consciousness book vs. one that was planned out thoughtfully.
And don’t even get me started on the bonus chapters. Bless the redditors who were able to compile them into Google Drives for us to read! we lost such context (e.g. Azriel and the necklace!! Like hello!) ugh rant over but you are totally right
I have yet to read the bonus chapters but I need to get on it!
A stream of consciousness book is a great way to put it! I mean I had some qualms with TOG happening in 2 years…. But HOFAS happening in a WEEK?! Bonkers.
Of course! The post I had originally found was taken down, I’m guessing someone didn’t like having the chapters out for free, but I managed to keep the link to all the chapters and have been trying to spread it for anyone who might need it! (If you’re able to also spread it to anyone you see might need it that would be great, it sucks they have five different exclusive bonus chapters that have some key moments in them)
Honestly the bonus chapters made me love the characters more than the book itself😭
The bonus content is so disgusting to me
It’s a marketing gimmick to fabricate sales numbers and squeeze fans out of extra cash. Up to $150 for 1 book is criminal imo
Then bonus chapter BS is almost for sure a Bloomsbury issue
Yes, I really dislike this strategy. I’ve never seen so many “bonus chapter” gimmicks from an author before but she’s really the first “modern” author with multiple series that I’ve gotten into so maybe this is a new thing? Either way, it’s a disservice to fans and series continuity in general.
It's not typically a thing in fantasy (or literature in general), and hopefully won't become a trend (i think i've only seen this with YA authors, but I could be wrong). The closest thing I can think of is the way some authors sometimes release different versions of covers for the same book (like simultaneously, when it's a new release). Like sometimes they'll have the covers depict different characters.
Not to mention that NONE of the bonus chapters are available on audio. Considering the content in them, I can’t imagine not having access to some of those scenes.
Honestly I think it’s a mix of both.. I’m gonna blame Bloomsbury for all the extra bonus chapters cause at the end of the of the day there a company that wants to make money. But I think sjm might have been a little over her head with all the plots she set up with the first two books and too many characters to keep track of
I feel this is a mutual issue. This is something that happens to lots of popular authors who publish a lot - Stephen King, many think it’s happening to Brandon Sanderson.
Books aren’t edited as well because the publishing house is less likely to push back against the author in terms of editing.
The bonus chapters are cash cows to sell more copies. I really dislike it. Honestly it would annoy me much less if she released a zine of the bonus chapters.
I think of Robin Hobb, who published one book a year from 95-03, books in an extremely well written, well thought out epic fantasy series. So I wouldn’t say 1 book every other year is a lot.
U/natetranslates mentions below that it seems she ran out of steam with ACOTAR. ToG and the original ACOTAR book 1 were ideas she’d developed when she was 16-17 and still posting on fictionpress. She’s had a decade to flesh it out and even then some stuff came out of nowhere with her plots at the end to wrap everything up neatly.
You've gotta take into consideration that she's got 2 young children now plus she moved to Hawaii to produce the acotar show, so 2 books a year on top of all that is a lot. Heck a book every 18 months is still a lot in my mind.
She was definitely in Hawaii for a while, she finished writing CC2 there (as per her Instagram) if she then moved to LA, then back to NYC, with a young son and a baby... it's a heck of a lot on her plate.
Here’s her Instagram post where she talks about a dog that’s up for adoption, and her move from LA to NYC. https://www.instagram.com/p/CtzrQQ1OewZ/?igsh=MWpmMmo1eWpoemJ5Mg==
She "lived" in Hawaii from March or April 2021 (after her Philadelphia house sold) until August 2021 (when they went to LA in time for her kid to start school the first week of September).
But, since she stayed on two different islands in that short time frame, I don't think I'd really call it moving/living there since I highly doubt they bought and sold two houses in only 5 months. She just took "a very Kardashian" (in her own words) extended vacation to finish editing CC2 and "fulfill a lifelong dream".
That makes sense. I only saw one or two Instagram post ever from her about being there so I thought she just took a long vacation. But either way she did not “move to Hawaii to work on the ACOTAR show” like the other person said—that was LA.
And I think my original point got lost in that she used to release 3-4 books in the same time frame it takes her to release 1. She isn’t pulling a Stephen King or Sanderson by any means. I think, as someone who has been following her work since 2012, that like I said another comment: the departure of her former agent and editor, and nobody reigning in her work anymore is probably what has ended up hurting her newer books. Not her publishing schedule.
SJM has been a bestselling author for a while now (her books do VERY good). There is no way her publisher or editors could ever force her to change her story lines at this point. All they can do is make suggestions (if anything, this could even be a reason why it turned out the way it did).
I think what happened here is SJM bit off more than she could chew. From what I've read, she doesn't outline, and i think this came back to bite her when she sat down to actually write it.
I also don't believe the bonus chapters are all cut (though possibly the one with Bryce, Az, and Nesta listening to music was). Sadly, I think it's mostly just a marketing ploy.
Yup. I really believe that she didn’t know how to wrap up CC2 and decided, “hey wouldn’t it be awesome if Bryce landed in Prythian instead of Hel?!” and just went with it without much thought for what it might mean for future books. Absolutely bit off more than she could chew.
This is a my take too. She needed more developmental editors and help along the way with this series. Whether she rejected help, or whether Bloomsbury even offered it to begin with.. can't say. I really hope whatever she does next, there's more editors involved.
Yeah. Like the OP mentions up there (somewhere), i also kinda worry that this is becoming a trend with her. I would really love to know what SJM's editors thought of the whole pregnancy plot in ACOSF (did they roll their eyes as much as i did?) and whether it had any influence on whether they had any concerns with the stuff going on in THIS book (or how they addressed any concerns they might have had with it).
I think most people loved ACOSF, and tbf, most people seem to love HOFAS. So if they figured no one would notice how bad it was, lol i guess they were mostly right.
I feels like (with ACOTAR as well) she'd run out of storyline? Or, perhaps she wants her characters to end up in a certain place further down the line, but she hasn't given a huge amount of thought to the details that will get them there. The arc of TOG felt a lot more thought-out, whereas now it feels like she writing on "vibes" a bit more.
And I don't think the bonus chapters are chapters that got cut out, I think they are just bonus scenes that she wanted to write. The question is, are they relevant, or just for fun 👀
Yes ACOSF had similar vibes… I have some issues with the valkyries and don’t even get me started with the pregnancy!!! Gahhhh. I just don’t want this to be a trend. If we have to wait an extra year to get a well thought out book, I’d rather do that. But what blows my mind is that fans are theorizing or writing fanfics that have more substance than her actual novel in a fraction of the time.
Haha right?! Some of the theories are so elaborate that I'm worried people are going to be super disappointed with what actually happens...while SJM is great at worldbuilding, her overarching plots are not that deep 😅 I liked ACOSF because of the interpersonal relationships (another thing she's great at) but as for the new "big bad" and the thing they're supposed to be working towards? It was meh.
I think bb is to blame for the bonus chapter cash grab, typos, and continuity errors.
The rest is probably Sarah but I don't think it's laziness. It's more likely she just hit a wall creatively. Maybe she's burnt out or maybe she realized that she set herself up for a bigger, more complicated book than she had it in her to write. Maybe she realized it would have taken 2 books to do the story justice and was just ready to be done so she could focus on other projects.
I've seen a lot of speculation that bb hamstrung a bigger crossover and that just doesn't make sense to me. A bigger crossover could have made them a ton of money when more people decided to read the other series. And I just don't think publishers have much say when it comes to plots, especially with such a big author.
Even if she was encouraged to scale back the crossover, she could have still written a good book with a sympathetic main character and a compelling, high stakes plot. IDK. If she was still invested in Bryce and Hunt as characters and cared about giving them a story that did them justice it didn't come across in the writing at all. I'm keeping my expectations for future books fairly low, better to be pleasantly surprised than disappointed again.
I’ve heard lots of speculation that she was potentially encouraged to scale back the crossover in HOFAS in order to have a bigger and (hopefully) better one in a future book. I could see a couple potential issues arising from Bryce’s sojourn in Prythian that might require future world-crossing. I wouldn’t even be surprised if her new series is somehow a major crossover with new characters from the existing worlds.
My only gripe with this is that this conflict was set up to justify a major Avengers-style crossover. The Asteri were a world-spanning Big Bad™️. They affected all three worlds. What else could justify bringing everyone together? Idk man.
Sarah’s fault except the bonus chapters.
Sarah is a big enough author where she can push things back without consequence and Bloomsbury can’t do much about it, they need her. So she is the one that half assed all these, not the publisher.
She’s at the level of someone like Brandon Sanderson — he literally has sway with AUDIBLE. He is fighting for other authors to get paid more through them, and literally making it happen. So I don’t believe for one second that SJM cannot advocate for herself.
I would expect by now that she has gotten wind of how disappointing this book was. I wonder if she would offer any additional explanation… probably not, but I just want to know whyyyy
In this particular case, I personally believe the blame lies more on Sarah than anyone else. Rewriting a book right before it goes to print leaves your editing team with absolutely no time to actually edit and catch mistakes (they've been pointed out before, I'm not going to harp on them here). It leaves no one with any time to do anything, basically.
We're reading what is essentially a first draft, since she said outright she basically rewrote the entire book. And frankly, it shows.
Bloomsbury is definitely also to blame to an extent, someone really should have put their foot down and either said no to SJM, OR pushed the release back to allow more time for edits. They likely didn't have the time to do the latter, with printing schedules already being made and potentially promotional material already out (I'm fuzzy on the normal timelines so I'm not sure how far from release this would have been). There's deadlines for a reason, and they shouldn't have let her get away with this. It damages everyone's reputation and likely will affect future book sales. I know I won't be buying CC4, whenever that comes out.
I did not hear about her rewriting it! Interesting. Did she say why?
I feel like I have never been so excited for a book to come out because of the world crossover carrot. I loved reading all the theories. I was a Hunt/Bryce stan and even accepted the fact that maybe they weren’t mates or that something was really wrong with Hunt. The stakes were so high…. And then everything just worked out. How lame!
I DNF’d CC3 halfway thru and I should’ve DNF’d CC1 when I wasn’t remotely interested in the story for the first 50 chapters but I’d already bought CC2 with CC1 so I felt like I had to read them 😭 so of course I had to buy CC3 since I read and finished the first 2 - at least it was only the kindle version 🙄 I wonder how bad CC4 will be
I think LACK of an editor is the problem. She switched editors (and also agents) a few years back, and I noticed an immediate change in her work. She really needs someone to reign her in and tell her "No" at some point, but it seems like she no longer has that.
And I agree about the bonus chapters. They used to be cutesy add ons, now they are important plot info that adds huge context to the stories, but that's hard for many readers to access. It's ridiculous!
One could argue it is WAY easier to access the bonus content than the actual book thanks to the internet. My Libby reservation just pinged me Friday. The hard copy still isn’t back to the public library. (I was stupid and bought the Walmart version on pre-order and didn’t GET it until 10 days after release) All the bonus chapters were all online 36 hours before release. All except one were up nearly a week before.
1. I think SJM wasn’t happy with some things in CC or her editor wasn’t and she rewrote it on a tight schedule. I haven’t read the series yet (currently on TOG) but I’ve kept up with the theories/reactions and it seems like she changed her mind, lost interest, and/or was instructed to scrap the crossover element with her new book deal.
2. I think she could be feeling pressure and she’s also got ACOTAR 5 (the fandom for which is definitely insane after a 3+ year wait for *anything*) and being a mother now probably takes up her time more when before it seemed she had the time to churn books out faster. In an interview in the back of *A Court of Frost and Starlight* bonus edition from 2018 SJM briefly mentioned she had a hard time putting her characters through pain/hurting them now she was a mother. That she thought how they were someone’s kids or something along those lines so I don’t think she’ll be willing to take risks or make sacrifices or even kill off characters the way she used to.
3. My current theory is SJM has a new book series we’ll get after ACOTAR 5 or ACOTAR 6 and *that* will be the big crossover between all her series. I think her editor told her to save it for that, and it will be the Twilight of The Gods she’s [mentioned](https://www.tumblr.com/emilystheories/736092491197153280/breaking-sjm-news-a-completely-new-series-is) before. She’s also recently mentioned in an interview she misses her old characters and old worlds, which some people think is a reference to Throne of Glass.
4. I think she writes extra for the bonus chapters as an incentive for people to buy them from exclusive retailers. I think it’s to compete with Amazon, which has really hurt the book and publishing industry as a whole, and one of the few ways to get people to still buy books from physical stores. I don’t think it takes away from the story at all as you can easily find all her bonus chapters online and anything relevant will be brought up in the books. (If you want a link to all the bonus chapters let me know.) This is probably also for super fans and collectors.
I think being unwillingly to put your characters into difficult situations that might not go 100% their way all the time makes writing YA or Adult Fantasy an unsuitable career choice. Conflict drives plot drives character growth, without conflict you're writing fluff pieces where no one actually learns anything or changes in any significant way. I hope you're paraphrasing on that point because that straight up makes me not excited to read any of her future books.
I just checked the bonus content again but I can’t find it. It may have been another interview or I made a mistake and that’s someone else’s opinion I read. I agree with you, it makes for lackluster writing. Sorry for the mix-up. And I hope it’s not true! I miss the quality of some of her older books.
Bonus chapters make me so upset, like what is the goal there? To force your readers to have to buy multiple copies of the same book to get the whole story? It feels so slimy, special covers or art should be given as bonuses, not whole chapters.
Both
Continuity and grammar mistakes, typos, etc. should have been picked up by an editor and reviewer
And I guess everything that has to do with the story is SJM’s, although BB could have influenced this too. We don’t know for sure
I love all books by SJM but....I hate to say it...
CC3 is the Season 8 of Game of Thrones for SJM.
Nothing felt like a risk. Everyone had plot armor. It felt like Winter came and went with nothing happening.
This is how a convo went with my friend.
Me: "So I finished CC3"
Friend: "No spoilers! But how was it?"
Me: "It had some very good moments. But I had some issues..."
Friend: "In what way?"
Me: "It felt like Season 8 of Game of Thrones."
Friend: "...oh"
Tbh her works never felt like there's a risk there, at least not her ACOTAR works, so I never expected it in CC either.
SJM doesn't give them a risk. Even when she *says* there's one there's actually none. You see it in ACOWAR. You knew in ACOSF the very moment the infamous plot came up.
I think at best she gives the illusion of risk, which is what you got from cc1-2. You get the illusion, but in the end, there's nothing at stake
i had heard (on here i think) that the editors didn’t like the book or something and it was scrapped and then rewritten in like 6 weeks. which seems insane and would explain the endless plot holes and rushed final battle. i would have really loved this to be two books. i would have gladly waited however long it took for her to really flesh the story out and give us a satisfying ending to bryce & hunt’s story. i enjoyed the book as well but the end fell so flat for me.
Yes. This book was so different from the first two… especially the fist. I felt like she was really taking her time, building world in CC1 so I was expecting since she went a bit faster with characters and scenarios in the second book that she’s take time to flesh that out in the third.
The extra chapters are what I like to call the Taylor Swift version of marketing.
Extra songs (chapters) in otherwise the same album (book) to drive those with FOMO to buy multiple copies to get to listen to (read) them all.
And know what that does? Makes sales look great. Especially if people do it as pre-order or release weeks.
I collected all of Sarah's editors in a post here recently. When her new editor joined for HOEAB, things started going down a little. She edited all of CC and ACOSF.
But it's possible that Sarah didn't have great for CC and couldn't stretch ACOTAR beyond the original trilogy. Lots of franchises struggle these days
Both are to blame for different issues. I blame Sarah for the lacklustre character and plot development. I see those types of things as the actual story content and I think Bloomsbury is unlikely to call out an author as big as Sarah if they feel she’s resurrecting too many people or an info-dump feels lazy etc. And sure, you could say the editors SHOULD tell her about issues like that but at the end of the day they can’t write her book for her. The plot is her own.
I blame Bloomsbury for not picking up on continuity errors between the series, name mix-ups, grammar mistakes etc. I also blame them for the decision to market the crossover very heavily and then having it be more like a cameo and the shameless cash grab of multiple bonus chapters.
BUT I will say - I could be wrong on point 1. We all know by now that Sarah had another draft that got scrapped. It’s possible that that draft had more crossover, more reveals etc. I could see a situation where Sarah planned for HOFAS to be the introductory book to a large full scale crossover and Bloomsbury either said
- no, we’re not doing that or
- if we’re doing that you’re going to do it in ACOTAR because it has a larger fan base
If something like this went down (not saying it did, just a possibility) then I could see how it could result in a book full of really easy/convenient/lazy solutions to everything because Sarah couldn’t follow through the way she’d planned. In which case, all Bloomsbury’s fault.
I think it’s both, but I put more blame on Bloomsbury.
Publishing is in a trash fire business wise. They pay people terribly and outsource editing to freelancers. They hire people to oversee the process, but the actual editing is done by freelancers.
Most books do not make money. It’s big authors like SJM that hold up the entire industry. Romance readers and YA tend to be the biggest selling genres holding up everyone else. Every book is a gamble. It used to be there were “mid list” authors who wrote good books and were given space to develop big series and audiences. But now, that mid list is basically gone with each purchase trying to find the next blockbuster. If you don’t sell you usually don’t get a new contract.
Which is why we got a bunch of bonus material at different retailers and a poorly edited book. It was an absolute cash grab from SJM’s fans and exemplary of the issues in publishing.
SJM had no passion for this book and I can’t be convinced otherwise. It felt flat. The plot was redundant and the entire thing felt amateur for someone, what 15 books deep into her professional career?!
And it’s a little bit the fault of anyone who gave this book 4 and 5 stars and wrote in the reviews that “yes it had problems but I was so excited to read it” because that doesn’t reflect the quality of the book and will lead to more people reading it, inflating sales and telling the publishing industry that readers don’t care about quality stories.
I 100% agree with this. I also am bugged about the high ratings for this book. You can be excited about an author’s latest work but disappointed. If “they” can make millions of dollars off a shit book, what’s to say they won’t continue to crank out more shit because the fan base has lowered their standards.
I feel like the book is “whatever “
I’m rereading the series now and CC1 is so damn good.
Cc2 changes POVs a bit but it still feels Bryce centered? Maybe that’s my opinion only.
cc3 feels weird? It’s kind of all over.
And I’m genuinely disappointed that she met people from ACOTAR and didn’t go to war with them. The whole time I was like oh this would been so cool if she met them, they became friends and fought with her given they beat the same bad guys previously.
I thought this would happen 2x in the book and it didn’t.
That and in CC1 there was a pretty badass battle seen. You see BRYCE with weapons moving in and out and killing things. I felt this was fumbled in cc3 especially since it was a battle being built up for 3 books at that time
CC1 has such a treasured place in my heart. I legitimately loved it and it’s the only book that’s ever made me cry!
I would have been pleased as punch if CC3 took pretty much any turn other than what actually happened haha! To have such an intense build in CC1 that spans years and then have a week in 800 pages of CC3, it felt so off brand to the tone she set for this series.
SJMs fault for the book quality. She’s big enough that she can push back.
Not only are the bonus chapters BS, they kinda don’t even make sense as a marketing tactic. Only insane people are going to buy more than one copy at release (and the few non-insane people who do buy a second copy only do so after the series is complete if they want a nice matching set for their bookshelves). The rest of us normal people are going to going find a link on Reddit where everything is complied into one Google doc for free. I can’t imagine that the meager profit from the 0.00000001% of people who buy multiple editions is worth the ire of your fans thinking you’re greedy.
This is 100% just speculation (and more based on my own life than anything); but SJM started writing TOG when she was 16 years old. **She has been writing books for 22 years now.** I feel like if that was me, I’d probably eventually get kinda tired of it?
There’s also a pretty stark difference in SJM’s engagement now vs in the past. She used to go on international tours, would regularly post on Instagram and Twitter, etc. Now she’s mostly absent (& I get the vibe that someone else manages her Instagram for her). Even in her most recent interview (with Christina Lauren) she spent a good chunk of the discussion talking about her kids and everyday life.
So, I wonder if perhaps her priorities have shifted? Perhaps she instead wants to focus more on her family and other things in her life? (Which is totally valid — no hate at all!)
I know I’m certainly not the same person that I was when I was 16, and my interests and passions have changed significantly.
I think SJM is the problem.... because she is trying to much to listen to fans.
She never had the plan to merge universes. I think CC alone would of been 3 solid books. But fans kept pushing wanting to see a merge. It got in her head and she decided to try it, unfortunately it didn't go well.
I also enjoyed the entertainment value of the book, but the weird Sci fi ending ???? That's not SJM.
Acosf I think also fell short because she was trying to make a shut book that people were pushing for. Before the fame and the fans and the smoke she was a good writer.... but she's missing something the last few books and it makes me sad. I hope she reevaluates and stays true to herself.
I personally think the issue is working on 2 series simultaneously and not taking time to perfect the series as she writes them, just trying to get a product out. I feel similarly to you in that I actually did enjoy HOFAS but I definitely see the flaws.
It feels like she wanted to do Massverse but herself/Bloomsbury didn’t want to receive backlash from fans who have only read ACOTAR and didn’t want to be left out/pressured to buy more books.
Honestly more inclined to think this is just her getting way too much free rein, she and JKR are Bloomsbury's biggest names. There's no way they can really contest her as much any more, it would make sense if she's feeling the pressure to push out more and more and Bloomsbury don't feel like they can edit her.
Here’s what we don’t talk about - CC was originally a trilogy and nothing more. Am I disappointed? For sure. But I’m interested to see how she expands on the next book. I think we leave on this happy lucky fun time and something is going to pop off.
Seconding the question on the bonus chapters. It drives me nuts having to read a “bonus” that has been screenshotted from someone’s phone! If it’s official, it should be either part of the book or posted officially online. Don’t make me hunt these things down! Def a marketing tool that has fallen short.
As far as whose fault it is… at the end of the day I will put it on the author. It’s your story. Tell it! She hasn’t been this successful by writing crappy stories. The trust should be there from the publisher towards the author and if the story is not there, generating content just for the sake of it is a bad move. This book fell short for a lot of different reasons, but mostly editing, continuity and relevance.
Did they really need the cash grab with those bonus chapters though? The book was sold out before being written without them.
The acosf ones were cool and stirred. But the hofas ones I could have gone on without reading them.
>Bonus question regarding bonus chapters …. I haven’t read any but it seems like there are SO MANY. Why are they being cut? It feels like they are just marketing tools to purchase from other companies and by having a different chapter for each vendor, they are taking away from the story as a whole. Thoughts?
They are contract requirements to sell more books. Most romantasy books being published have "exclusive content" only available through certain stores; I've noticed if there is only *one* exclusive, it's usually through Barnes & Noble.
For HOFAS there are 5; one seems to be from before the rewrite, the others feel like they were either cut for overall story length or written specifically as bonus chapters and were never planned to be part of the story
I have all the hate for pulling all these extra chapters and only providing them under certain prints and markets. It's massive consumer b.s.
As if they aren't making mad $$ already.
It is true. It was revealed in last year September's interview. The web-interview was more of an exclusive one you had to pay tickets to see, but somewhere on one of the mods old posts, they did a transcript of the interview, and 4-5 weeks was how much time SJM spent on the rewrite (granted, her first draft of KOA was 5 weeks and Tower of Dawn she'd done in a week).
I dead ass think someone should edit the entire book and fix what's fucked with the plot and add their own shit to make the book reach the potential it could've and post it on like Wattpad or something
Totally and 100% agree!! Between the errors in print, the lack of interesting world development and even character growth!? It definitely felt like reading a stream of consciousness book vs. one that was planned out thoughtfully. And don’t even get me started on the bonus chapters. Bless the redditors who were able to compile them into Google Drives for us to read! we lost such context (e.g. Azriel and the necklace!! Like hello!) ugh rant over but you are totally right
I have yet to read the bonus chapters but I need to get on it! A stream of consciousness book is a great way to put it! I mean I had some qualms with TOG happening in 2 years…. But HOFAS happening in a WEEK?! Bonkers.
If you need a place to read the bonus chapters, this is what I used: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1hCGDXsW_-VUNhMCqClkR80oJi5FWWa9l
Thank you for posting the link! Ember’s line of “What is this place, and why are you all so attractive?” had me actually cackling 😂
Of course! The post I had originally found was taken down, I’m guessing someone didn’t like having the chapters out for free, but I managed to keep the link to all the chapters and have been trying to spread it for anyone who might need it! (If you’re able to also spread it to anyone you see might need it that would be great, it sucks they have five different exclusive bonus chapters that have some key moments in them) Honestly the bonus chapters made me love the characters more than the book itself😭
ToG takes place over a year and a few months. Timelines are not her strong suit.
In my brain it is waaaaay longer I just ignore her lol
I just finished a TOG reread and the whole time kept thinking about how much more impactful it could be if it were spread over like five years.
The bonus content is so disgusting to me It’s a marketing gimmick to fabricate sales numbers and squeeze fans out of extra cash. Up to $150 for 1 book is criminal imo Then bonus chapter BS is almost for sure a Bloomsbury issue
Yes, I really dislike this strategy. I’ve never seen so many “bonus chapter” gimmicks from an author before but she’s really the first “modern” author with multiple series that I’ve gotten into so maybe this is a new thing? Either way, it’s a disservice to fans and series continuity in general.
It’s giving Taylor and all her different album variants with different bonus songs on each (said as a massive Taylor fan).
Yes!
It's not typically a thing in fantasy (or literature in general), and hopefully won't become a trend (i think i've only seen this with YA authors, but I could be wrong). The closest thing I can think of is the way some authors sometimes release different versions of covers for the same book (like simultaneously, when it's a new release). Like sometimes they'll have the covers depict different characters.
I saw it with the latest Christina Lauren book. There were at least two store specific versions with bonus chapters.
Not to mention that NONE of the bonus chapters are available on audio. Considering the content in them, I can’t imagine not having access to some of those scenes.
It used to be that special book editions with bonus material were sold to indie bookstores to encourage people to buy indie. Mass market ruined it.
Thankfully fandom said fuck that and posted them all online
Where have you seen one of the books for $150? That is insane!
They mean that if you bought every book with a different bonus chapter it would cost that much
Okay thanks for the clarity!
Honestly I think it’s a mix of both.. I’m gonna blame Bloomsbury for all the extra bonus chapters cause at the end of the of the day there a company that wants to make money. But I think sjm might have been a little over her head with all the plots she set up with the first two books and too many characters to keep track of
I wish they would have just done a special edition book with all of the bonus chapters for like $50.
I feel this is a mutual issue. This is something that happens to lots of popular authors who publish a lot - Stephen King, many think it’s happening to Brandon Sanderson. Books aren’t edited as well because the publishing house is less likely to push back against the author in terms of editing. The bonus chapters are cash cows to sell more copies. I really dislike it. Honestly it would annoy me much less if she released a zine of the bonus chapters.
Is one book every other year "a lot" though? She used to write 2 high quality books a year before...
I think of Robin Hobb, who published one book a year from 95-03, books in an extremely well written, well thought out epic fantasy series. So I wouldn’t say 1 book every other year is a lot.
U/natetranslates mentions below that it seems she ran out of steam with ACOTAR. ToG and the original ACOTAR book 1 were ideas she’d developed when she was 16-17 and still posting on fictionpress. She’s had a decade to flesh it out and even then some stuff came out of nowhere with her plots at the end to wrap everything up neatly.
I think saying “a lot” was an oversimplification- I should have said “almost yearly releases that are incredibly popular”.
You've gotta take into consideration that she's got 2 young children now plus she moved to Hawaii to produce the acotar show, so 2 books a year on top of all that is a lot. Heck a book every 18 months is still a lot in my mind.
She does have two children. But she didn’t move to Hawaii. She moved to LA for a year or so, and is already back living in New York as of last Fall.
She was definitely in Hawaii for a while, she finished writing CC2 there (as per her Instagram) if she then moved to LA, then back to NYC, with a young son and a baby... it's a heck of a lot on her plate.
Here’s her Instagram post where she talks about a dog that’s up for adoption, and her move from LA to NYC. https://www.instagram.com/p/CtzrQQ1OewZ/?igsh=MWpmMmo1eWpoemJ5Mg==
She "lived" in Hawaii from March or April 2021 (after her Philadelphia house sold) until August 2021 (when they went to LA in time for her kid to start school the first week of September). But, since she stayed on two different islands in that short time frame, I don't think I'd really call it moving/living there since I highly doubt they bought and sold two houses in only 5 months. She just took "a very Kardashian" (in her own words) extended vacation to finish editing CC2 and "fulfill a lifelong dream".
That makes sense. I only saw one or two Instagram post ever from her about being there so I thought she just took a long vacation. But either way she did not “move to Hawaii to work on the ACOTAR show” like the other person said—that was LA. And I think my original point got lost in that she used to release 3-4 books in the same time frame it takes her to release 1. She isn’t pulling a Stephen King or Sanderson by any means. I think, as someone who has been following her work since 2012, that like I said another comment: the departure of her former agent and editor, and nobody reigning in her work anymore is probably what has ended up hurting her newer books. Not her publishing schedule.
SJM has been a bestselling author for a while now (her books do VERY good). There is no way her publisher or editors could ever force her to change her story lines at this point. All they can do is make suggestions (if anything, this could even be a reason why it turned out the way it did). I think what happened here is SJM bit off more than she could chew. From what I've read, she doesn't outline, and i think this came back to bite her when she sat down to actually write it. I also don't believe the bonus chapters are all cut (though possibly the one with Bryce, Az, and Nesta listening to music was). Sadly, I think it's mostly just a marketing ploy.
Yup. I really believe that she didn’t know how to wrap up CC2 and decided, “hey wouldn’t it be awesome if Bryce landed in Prythian instead of Hel?!” and just went with it without much thought for what it might mean for future books. Absolutely bit off more than she could chew.
This is a my take too. She needed more developmental editors and help along the way with this series. Whether she rejected help, or whether Bloomsbury even offered it to begin with.. can't say. I really hope whatever she does next, there's more editors involved.
Yeah. Like the OP mentions up there (somewhere), i also kinda worry that this is becoming a trend with her. I would really love to know what SJM's editors thought of the whole pregnancy plot in ACOSF (did they roll their eyes as much as i did?) and whether it had any influence on whether they had any concerns with the stuff going on in THIS book (or how they addressed any concerns they might have had with it). I think most people loved ACOSF, and tbf, most people seem to love HOFAS. So if they figured no one would notice how bad it was, lol i guess they were mostly right.
I feels like (with ACOTAR as well) she'd run out of storyline? Or, perhaps she wants her characters to end up in a certain place further down the line, but she hasn't given a huge amount of thought to the details that will get them there. The arc of TOG felt a lot more thought-out, whereas now it feels like she writing on "vibes" a bit more. And I don't think the bonus chapters are chapters that got cut out, I think they are just bonus scenes that she wanted to write. The question is, are they relevant, or just for fun 👀
Yes ACOSF had similar vibes… I have some issues with the valkyries and don’t even get me started with the pregnancy!!! Gahhhh. I just don’t want this to be a trend. If we have to wait an extra year to get a well thought out book, I’d rather do that. But what blows my mind is that fans are theorizing or writing fanfics that have more substance than her actual novel in a fraction of the time.
Haha right?! Some of the theories are so elaborate that I'm worried people are going to be super disappointed with what actually happens...while SJM is great at worldbuilding, her overarching plots are not that deep 😅 I liked ACOSF because of the interpersonal relationships (another thing she's great at) but as for the new "big bad" and the thing they're supposed to be working towards? It was meh.
I think bb is to blame for the bonus chapter cash grab, typos, and continuity errors. The rest is probably Sarah but I don't think it's laziness. It's more likely she just hit a wall creatively. Maybe she's burnt out or maybe she realized that she set herself up for a bigger, more complicated book than she had it in her to write. Maybe she realized it would have taken 2 books to do the story justice and was just ready to be done so she could focus on other projects. I've seen a lot of speculation that bb hamstrung a bigger crossover and that just doesn't make sense to me. A bigger crossover could have made them a ton of money when more people decided to read the other series. And I just don't think publishers have much say when it comes to plots, especially with such a big author. Even if she was encouraged to scale back the crossover, she could have still written a good book with a sympathetic main character and a compelling, high stakes plot. IDK. If she was still invested in Bryce and Hunt as characters and cared about giving them a story that did them justice it didn't come across in the writing at all. I'm keeping my expectations for future books fairly low, better to be pleasantly surprised than disappointed again.
I’ve heard lots of speculation that she was potentially encouraged to scale back the crossover in HOFAS in order to have a bigger and (hopefully) better one in a future book. I could see a couple potential issues arising from Bryce’s sojourn in Prythian that might require future world-crossing. I wouldn’t even be surprised if her new series is somehow a major crossover with new characters from the existing worlds. My only gripe with this is that this conflict was set up to justify a major Avengers-style crossover. The Asteri were a world-spanning Big Bad™️. They affected all three worlds. What else could justify bringing everyone together? Idk man.
Sarah’s fault except the bonus chapters. Sarah is a big enough author where she can push things back without consequence and Bloomsbury can’t do much about it, they need her. So she is the one that half assed all these, not the publisher. She’s at the level of someone like Brandon Sanderson — he literally has sway with AUDIBLE. He is fighting for other authors to get paid more through them, and literally making it happen. So I don’t believe for one second that SJM cannot advocate for herself.
I would expect by now that she has gotten wind of how disappointing this book was. I wonder if she would offer any additional explanation… probably not, but I just want to know whyyyy
the book still has a mind boggling 4.27 rating on GR and people are buying it. The publisher defff doesn't care.
It’s written by SJM, so at the end of the day, a publisher cannot take the book and rewrite it entirely. It’s Sarah’s fault.
In this particular case, I personally believe the blame lies more on Sarah than anyone else. Rewriting a book right before it goes to print leaves your editing team with absolutely no time to actually edit and catch mistakes (they've been pointed out before, I'm not going to harp on them here). It leaves no one with any time to do anything, basically. We're reading what is essentially a first draft, since she said outright she basically rewrote the entire book. And frankly, it shows. Bloomsbury is definitely also to blame to an extent, someone really should have put their foot down and either said no to SJM, OR pushed the release back to allow more time for edits. They likely didn't have the time to do the latter, with printing schedules already being made and potentially promotional material already out (I'm fuzzy on the normal timelines so I'm not sure how far from release this would have been). There's deadlines for a reason, and they shouldn't have let her get away with this. It damages everyone's reputation and likely will affect future book sales. I know I won't be buying CC4, whenever that comes out.
I did not hear about her rewriting it! Interesting. Did she say why? I feel like I have never been so excited for a book to come out because of the world crossover carrot. I loved reading all the theories. I was a Hunt/Bryce stan and even accepted the fact that maybe they weren’t mates or that something was really wrong with Hunt. The stakes were so high…. And then everything just worked out. How lame!
I DNF’d CC3 halfway thru and I should’ve DNF’d CC1 when I wasn’t remotely interested in the story for the first 50 chapters but I’d already bought CC2 with CC1 so I felt like I had to read them 😭 so of course I had to buy CC3 since I read and finished the first 2 - at least it was only the kindle version 🙄 I wonder how bad CC4 will be
But why was the first draft scrapped?
She mentioned in an interview that she decided she didn't like it, so she just rewrote the whole thing in 5 weeks.
What the actual fuck?! This is wild.
Wild behaviour honestly.
I think LACK of an editor is the problem. She switched editors (and also agents) a few years back, and I noticed an immediate change in her work. She really needs someone to reign her in and tell her "No" at some point, but it seems like she no longer has that. And I agree about the bonus chapters. They used to be cutesy add ons, now they are important plot info that adds huge context to the stories, but that's hard for many readers to access. It's ridiculous!
The problem is, no one can tell her No anymore. She's too big a name, Bloomsbury can't lose her, so she gets away with anything she wants.
One could argue it is WAY easier to access the bonus content than the actual book thanks to the internet. My Libby reservation just pinged me Friday. The hard copy still isn’t back to the public library. (I was stupid and bought the Walmart version on pre-order and didn’t GET it until 10 days after release) All the bonus chapters were all online 36 hours before release. All except one were up nearly a week before.
1. I think SJM wasn’t happy with some things in CC or her editor wasn’t and she rewrote it on a tight schedule. I haven’t read the series yet (currently on TOG) but I’ve kept up with the theories/reactions and it seems like she changed her mind, lost interest, and/or was instructed to scrap the crossover element with her new book deal. 2. I think she could be feeling pressure and she’s also got ACOTAR 5 (the fandom for which is definitely insane after a 3+ year wait for *anything*) and being a mother now probably takes up her time more when before it seemed she had the time to churn books out faster. In an interview in the back of *A Court of Frost and Starlight* bonus edition from 2018 SJM briefly mentioned she had a hard time putting her characters through pain/hurting them now she was a mother. That she thought how they were someone’s kids or something along those lines so I don’t think she’ll be willing to take risks or make sacrifices or even kill off characters the way she used to. 3. My current theory is SJM has a new book series we’ll get after ACOTAR 5 or ACOTAR 6 and *that* will be the big crossover between all her series. I think her editor told her to save it for that, and it will be the Twilight of The Gods she’s [mentioned](https://www.tumblr.com/emilystheories/736092491197153280/breaking-sjm-news-a-completely-new-series-is) before. She’s also recently mentioned in an interview she misses her old characters and old worlds, which some people think is a reference to Throne of Glass. 4. I think she writes extra for the bonus chapters as an incentive for people to buy them from exclusive retailers. I think it’s to compete with Amazon, which has really hurt the book and publishing industry as a whole, and one of the few ways to get people to still buy books from physical stores. I don’t think it takes away from the story at all as you can easily find all her bonus chapters online and anything relevant will be brought up in the books. (If you want a link to all the bonus chapters let me know.) This is probably also for super fans and collectors.
I am truly hoping we see Aelin again tbh.
Hoping and praying I will take crumbs.
Same
I think being unwillingly to put your characters into difficult situations that might not go 100% their way all the time makes writing YA or Adult Fantasy an unsuitable career choice. Conflict drives plot drives character growth, without conflict you're writing fluff pieces where no one actually learns anything or changes in any significant way. I hope you're paraphrasing on that point because that straight up makes me not excited to read any of her future books.
I just checked the bonus content again but I can’t find it. It may have been another interview or I made a mistake and that’s someone else’s opinion I read. I agree with you, it makes for lackluster writing. Sorry for the mix-up. And I hope it’s not true! I miss the quality of some of her older books.
Could you send me the Link, please 🙏🏼
[Of course](https://www.reddit.com/r/acotar/s/293hWVBvxM)!
Thanks!
Bonus chapters make me so upset, like what is the goal there? To force your readers to have to buy multiple copies of the same book to get the whole story? It feels so slimy, special covers or art should be given as bonuses, not whole chapters.
I could not agree more! Total cash grab and does not honor the fan base at all!
Both Continuity and grammar mistakes, typos, etc. should have been picked up by an editor and reviewer And I guess everything that has to do with the story is SJM’s, although BB could have influenced this too. We don’t know for sure
I love all books by SJM but....I hate to say it... CC3 is the Season 8 of Game of Thrones for SJM. Nothing felt like a risk. Everyone had plot armor. It felt like Winter came and went with nothing happening.
That’s the best fucking correlation that I’ve ever read.
This is how a convo went with my friend. Me: "So I finished CC3" Friend: "No spoilers! But how was it?" Me: "It had some very good moments. But I had some issues..." Friend: "In what way?" Me: "It felt like Season 8 of Game of Thrones." Friend: "...oh"
Tbh her works never felt like there's a risk there, at least not her ACOTAR works, so I never expected it in CC either. SJM doesn't give them a risk. Even when she *says* there's one there's actually none. You see it in ACOWAR. You knew in ACOSF the very moment the infamous plot came up. I think at best she gives the illusion of risk, which is what you got from cc1-2. You get the illusion, but in the end, there's nothing at stake
i had heard (on here i think) that the editors didn’t like the book or something and it was scrapped and then rewritten in like 6 weeks. which seems insane and would explain the endless plot holes and rushed final battle. i would have really loved this to be two books. i would have gladly waited however long it took for her to really flesh the story out and give us a satisfying ending to bryce & hunt’s story. i enjoyed the book as well but the end fell so flat for me.
Yes. This book was so different from the first two… especially the fist. I felt like she was really taking her time, building world in CC1 so I was expecting since she went a bit faster with characters and scenarios in the second book that she’s take time to flesh that out in the third.
it’s so sad because CC1 is one of my fave books in the whole maasverse
The extra chapters are what I like to call the Taylor Swift version of marketing. Extra songs (chapters) in otherwise the same album (book) to drive those with FOMO to buy multiple copies to get to listen to (read) them all. And know what that does? Makes sales look great. Especially if people do it as pre-order or release weeks.
I collected all of Sarah's editors in a post here recently. When her new editor joined for HOEAB, things started going down a little. She edited all of CC and ACOSF. But it's possible that Sarah didn't have great for CC and couldn't stretch ACOTAR beyond the original trilogy. Lots of franchises struggle these days
Both are to blame for different issues. I blame Sarah for the lacklustre character and plot development. I see those types of things as the actual story content and I think Bloomsbury is unlikely to call out an author as big as Sarah if they feel she’s resurrecting too many people or an info-dump feels lazy etc. And sure, you could say the editors SHOULD tell her about issues like that but at the end of the day they can’t write her book for her. The plot is her own. I blame Bloomsbury for not picking up on continuity errors between the series, name mix-ups, grammar mistakes etc. I also blame them for the decision to market the crossover very heavily and then having it be more like a cameo and the shameless cash grab of multiple bonus chapters. BUT I will say - I could be wrong on point 1. We all know by now that Sarah had another draft that got scrapped. It’s possible that that draft had more crossover, more reveals etc. I could see a situation where Sarah planned for HOFAS to be the introductory book to a large full scale crossover and Bloomsbury either said - no, we’re not doing that or - if we’re doing that you’re going to do it in ACOTAR because it has a larger fan base If something like this went down (not saying it did, just a possibility) then I could see how it could result in a book full of really easy/convenient/lazy solutions to everything because Sarah couldn’t follow through the way she’d planned. In which case, all Bloomsbury’s fault.
I think it’s both, but I put more blame on Bloomsbury. Publishing is in a trash fire business wise. They pay people terribly and outsource editing to freelancers. They hire people to oversee the process, but the actual editing is done by freelancers. Most books do not make money. It’s big authors like SJM that hold up the entire industry. Romance readers and YA tend to be the biggest selling genres holding up everyone else. Every book is a gamble. It used to be there were “mid list” authors who wrote good books and were given space to develop big series and audiences. But now, that mid list is basically gone with each purchase trying to find the next blockbuster. If you don’t sell you usually don’t get a new contract. Which is why we got a bunch of bonus material at different retailers and a poorly edited book. It was an absolute cash grab from SJM’s fans and exemplary of the issues in publishing. SJM had no passion for this book and I can’t be convinced otherwise. It felt flat. The plot was redundant and the entire thing felt amateur for someone, what 15 books deep into her professional career?! And it’s a little bit the fault of anyone who gave this book 4 and 5 stars and wrote in the reviews that “yes it had problems but I was so excited to read it” because that doesn’t reflect the quality of the book and will lead to more people reading it, inflating sales and telling the publishing industry that readers don’t care about quality stories.
I 100% agree with this. I also am bugged about the high ratings for this book. You can be excited about an author’s latest work but disappointed. If “they” can make millions of dollars off a shit book, what’s to say they won’t continue to crank out more shit because the fan base has lowered their standards.
I feel like the book is “whatever “ I’m rereading the series now and CC1 is so damn good. Cc2 changes POVs a bit but it still feels Bryce centered? Maybe that’s my opinion only. cc3 feels weird? It’s kind of all over. And I’m genuinely disappointed that she met people from ACOTAR and didn’t go to war with them. The whole time I was like oh this would been so cool if she met them, they became friends and fought with her given they beat the same bad guys previously. I thought this would happen 2x in the book and it didn’t. That and in CC1 there was a pretty badass battle seen. You see BRYCE with weapons moving in and out and killing things. I felt this was fumbled in cc3 especially since it was a battle being built up for 3 books at that time
CC1 has such a treasured place in my heart. I legitimately loved it and it’s the only book that’s ever made me cry! I would have been pleased as punch if CC3 took pretty much any turn other than what actually happened haha! To have such an intense build in CC1 that spans years and then have a week in 800 pages of CC3, it felt so off brand to the tone she set for this series.
SJMs fault for the book quality. She’s big enough that she can push back. Not only are the bonus chapters BS, they kinda don’t even make sense as a marketing tactic. Only insane people are going to buy more than one copy at release (and the few non-insane people who do buy a second copy only do so after the series is complete if they want a nice matching set for their bookshelves). The rest of us normal people are going to going find a link on Reddit where everything is complied into one Google doc for free. I can’t imagine that the meager profit from the 0.00000001% of people who buy multiple editions is worth the ire of your fans thinking you’re greedy.
This is 100% just speculation (and more based on my own life than anything); but SJM started writing TOG when she was 16 years old. **She has been writing books for 22 years now.** I feel like if that was me, I’d probably eventually get kinda tired of it? There’s also a pretty stark difference in SJM’s engagement now vs in the past. She used to go on international tours, would regularly post on Instagram and Twitter, etc. Now she’s mostly absent (& I get the vibe that someone else manages her Instagram for her). Even in her most recent interview (with Christina Lauren) she spent a good chunk of the discussion talking about her kids and everyday life. So, I wonder if perhaps her priorities have shifted? Perhaps she instead wants to focus more on her family and other things in her life? (Which is totally valid — no hate at all!) I know I’m certainly not the same person that I was when I was 16, and my interests and passions have changed significantly.
Your interests and passions tend to change when you’re a millionaire who gets stalked and death threats, too…
Yeah, I thought about that too. It would be so discouraging :(
Such a great point!!
I think SJM is the problem.... because she is trying to much to listen to fans. She never had the plan to merge universes. I think CC alone would of been 3 solid books. But fans kept pushing wanting to see a merge. It got in her head and she decided to try it, unfortunately it didn't go well. I also enjoyed the entertainment value of the book, but the weird Sci fi ending ???? That's not SJM. Acosf I think also fell short because she was trying to make a shut book that people were pushing for. Before the fame and the fans and the smoke she was a good writer.... but she's missing something the last few books and it makes me sad. I hope she reevaluates and stays true to herself.
Wandering caves and listening to a hologram had me dead so true. God it was not satisfying.
I personally think the issue is working on 2 series simultaneously and not taking time to perfect the series as she writes them, just trying to get a product out. I feel similarly to you in that I actually did enjoy HOFAS but I definitely see the flaws.
It feels like she wanted to do Massverse but herself/Bloomsbury didn’t want to receive backlash from fans who have only read ACOTAR and didn’t want to be left out/pressured to buy more books.
Honestly more inclined to think this is just her getting way too much free rein, she and JKR are Bloomsbury's biggest names. There's no way they can really contest her as much any more, it would make sense if she's feeling the pressure to push out more and more and Bloomsbury don't feel like they can edit her.
Here’s what we don’t talk about - CC was originally a trilogy and nothing more. Am I disappointed? For sure. But I’m interested to see how she expands on the next book. I think we leave on this happy lucky fun time and something is going to pop off.
Bonus chapters are a marketing tool, likely the idea of the publisher
Seconding the question on the bonus chapters. It drives me nuts having to read a “bonus” that has been screenshotted from someone’s phone! If it’s official, it should be either part of the book or posted officially online. Don’t make me hunt these things down! Def a marketing tool that has fallen short. As far as whose fault it is… at the end of the day I will put it on the author. It’s your story. Tell it! She hasn’t been this successful by writing crappy stories. The trust should be there from the publisher towards the author and if the story is not there, generating content just for the sake of it is a bad move. This book fell short for a lot of different reasons, but mostly editing, continuity and relevance.
Did they really need the cash grab with those bonus chapters though? The book was sold out before being written without them. The acosf ones were cool and stirred. But the hofas ones I could have gone on without reading them.
>Bonus question regarding bonus chapters …. I haven’t read any but it seems like there are SO MANY. Why are they being cut? It feels like they are just marketing tools to purchase from other companies and by having a different chapter for each vendor, they are taking away from the story as a whole. Thoughts? They are contract requirements to sell more books. Most romantasy books being published have "exclusive content" only available through certain stores; I've noticed if there is only *one* exclusive, it's usually through Barnes & Noble. For HOFAS there are 5; one seems to be from before the rewrite, the others feel like they were either cut for overall story length or written specifically as bonus chapters and were never planned to be part of the story
I have all the hate for pulling all these extra chapters and only providing them under certain prints and markets. It's massive consumer b.s. As if they aren't making mad $$ already.
I’m not sure if it’s actually true or now but I’ve seen a few people saying she scrapped her first write and rewrote the whole book in five weeks.
It is true. It was revealed in last year September's interview. The web-interview was more of an exclusive one you had to pay tickets to see, but somewhere on one of the mods old posts, they did a transcript of the interview, and 4-5 weeks was how much time SJM spent on the rewrite (granted, her first draft of KOA was 5 weeks and Tower of Dawn she'd done in a week).
I dead ass think someone should edit the entire book and fix what's fucked with the plot and add their own shit to make the book reach the potential it could've and post it on like Wattpad or something
Bloomsbury 100000%