Hi Cobus, welcome here, pleasing to see you’ve been with my work so long!
I had to wince, to see you’d chosen Traitor’s Knot for your pause point, as the entire finale to arc III is Stormed Fortress, and the two stories are very tightly linked…it’s a much easier break point between Arc III and the start of Arc IV, and it’s odd, but many readers seem to have done the same (based on the stats). Forgive my authorial head scratch and musing, here’s the best answer I can give to your second question.
Release of Song of the Mysteries - is not up to me, insofar as, once the draft is finished out, the publisher selects the release timing. This can vary enormously - if a book has high demand, they will slot it in pretty quickly (but not a crash rush, because that costs oodles of bucks to take shortcuts). Production time - also depends on how many books they have already locked into schedule. (It’s terribly odd, but quite often authors will all turn in their manuscripts in ‘waves’ - so suddenly the editor can be overwhelmed, and the schedule fills way ahead).
I simply won’t know until they tell me/and since I’ve had terrible experiences (readership wrath) when dates get shifted, I will not announce a release time or date until it is absolutely firm on the publisher’s end.
This brings me to what I can (somewhat) control: the work itself from my end. I am into the last quarter lap of this draft (finishing out Chapter Set 11 at this moment). All the threads are into their finale run at this stage, everything that matters is set into motion, and there are only details of timing and a few odds and ends left to sort out. As you’ve noticed by my updates, the pace of my solid words on page has picked up. Expect this to continue/unless there’s unforeseen Life interventions. (no issues pending that I can see).
I absolutely will have the draft turned in when I get there, and you can follow the updates here to see the precise page count of the draft. (Today/to the moment it is 760). I ‘target’ 1000 pages for a draft finish line. Sometimes I run over/sometimes under, though, jeez, never by much, and maybe only once. This book is pretty precisely on target for length and what I’ve got left on the plate to bring to pitch and wrap up. It could (but likely won’t) surprise me too much. The planning for the final volume has had to be very tight to get everything into position.
Once the draft is turned in, I spend a few more months finalizing the language. My drafts are extremely tight dramatically - but the language always needs the finishing touches. At that stage, I can work straight on for hours, there are no pauses or slow days or moments digging through back notes/scenes/history to be sure of consistencies or making sure no stitches are dropped. It’s just pulling out redundancies and tightening style.
Given this is the finishing volume, I do have (for once/not since Peril’s Gate’s fiasco mid merger) a real editor who wants to look over the draft. The past four books - I didn’t turn in until the absolute final, and the manuscript went straight into production (!!! eek, no safety net at all).
I have no idea what kind of interaction there may be from draft to finalized text; the editor is new to the project and I’ve never worked with her before. I anticipate a good experience, it will be great to have other eyes on the project to be sure no stitches are dropped.
I’ve gathered, therefore, there will be a story edit stage and a line edit/from the publisher’s end. What that does to production time (shortens or extends it) I don’t know at this stage.
I suggest that you keep watching the updates/I’ll be posting in real time, and should have a much clearer grip on things once I complete the last chapter set. This draft could, conceivably, wrap in 14 chapter sets; could be less or could be more, I will know when I get there.
Expect I will post an update photo of the draft pretty soon, it is truly overflowing the box. The finishes of these monsters make a pretty mean looking stack. I feel really pleased at this stage to be in the creative home stretch.
Everything will depend on the publisher’s decision on pub date (how far out) and production time. I fit the artwork in after the text is final, and last time around, I got the images in early.
You might want to scratch the itch checking out the satellite short stories that relate to the series, meanwhile, there are six of them and they fill in a lot of back history detail that bears directly on the story at hand.