Note: If you are also on my mailing list, you will get a second copy of this email via that mailing list. Apologies for any duplicates!

Hi everyone,

I wanted to provide a timeline update on Halfway There. If you did not preorder a copy, you can click here to read an excerpt and/or preorder one. 🙂

Sending to the Printer this Week

We expect to have the book to the printer by the end of the week. This will put us in line to have it printed. If there are any further delays in getting it sent over, I will let you know in the next update. This leads me to...

COVID-Related Print Delay

There is a very long print delay right now because of the pandemic. Smaller publishers like mine now have to wait at least 22 days to get their books printed rather than the normal five days. The books then have to be shipped to us, and shipped to you.

Here's the story: 

The Big 5 publishers in NYC (Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Hachette Book Group, and Simon & Schuster) normally print their books in China. Because of the pandemic, they have moved their printing onshore and have taken over all of the printers in the USA. This pushes every other publisher to the back of the line, simply because those big publishers (along with Amazon) are paying lots of money to be at the front.

When to Expect the Book?

If you ordered a digital copy: You should receive your copy as soon as the book is released. My understanding is that I (or the publisher) will email you a Kindle file that you can load onto your reader. I will confirm this process when I have more details, but if you need a different book format for some reason, let me know. 

If you ordered a print copy: Because of the print delay, the books will likely not be printed until later in July if we remain on schedule this week. I should have a firm date from the printer once they receive the book and put us in the queue. We will then need time to receive them and ship them out to everyone (I will ship the books preordered last August as well as all signed copies; Warren will ship any books preordered through their website).

I'm very sorry for the delays but, as you know, we are in strange times. Unfortunately there is nothing we can do about the pandemic! Things seem to change by the week. 

If you have any questions or concerns please let me know. I will send out another update once I have more concrete print and release date information, so look for another (shorter) email in the next week or so.

Thank you for your continued support!

Elizabeth C. Haynes