It could be a marketing thing. If the book is out too soon, it might look like it relies too much on beta content that may have changed. It could be that one feature changed enough that a single chapter was revised. It could be that the book was just plain behind schedule.

I know that my book will have lots of work after I'm "done" writing.

- Final tech review
- I make changes based on tech review
- Copy edting
- I reread everything to make sure copy editing didn't change something important
- Book then goes to the printer who makes galleys, which is a layout of how the book will look in print
- I reread everything to make sure the printer didn't mess anything up
- Book is printed

These steps take 4-5 months -- and that's all after the writing is done. I signed my contract with Mannng in August 2009. We're currently planning for the book to be in print in Aug 2010, so one year start to finish. And that's with two authors. I can't imagine how long it would take for a single author.

>I don't know much about the publishing world (at least not book publishing) but I wonder why that might be.
>The content of the book must surely have been based on Beta versions and already be finalized (i.e. they can't be intending to make last minute changes based on the RTM versions can they?)