The Backlash to ‘Burn of the Everflame’s Release Date Delay Is Over the Top
Readers have been anticipating the release of book four in Penn Cole’s The Kindred’s Curse saga, Burn of the Everflame. However, after readers’ pre-orders were recently canceled, concern has arisen over its status.
Cole’s The Kindred Curse Saga is set to conclude with Burn of the Everflame. Her four-book epic fantasy series follows Diem Bellator, a young woman in a world where gods have colonized the world and ignited a civil war between gods and mortals. The book shares many characteristics with Romantasies like A Court of Thorns and Roses, which are growing in popularity and have found an enormous fanbase on BookTok. In addition to penning the bestselling saga, Cole is an inspiration to indie writers, as she has self-published all of her books, aside from working with publishers for translations.
As a result, her large fanbase was a bit impatient for Burn of the Everflame to arrive. Unfortunately, her fans were recently hit with some disappointing news.
Is Burn of the Everflame delayed?
Burn of the Everflame has been delayed multiple times. The book was initially set to release in March of 2024. However, at the beginning of the year, Cole announced the release date had been pushed back to June 1. She explained that there was simply too much going on in terms of book deals, audiobook releases, and all the other work that goes into being an indie author. Since she wanted to ensure she’d have time to do justice to her characters, she chose to delay the book.
By May, Cole delayed the book again, announcing the new release date was to be determined. As of now, the book still does not have a release date. In her May announcement, she explained that Amazon allowed her to push the book’s release thirty days to maintain her pre-orders, so the website listed the unofficial release date as July 1 and, later, July 31.
However, July 31 was the latest Amazon would allow Cole to push the release date back. Since the book still wasn’t ready by then, all pre-orders were canceled. Many readers who missed the delay announcement were concerned when they noticed that their pre-orders had been canceled and they could not place another order.
So, Cole posted another update to her Instagram Story, confirming the pre-order cancellation. She stated that the cancellation and delays were necessary despite being accused by readers of holding off the release date as a marketing gimmick. Cole went on to reveal that she had been receiving hateful DMs, comments, and emails from readers disgruntled over the delay. Readers were calling her “selfish,” “greedy,” and “lazy,” and accused her of stealing money. Some went as far as to say they’ll never read a book from an indie author again, which is quite an extreme reaction to a book delay.
Cole pointed out the reality of being an indie author. On the one hand, she has done what most authors who go through traditional publishers can’t do by releasing three whole books in her series in one year. Even with the delay, her four-book series will be concluded in a year and a half, which is an exceedingly rapid manner in which to release a book series. On the other hand, though, as an indie author, she is navigating this entire process by herself for the first time, whereas other authors have an entire team backing them up. Hence, it’s understandable that she made a mistake in estimating the fourth book’s release date.
Hopefully, readers can be more understanding as they await Burn of the Everflame‘s official release date.
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