"Mockingjay" leaked? & Personal Commentary

As many people know by now, Andrew Sims, administrator of Mugglenet.com and TwilightSource.com, recently posted a twitpic that caused a huge stirrup in The Hunger Games fandom:

Thanks to a very kind friend, I'm about to start Mockingjay. Join me on my red eye flight to read along.

Since then, fans have speculated about the leak, and some fans have even lashed out at Sims for being "a fandom brat."

My take on this?

I didn't mean for this post to become that personal, but I feel this needs to be addressed somewhere. First of all leaks happen all the time. It's happened with Eclipse, Breaking Dawn, a bunch of Harry Potter books, etc.

To quote the Twilight Lexicon on this:

Generally speaking, release dates are a problem for every single book published—for fans, bookstores, and publishers. Of course, the more anticipated the book, the more pronounced the problem.
Here’s how it tends to work: A book is given a release date and an on-sale date (sometimes called a publication date or a laydown date; sometimes these are even different from the so-called on-sale date). The release date is when the book is expected to release from the publisher’s warehouse and ship to bookstores. The on-sale date is, at best, approximate, due to variants in shipping and receiving. When you hear a book’s on-sale date labeled as a “laydown,” you need to ask if this is a one-day day down—the difference is that one-day laydowns are strictly held, universal on-sale dates (like what happens with Harry Potter). Usually, bookstores even need to sign a contract saying they will uphold a one-day laydown; the boxes of books then arrive stamped “Do not sell until xx/xx/xx.” The trouble is that most booksellers (the clerks—not the owners or managers) aren’t educated about the different terms—to many of them, “release,” “on-sale,” “publication,” and “laydown” all mean the same thing, with the exception that sometimes “laydown” is misinterpreted as “one-day laydown.” To the best of my knowledge, New Moon was NOT given a one-day laydown. If it was, then, yes, many booksellers are guilty of selling the book early.
Confusing things further is the fact that publishers are constantly changing release and on-sale dates by a week or two in any direction. This usually has to do with printer issues that are beyond the publisher’s control (book printers are separate from publishers; they are hired by publishers to print their books and determine their own schedules). If dates change, it’s often the case that not all accounts (the bookstores) get—or pay attention to—the updated information in a timely manner. So, while all of B&N’s stores might get the new dates (because they’re all a part of one company), the independent stores might not get it as quickly.

Independent book stores might make mistakes sometimes. To my knowledge, Mockingjay's release date hasn't changed since February.

However, I don't think Sims had malicious intentions with reading (and tweeting) Mockingjay early. In fact, other fans have reported getting the book early as well. I do, however, think Sims made a mistake in tweeting the photo to hundreds of Hunger Games fans.

The one thing I have to say that if you're one of the lucky ducks who gets Mockingjay early, I would advise you keep your good luck to yourself and avoid leaking any spoilers. :)