“Carve the Mark” Goes Global

We first heard news about her working on a new book series in March of last year and more details were given at the 2015 YallWest Book Festival in Santa Monica, Ca. Earlier this year, fans were given a name and release date for this upcoming two-book (duology) series, January 17, 2017.

And now, this past Thursday, Veronica took to tumblr to share with her fans two bits of news. The first is that Carve the Mark will be published in 33 languages, including Swedish, Bulgarian, Thai and Portuguese. The second piece of news is that Carve the Mark will have a simultaneous worldwide release. This is very unusual in the world of book publishing, since typically there is a bit of a time gap during which the book gets translated/formatted from it’s native language into foreign languages.

In an interview with Publisher’s Weekly, Veronica’s agent, Joanna Volpe spoke about the decision to release the book in 33 languages at the same time.

Volpe noted that having a book published simultaneously in so many languages is, in her experience, “very atypical.” She viewed the large-scale global release as “a testament to Veronica creating such widely relatable characters, and also a testament to her fan base. Veronica visited nine countries in the past year, and fans in each one of them are so tremendously passionate and devoted! They’re what make such a remarkable publication feat like this possible.”

Also included in this interview, some more insight into the story and its development is provided by Veronica herself.

How the idea for the story came about:

The Chicago native disclosed that Carve the Mark grew out of a story she’d been writing “over and over again” since she was 12. “But I could never quite figure out how to make it work,” she added. “I wanted to tell the story of a boy who is kidnapped, and finds himself fitting into the place where he’s taken more than his home. I mean, what do you do when your nation has these bitter enemies and you have an affinity for them? What does that make you? The story has changed a lot since then, of course, but that plot is still there.”

She explains some of the major differences between the world of this duology and the dystopian world she created in the Divergent series:

“For one thing, it’s not about good people doing the right thing to save the world – it’s more about desperate people doing whatever it takes to get what they want,” she said. “The trick, for them, is figuring out just what that is. Carve the Mark is also set in a big, expansive universe with a rich history and multiple languages and mysterious phenomena. It doesn’t have the claustrophobia of a dystopian setting. And it’s certainly nothing like our world.”

Explaining how the release of Carve the Mark in 33 languages relates to the book.

“I’ve toured overseas twice in the past year, so I’ve been to some of the places where Carve the Mark will be published, so this feels especially significant now,” she added. “I know more about the readers, the publishers, the booksellers, the actual shelves. So it feels more real. And there are parts of Carve the Mark that are very much about how precious a person’s mother tongue is to them – how, even if you can speak or read in another language, there is nothing quite like your own. So this amazing thing – 33 languages! – feels particularly fitting for this book.”

Carve the Mark is now available for pre-sale here and it hits stores on January 17, 2017. International fans, are you excited for this? Let us know how you feel by leaving a comment here, on our Facebook or Twitter page!