There is finally a firm date from the printing company for the delivery of the book. Week 16 is the delivery week That is just for Easter! The reason that it took so long is the expanded size of the book. The final and definitive size is now 604 pages (!!) with 1000+ illustrations. I am really happy with the result and I am sure the content will compensate the delay. To give an example: the lens review chapter in the book has more pages than the total for the previous Leica Lens Compendium. Every lens entry has at least four images (the picture of the lens, the lens diagram and the MTF graphs). The history chapter is a book in itself: more than 140 pages.
I am also very grateful to all my friends who ordered and/or prepaid the book. The expanded size of the book has its affect on the printing costs. But teh price as quoted will not change. I am not a real businessman as you have already discovered. But I am happy to share my knowledge about Leica with all of you. As far as I know this is the largest and most comprehensive book about Leica.