One of the details of the situation is that Bantam have been receiving ADWD in piecemeal form. Whilst Lynch had to complete all of RoT before delivering it, GRRM has been mailing in chunks of ADWD as he has finished it. This effectively means that Bantam can work out a vaguely realistic timeframe for when the thing will be done. I can report that Bantam expect to publish ADWD in 2010 based on GRRM's current rate of progress (although at one point they said the same thing in 2009, so they know this is not set in stone).

For Bantam, ADWD will be a huge, guaranteed bestseller, maybe even the biggest-selling fantasy hardcover of the year (especially since TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT seems to have slipped to 2011), so it makes sense they will bring to bear their maximum marketing spend on that book to the detriment of lesser titles. And to be frank, Scott Lynch's first two books, whilst selling decently, have not been selling in numbers reflecting how much they've been discussed online. The likes of Abercrombie and even the similarly-delayed Rothfuss have been much more successful, along with much less-discussed authors like Karen Miller, Gail Martin and Brent Weeks.

What both ADWD and RoT have in common is that they are hugely-delayed books, and people are so burned out on missed release dates and Amazon's constant fictional dates, that both will need a big poster and internet campaign to get the real release dates onto people's radars.

Also recall that RoT was delivered just a few weeks ago, and Bantam have likely had to set the marketing budget for 2010-11 months before that, so they had to roll the dice and say that ADWD is the priority and hold back money for it, even if there's a chance it will be delayed again.