The release of "The Winds of Winter" was supposedly leaked by Amazon France. However, the publisher did clear up the issue, saying the book has no release date yet.
The sixth novel in Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" series which HBO's "Games of Thrones" is based on was earlier reported to be released by March 2017. Amazon France put up the placeholder for the upcoming book and needed to have a date and ended up putting the said date. The online store did not mind the commotion, and is actually still live as of this reporting.
Martin's publisher, upon hearing the news, immediately issued a statement. U.S.-based Random House said, "As his publisher, we support George RR Martin as he works hard to finish The Winds of Winter. Any on-sale dates currently listed online for the novel are incorrect. Once we have a publication date for The Winds of Winter, the world will know," Entertainment Weekly reported.
Its U.K. counterpart, HarperCollins also said, "Nothing has been finalized regarding the publication or the date." And that's not a "no," Esquire added.
The report added that Martin acknowledged that he is still working on the sixth book and has been very slow on it.
He said "Here I am, 20 years later... still working on book six... ((and no, sorry, I have no announcement to make on that front))," on the 20th anniversary of "Games of Thrones.' The author seems to be disappointed even if the book series is one of the best sellers and most successful novels of the modern times.
Back in January, Martin made the last major statement with regards to "The Winds of Winter." This was when he announced that the book will not make it in time for the sixth season of the HBO series. However, he occasionally posted snippets of the upcoming book on his blog.
For the meantime, fans are hoping that "The Winds of Winter" would really be released by March 2017.
