'Winds of Winter' Release Date: Book Unlikely To Be Out Before 'Game Of Thrones' Premieres in April; Expert Pegs Late 2016 to Early 2017 Release

Fans of the popular book series "A Song of Ice and Fire" have been waiting for the sixth book "The Winds of Winter" for over four years now. George RR Martin has already expressed his desire to finish the anticipated book before "Game of Thrones" season 6 premieres. However, will he achieve the targeted date now that HBO has already announced the premiere date of the popular TV series?

According to FiveThirtyEightLife, HBO already confirmed that "Game of Thrones" season 6 would premiere in April. The announcement was made in a tweet. The post features the bloody face of the well-loved character Jon Snow, whose fate is among the reasons fans are eager for the upcoming season. The photo comes with the caption "APRIL. #GoTSeason6 #GameOfThrones"

APRIL. #GoTSeason6 #GameOfThrones pic.twitter.com/DSK2xZi9i9

— Game Of Thrones (@GameOfThrones) November 23, 2015

While the said announcement is fantastic news to fans following the popular show, it is not a great one to those anticipating for the long overdue "The Winds of Winter." The showrunners are out of printed source material, but they know what happens in the upcoming novels. Although Martin has announced that he wants the book to be out before the new season, there are chances that fans will see the ending of the story on television before the book hit the shelves.

Jeff a.k.a. BryndenBFish shared his thought about the release date of "The Winds of Winter." On his blog Wars and Politics of Ice and Fire he wrote: "If you cornered me, put a gun to my head and told me to tell you how many completed manuscript pages are done for The Winds of Winter, I'd probably say that George is just north of 1000 manuscript pages with an expected completion date of late 2016 to early 2017."

Per Winter Is Coming, Jeff explained that the average turnaround time for a book to go from "manuscript submission" to "published and on the shelves" takes about 4-8 months. He stressed that the fifth book "A Dance with Dragons" was published seven weeks after the Random House publishing received the manuscript.

Parent Herald previously reported the speculations that the book is already in the publishing house and is just waiting for its scheduled release date. However, with these reports coming out, we cannot really tell. For those who are hoping that "The Winds of Winter" will be out before "Game of Thrones" season 6 premieres, Jeff stressed that it is still possible.

He estimated that with an accelerated publishing schedule "The Winds of Winter" would be a complete manuscript by Feb 23. "He's going to have to submit something in 90 days or it's likely he won't publish in time," he said.

Do you agree with Jeff's educated guess? When do you think "The Winds of Winter" will arrive in the bookshelves?