Diana
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
Thanks, albeit for the bad news. (Uncle Hugo's ran out some time ago, sadly.) Not only your British fans but UK public libraries buy your Vorkosigan and later books promptly, or I'd never have come across them. Why do your publishers regard the UK print market as a disaster zone?
Lois McMaster Bujold
(OP was asking if the novella "The Flowers of Vashnoi" would ever be reprinted on paper in the UK, to which the short answer was "No".)
My experiences with British publishing are a long story, or maybe a horror story, which I have told before, but to recap in brief:
My first four VK books were sold to Headline for mass-market paperback in the late 80s by Baen's then-foreign-rights agent, as in my early book contracts I hadn't kept those rights. Good so far. (I think the first mistake was not staying with them, but at the time no one, even me, knew how long the series would go on.) Said agent got a better advance offer from Pan, to which my original purchasing editor had moved (I swear British editors should be fitted with tracking collars) and we switched to them for the next few books. About the time Mirror Dance was winning my third novel Hugo, Pan's SF line went under, taking my books with it.
Third try was Earthlight, a few years later, with whom we tried to restart the series at Memory. I see they actually got as far as Diplomatic Immunity. Meanwhile, we'd recovered the rights for the out-of-print books with Headline, three of which (Shards, Barrayar and Warrior's) we resold to Pan in hopes of getting some series synergy going. When they didn't appear after a rather long wait, we made inquiries, to discover 1) the line was going under and 2) they had forgotten they had bought the titles. They reluctantly published them at the last gasp (the undertaker editor tasked with the cover copy had never read them, with odd effects on same), to minuscule sales. And that was the end of that.
Meanwhile I'd started the Chalion books with Harper Collins US, who treated them and me quite well, so we tried that series on HC UK. When Paladin of Souls returned disappointing sales, they declined to pick up The Hallowed Hunt, so that was the end of that as well. No one ever offered for The Sharing Knife series.
Meanwhile yet again, ebooks were at last starting to take off with the arrival of the Kindle around 2010, which was the big game-changer. As my literary agent recovered the rights to all the dead books, in 2011 we gradually got them up as indie ebooks in the UK, where they have sold modestly but steadily ever since.
I actually have no idea what current British publishers may think of my work, as I swore them all off over a decade ago. We gave UK distribution rights for the two Penric paper collections to Baen, who may not do better with them in the UK market but certainly cannot do worse.
Ta, L.
My experiences with British publishing are a long story, or maybe a horror story, which I have told before, but to recap in brief:
My first four VK books were sold to Headline for mass-market paperback in the late 80s by Baen's then-foreign-rights agent, as in my early book contracts I hadn't kept those rights. Good so far. (I think the first mistake was not staying with them, but at the time no one, even me, knew how long the series would go on.) Said agent got a better advance offer from Pan, to which my original purchasing editor had moved (I swear British editors should be fitted with tracking collars) and we switched to them for the next few books. About the time Mirror Dance was winning my third novel Hugo, Pan's SF line went under, taking my books with it.
Third try was Earthlight, a few years later, with whom we tried to restart the series at Memory. I see they actually got as far as Diplomatic Immunity. Meanwhile, we'd recovered the rights for the out-of-print books with Headline, three of which (Shards, Barrayar and Warrior's) we resold to Pan in hopes of getting some series synergy going. When they didn't appear after a rather long wait, we made inquiries, to discover 1) the line was going under and 2) they had forgotten they had bought the titles. They reluctantly published them at the last gasp (the undertaker editor tasked with the cover copy had never read them, with odd effects on same), to minuscule sales. And that was the end of that.
Meanwhile I'd started the Chalion books with Harper Collins US, who treated them and me quite well, so we tried that series on HC UK. When Paladin of Souls returned disappointing sales, they declined to pick up The Hallowed Hunt, so that was the end of that as well. No one ever offered for The Sharing Knife series.
Meanwhile yet again, ebooks were at last starting to take off with the arrival of the Kindle around 2010, which was the big game-changer. As my literary agent recovered the rights to all the dead books, in 2011 we gradually got them up as indie ebooks in the UK, where they have sold modestly but steadily ever since.
I actually have no idea what current British publishers may think of my work, as I swore them all off over a decade ago. We gave UK distribution rights for the two Penric paper collections to Baen, who may not do better with them in the UK market but certainly cannot do worse.
Ta, L.
More Answered Questions
Jon Hurst
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
I have been consistently amazed by your deep understanding and clear depiction of people: how they think and feel, their motivations and fears, how they can be led effectively and influenced. How did you develop your understanding of people and leadership? It seems uncanny and wonderful.
Moira-ji
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
I'm a third of the way through Cryoburn, and I just have to ask- are you a fan of Nikolai Gogol, too?
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