Louise C
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
I absolutely adore your Penric and Desdemona novellas and novel. I read the e-books as soon as they are released and I have been collecting the print collections from Baen, even the Subterranean Press editions. Are there plans to release another print collection of the more recent novellas and The Assassins of Thasalon through Baen? (The affordability of the Subterranean Press editions is becoming a concern for me.)
Lois McMaster Bujold
Yeah, the SubPress editions are designed to be collectable, not affordable. They used to have a 2-tier system, with a lower-ish priced hardcover and the signed leatherbounds at two different prices. Both still only the one printing, though, as limited is their shtick. But they had to re-tool to survive Covid, alas, so now just the one signed edition. (Which is plenty from my point of view, as I have to sign the 1300 tip sheets.)
I figured our e-editions for (very!) affordable, and Blackstone's audio downloads are also very reasonable.
Not sure what's going on with Baen these days. The first Penric collection, Penric's Progress, came out in January 2020 and did well, but the second, Penric's Travels came out in May 2020 when all the bookstores were closing for Covid, and so suffered in sales. It's hard to tell how the somewhat more recent 3rd, Penric's Labors has done, as paper royalties run so very late.
If bookstores are still "ordering to the net", I don't see how the series could recover. Ordering to the net is an old bookstore practice where stores and chains would figure an estimate of sales for book #1, order that number plus a slight overage; for book#2, they'd order as many as sold the first round, which would always be less, and so on down the line until book#whatever was extinguished altogether. It takes a series much luck to overcome this natural damping-out. (Or so Jim Baen once explained to me, assuming it wasn't a "but so it's not our fault" spiel, which publishers are prone to when trying to calm writers.)
Amazon lists the hardcover of PP still available, mass market paperback out of print, Travels ditto; Labors is the reverse, hardcover is out of print/sold out, mass market still available. I'm not quite sure how to read the entrails of this, other than Labors probably had a smaller initial hc print run, see above. And Baen hasn't chosen to reprint the mmpbs of the first two. Which suggests they calculate it wouldn't be profitable. One can't ask one's publisher to lose money on one's book, after all.
(Frustrating for readers who want a uniform collection for their shelves, though.)
For foreign rights submissions we did devise a 4th collection, which we called Penric's Intrigues and contained the novel The Assassins of Thasalon and the novella "Knot of Shadows", which made up about the same word count as the prior volumes. I'd need one more novella to make up a 5th volume at this point (2024). No promises...
Ta, L.
Yeah, the SubPress editions are designed to be collectable, not affordable. They used to have a 2-tier system, with a lower-ish priced hardcover and the signed leatherbounds at two different prices. Both still only the one printing, though, as limited is their shtick. But they had to re-tool to survive Covid, alas, so now just the one signed edition. (Which is plenty from my point of view, as I have to sign the 1300 tip sheets.)
I figured our e-editions for (very!) affordable, and Blackstone's audio downloads are also very reasonable.
Not sure what's going on with Baen these days. The first Penric collection, Penric's Progress, came out in January 2020 and did well, but the second, Penric's Travels came out in May 2020 when all the bookstores were closing for Covid, and so suffered in sales. It's hard to tell how the somewhat more recent 3rd, Penric's Labors has done, as paper royalties run so very late.
If bookstores are still "ordering to the net", I don't see how the series could recover. Ordering to the net is an old bookstore practice where stores and chains would figure an estimate of sales for book #1, order that number plus a slight overage; for book#2, they'd order as many as sold the first round, which would always be less, and so on down the line until book#whatever was extinguished altogether. It takes a series much luck to overcome this natural damping-out. (Or so Jim Baen once explained to me, assuming it wasn't a "but so it's not our fault" spiel, which publishers are prone to when trying to calm writers.)
Amazon lists the hardcover of PP still available, mass market paperback out of print, Travels ditto; Labors is the reverse, hardcover is out of print/sold out, mass market still available. I'm not quite sure how to read the entrails of this, other than Labors probably had a smaller initial hc print run, see above. And Baen hasn't chosen to reprint the mmpbs of the first two. Which suggests they calculate it wouldn't be profitable. One can't ask one's publisher to lose money on one's book, after all.
(Frustrating for readers who want a uniform collection for their shelves, though.)
For foreign rights submissions we did devise a 4th collection, which we called Penric's Intrigues and contained the novel The Assassins of Thasalon and the novella "Knot of Shadows", which made up about the same word count as the prior volumes. I'd need one more novella to make up a 5th volume at this point (2024). No promises...
Ta, L.
More Answered Questions
Andie
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
(Part 2) Now, huge caveat here – I am just interested in how things are at the end of CVA. If it should happen that you are inspired to write more about them, events could come up could set a different direction (as it happens in real life). I am just asking here, what Simon and Alys are thinking/feeling at the end of CVA – not looking for predictions about the future. Hope that makes sense? Thank you so much!
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