Black Library and their flaws

[kamedake88]

3 hours ago, Casual Heresy said:

 

As someone working in publishing just now, I would dispute this (at least for the UK). Print is nowhere near dead, as Nielsen's 2022 first-half market report showing record breaking print sales, attests to. Profits are always low in publishing due to low margins (thanks Amazon), but while ebook sales have generally stagnated over the past few years, print sales have actually grown.

 

Indeed they have and the relevant news is to why because readership numbers across the industry is down in all metrics. https://authorsguild.org/news/book-sales-up-readership-down/. ( I would link statsita as well be it requires a paid account for some of the charts) Adult Fiction and Young Adult Fiction have seen a massive increase year on year in the 3rd quarter after almost dropping 20% in quarter 2. My point still stands though, more books may be being sold but people sure aren't reading more, at least according to the people who track these things. 

 

Almost all of this is speculation on our parts though, because I simply don't have enough data to draw any firm conclusions as to the woes of Black Library. All I know is Black Library is its own organization with its own overhead (meaning Plant, equipment, employees, tax, etc.) and are we again arriving at the point where GW holding sees that as not necessary? We may be.   

Edited November 15, 2022 by kamedake88

[theSpirea]

Thank you for providing the input based on your experience from your field.

As much as BL as a publisher annoys me, I don't see GW closing it. They are still publishing tons of novels every year and in the past few years acquired a number of new authors. If my sheet is correct, there's close to 40 novels published this year alone. They are pushing more their FOMO strategy, don't want to keep any stocks, and don't want to bother with any marketing or sale their books via retailers. I still don't consider it as a sign BL shutting down.

 

If they do shut it down and stop publishing fiction, I will consider it as one of the biggest failures in publishing history.

[kamedake88]

Of course, and my pleasure. I'm not advocating for it one way or the other. I'm just offering a possible explanation based upon a position with not a lot of data. To be perfectly honest, I doubt there is anything going on other than someone had an idea that they think will save a little bit of money. I.e. removing one olive from a jar to meet a quota. We'll see of course. 

Edited November 15, 2022 by kamedake88

[Cactus]

On 11/15/2022 at 11:13 AM, Casual Heresy said:

 

As someone working in publishing just now, I would dispute this (at least for the UK). Print is nowhere near dead, as Nielsen's 2022 first-half market report showing record breaking print sales, attests to. Profits are always low in publishing due to low margins (thanks Amazon), but while ebook sales have generally stagnated over the past few years, print sales have actually grown.

 

BL has all the same problems as any other publisher right now (low margins on book sales, sky-high paper prices, etc), but it has always struggled to engage with the wider industry its actually part of.  They keep trying to sell books as GW does models, which works on us as collectors invested in the IP, but dosen't get them a wider audience of people. 

 

You are probably right in regards to GW needing to see growth. I think BL has continually shot itself in the foot, by only using GW stores as its primary market. Their initial sales on a title are always low because hardbacks are exclusive to GW shops in most cases. They aren't really developing a secondary market in bookshops and among audiences that don't play the games. They don't engage with the wider industry through external reviews or previews in things like the Bookseller, which is vital for other publishers as a source of free (or low cost) advertising (the closest I've seen is First Wall popping up in the top 50 one week, which is based on sales data, not anything BL did). It's a vicious cycle that has led us to where we are now.

I don't think Black Library even communicates with the Warhammer stores. When I have asked in my local the staff don't know what the upcoming releases are (I mean publically announced, not secret advance notice stuff) or what stock they will receive.

 

As for corporate structure, I never got the impression that Black Library or Forge World are distinct businesses in a legal sense. I believe they're departments within the one company that is Games Workshop Ltd. Hence management believing they could merge BL and the design studio, make some operating cost savings, and still produce the same product. It's all words right?

[Moonreaper666]

BL should stick to hard numbers such as losses and new recruits. Otherwise we have situations like in Echoes of Eternity which implies the Legions were much bigger in the Siege than during the Great Crusade

 

It feels like the Blood Angels had 350k Marines while the World Eaters had over 800k in that book alone