Black Library should reprint more books especially Primarch novels.

[Krelious]

As a warhammer 40k fan I can say I have many books but have recently been binging and buying new books as I prefer to read hardcopies and not stare at a screen more than I need to or listen to an audio book. However I have found trying to acquire certain "older" books has become kind of insane in particular some of the Primarch novels are running in the $100-$200 range on ebay and people selling even soft back books for $50+. I think this is kind of insane and black library should take stock of demand and print more books. It's insane that the Alpharius novel isnt being sold anywhere besides the collectors edition and it came out in 2021.

If I had known at the time something like this would happen I would have bought the books. I drove 50 minutes out of town to buy a copy of the Jagatai Khan primarch book at a normal price.

 

[Fire Golem]

I’ve been thinking this exact thing the last couple of days. After seeing Roomsky’s re-review of the Lion novella I went looking for a copy, I can’t even find copies of that at a stupid price let alone a decent one. Had a look for the Luther book too, which is what, just over a year old? No copies anywhere. 

[Tolmeus]

It seems like a total loss for the fans and economical waste for GW / BL. Same thing about the contigent of limited editions. They each get sold out in 5min. Why not increase the numbers of available books? There have to be obvious reasons to not use this opportunity to achieve bigger sales and earn money. 

[Xenith]

Have you emailed them to say what you want reprinted? They do read everything. They have at least once put out a vote on what older book should be reprinted, and they have started regularly doing runs of older books. 

Here's the first result that came up in google, but there's loads more.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2022/02/26/black-library-fill-the-gaps-in-your-horus-heresy-collection-with-the-latest-print-on-demand/

 

Edit: 

there's the one with the vote from 3 months ago to determine what older book they reprint:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2022/07/27/cast-your-vote-to-see-a-fan-favourite-novel-return-to-print-with-the-black-library-readers-choice/

[Xenith]

45 minutes ago, Tolmeus said:

They each get sold out in 5min. Why not increase the numbers of available books?

There's something of a global paper shortage at the moment, and physical printers are highly in demand with sometimes 1-2 year leadtimes on stuff. GW is only just getting to grips with producing enough of the things they make themselves, never mind things made by 3rd parties.

This is one of the reasons they're looking at, and have, moved print capacity to the Lenton HQ. 

[DarkChaplain]

The global paper shortage may be a factor, but it would a) not be exclusive to BL and b) this has not marked a change in their corporate strategy at all.

It's precisely in line with their strategy for the past 5 years. Low print runs, pumping up FOMO with artificial scarcety and appearances of being a premium item for collectors. It's something they've been doing regardless of global crises - this one merely gives them an excuse to continue with that while deflecting criticism.

On the same page we have seen them move clearly away from digital first releases - even digital shorts are a rarity, pretty much restricted to twice a year for a themed week of 5 shorts getting dropped, and advent, which they also castrated in scale. Instead of sticking with quarterly Inferno! anthologies, which supposedly replaced digital mondays, they just got rid of both formats.

They've not even done digital pre-releases during the pandemic years, despite other publishers realizing that delaying their stuff forever wasn't going to fly, and people were still eager to buy prints after having bought and read the ebook months earlier.

Instead they keep doubling down on special and limited editions, like this week's 3 sets of reprints. Like an Ahriman mega edition. Tons of overpriced gimmick editions this year in particular. But maintaining a back catalog of their most notable series? Nah.

[Scribe]

It has been extremely frustrating, trying to get paper copies. A lot of the releases dont even hit my local, unless its a short window for the HH/Siege series.

Super annoying.

[System Sound]

They make small Print runs and then complain that the sales are low, thus axing series halfway. I'm still mad about Rise of ynarri getting the boot.

[Knockagh]

Its also infuriating when I recommended a book to someone and they can’t even buy it. I doubt it will change anytime soon. The primarch books will probably get an anthology but how long those will stay in print is anyones guess. Some of them your not missing very much though. 
As DC rightly says, it’s all part of their strategy, and it’s working. Low stock, quick sales and plenty of fomo. I know I just buy books because I know they won’t be there if I don’t. 
One other area it does effect me is the Age of Sigmar books. I rarely read them but not being able to buy them means I dont even try anymore. 
And then there’s the terror of the Siege release days. I shudder at the very mention

[Tymell]

100% agreed, and it's very frustrating for me trying to finish up my HH collection.

Maybe it's just the area I live in, but it seems to have become markedly worse in recent times. Until fairly recently (maybe a year or two ago) I could pop into my local geek or book store and find a range of HH books, and going quite a ways back. Now I can scour store after store after store and I barely even find a Siege book or two, let alone one from the main numbered HH series.

[Tolmeus]

It is not an issue exclusive to your region. I live in Germany and suffer the same problem. Also, different online book shops like Thalia or even Element Games haven't sufficient stocks anymore. For example 'Legion' just vanished (unless you want pay 100£ on Ebay). I was really surprised to even see 'Flight of the Eisenstein' and 'The First Heretic' paperbacks back in stock on GW. 

Edited October 12, 2022 by Tolmeus

[Moonreaper666]

My guess is that BL/GW focuses on Limited Editions, Hardcovers and Ebooks to rake in the money. Supply and Demand still applies even in Warhammer.

[DarkChaplain]

I don't really think you understand what's meant by "supply and demand", if you think BL is acting according to that principle, or even well. Demand outstrips supply by multitudes, by design, and it's costing them sales.

[cheywood]

On 10/22/2022 at 10:15 AM, Moonreaper666 said:

My guess is that BL/GW focuses on Limited Editions, Hardcovers and Ebooks to rake in the money. Supply and Demand still applies even in Warhammer.

The focus is specifically on limited editions and ebooks, not hardcovers. It’s nothing to do with supply and demand, GW is likely focusing on the products with the highest margins so they can squeeze as much profit from each sale as possible. 

[Scribe]

10 minutes ago, cheywood said:

The focus is specifically on limited editions and ebooks, not hardcovers. It’s nothing to do with supply and demand, GW is likely focusing on the products with the highest margins so they can squeeze as much profit from each sale as possible. 

 

 

Yes, it would be the margins, and knowing they wont have wasted stock.

 

The fact the Vaults of Terra series is unavailable is a crime against humanity.

 

[Moonreaper666]

Don't Hardcovers cost more than Paperbacks ergo make GW more money?

[Roomsky]

I was in my local GW the other day, and their Heresy selection was Horus Rising, False Gods, and the Siege books. I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry at that.

 

Whatever BL's intentions, the Heresy is still their flagship series; I wouldn't be surprised if the Heresy captures the attention of more people than the other books combined. And yet every week I see another Reddit thread asking why everything past Fulgrim costs $100 on the secondary market. 

 

I know we're pulping the dead horse at this point but "hmm, what if we just don't make easy money?" is hair-pulling.

[Tymell]

On 10/30/2022 at 5:20 PM, Roomsky said:

I was in my local GW the other day, and their Heresy selection was Horus Rising, False Gods, and the Siege books. I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry at that.

 

Same all around too: including where I live, I've been to three different countries in the last few months, and in each one I've checked GWs, book stores and local geek shops. Same thing almost everywhere: they have maybe the opening trilogy and a handful of Siege books, and that's it. I found one FLGS that had a small selection more, but even then not much. Hell, a lot of more general book stores, even bigger ones, don't even have any HH books anymore, when they used to have whole shelves of them.

 

In one of the GWs I had an employee come up and ask if he could help. I nodded towards the barren HH section saying I was hunting around to fill some gaps in my collection, and he was nodding his head and finishing the sentence with me before I was half way done saying it. I was very clearly not the first person asking about this, this is something he (and I suspect many others) had obviously seen many times.

 

Given that what we're after here is more print runs, it feels like GW stubbornly refusing to print money.

Edited November 3, 2022 by Tymell