Upcoming BL Stuff - 2023

[DarkChaplain]

Just a quick note: Grim Repast didn't get its audiobook on launch. That only dropped at the end of February 2022, whereas the print/ebook retailed in September 2021. That very much had an impact on the book's buzz. I know I only read it sometime after the audiobook dropped.

 

Similar was true for Dark Harvest, by the way.

[theSpirea]

It's hard to confirm how much of an impact releasing audiobooks later has on sales. We simply don't have enough data to tell. Is it 5 %? Is it 30 %? If it really makes that much of a difference for sales, what's stopping BL from waiting for the audiobook to be ready and putting it out at the same time? The Crime/Horror imprints aren't necessarily tied to tabletop/miniatures that Grim Repast really needed to be out in September 2021.

 

note: staggered vs simultaneous releases are nothing unusual in the publishing industry. Staggered release doesn't automatically mean lower overall sales. Some publishers/authors prefer this way as it's another marketing strategy and in some instances it might provide better results for them.

 

What we can tell, the whole Crime/Horror hype died pretty quickly and anthologies are performing much worse compared to novels (nothing new) but it still doesn't stop BL from pushing almost a 1:1 ratio novel/anthology for these imprints.

Edited August 23, 2023 by theSpirea

[Felix Antipodes]

For my part I am still very much hanging on every Crime imprint release, even with the mishandling and self limitations GW/BL have put on imprint.  Overall, my biggest issue is the slow release rate rather than story quality.  Only being released in PB is also a bugbear to me but that is personal preference.

Horror has never been my jam as a genre, even outside of BL, so I’ve only read a few of that range - most notably Fehervari’s entry.  Those who like this genre are usually pretty  loyal and vocal bunch, so I would put low sales down to insufficient PR in the right places by GW.  Do they still send out review copies nowadays?

[SkimaskMohawk]

News at 11, anthologies bleed interest. If only they had a 50+ book series that could have been tapped for metrics. 

[DarkChaplain]

2 hours ago, SkimaskMohawk said:

News at 11, anthologies bleed interest. If only they had a 50+ book series that could have been tapped for metrics. 

 

Even more so when they're only collecting previously released eShorts! I pretty much doubt that even the Heresy saw big dips with books like Age of Darkness or Mark of Calth, which were entirely new stuff (though iirc, I think they pre-released the Anthony Reynolds short from MoC as it featured Marduk?)

[DukeLeto69]

15 hours ago, theSpirea said:

Horror vs Crime, I couldn't resist and tried looking a bit more into available data and if there's anything it would tell us.

 

Let's start with Paperback vs Hardback

 

The average hardback length is 56.5K words, for paperback we're looking at 88K words Horror and 95K words Crime. There's no information on who decides which title gets paperback or hardback treatment. We don't know if this is decided before the author starts writing the book and is given 40-60K words limit or if it's decided later based on the first draft. The only confirmed part is that BL decided hardback vs paperback based on the length of the book, applicable only for Horror in this instance. This was confirmed by Nick Kyme during one of the BL Events.

 

What does it mean? Well, since we don't know if it's the authors' or editors' decision we don't know whom to blame if the book is rushed and would use another 50-100 pages. Here I'd like to point out that not that long ago I made a post about Primarchs novels length and it was fairly clear from the data it's very likely the authors' decision to cut some titles shorter. Quick recap: Primarch novels average 53K words, ranging from 44K to 61K - that's a pretty substantial difference (38%).

 

Back to Horror vs Crime. Let's check what other data we have available: reviews/ratings. I used three sources: Amazon.com (there's barely any difference between .com and .co.uk), Audible, and Goodreads. I'm not aware of any other site that would track Warhammer books (sales/ratings/reviews).

 

Here are two charts showing the number of ratings combined from all three sources. Since some of the titles are not available in audio I've also added a comparison of all sources vs Goodreads only. Yes, Goodreads also includes ratings from people listening to the Audiobook

 

Here are publishing dates:

Title	Published
Bloodlines	2020-August
Flesh and Steel	2020-September
Grim Repast	2021-September
Wraithbone Phoenix, The	2022-August
No Good Men [Anthology]	2020-August
Vorbis Conspiracy, The [Anthology]	2022-September
Broken City [Anthology]	2021-August
Sanction & Sin [Anthology]	2021-August
King of the Spoil, The	2023-June

 

 

Title	Published
Oubliette, The	2019-December
Wicked and the Damned, The [Anthology]	2019-March
Maledictions [Anthology]	2019-March
Dark Harvest	2019-November
Castle of Blood	2019-November
Invocations [Anthology]	2019-November
House of Night and Chain, The	2019-October
Sepulturum	2020-March
Anathemas [Anthology]	2020-March
Reverie, The	2020-October
Harrowed Paths, The [Anthology]	2021-February
Deacon of Wounds, The	2021-January
Accursed, The [Anthology]	2021-October
Gothghul Hollow	2022-January
Bookkeeper's Skull, The	2022-January
Briardark	2022-October
Resting Places, The [Anthology]	2023-March
Black-Eyed Saint	2023-March

 

 

 

 

Both imprints started strong but it seems the initial excitement quickly faded away. Can't really see the Horror doing that much worse, especially if we consider it includes AoS which on its own isn't that much popular to begin with.

 

If mods believe it doesn't belong here, feel free to delete/move it. I couldn't find any other appropriate thread and wasn't sure if starting a new one would be a good idea.

 

Wow good analysis. I think it is a good assumption that the number of reviews is an indicator of sales volumes (or am I missing the point?)

 

On the word count thing...it is 100% BL commissioning the authors to write to a specific brief. The author will get an advance commensurate with the expected word count. If the author writes too much then it either undergoes severe editing (more likely for less established authors) or BL have to consider a change of format (which is why The Reverie by Peter Fehervari is a Horror paperback not a hard back).

[grailkeeper]

Jude Reid confirmed on twitter Ashes of Cadia should be out in Sept.

[cheywood]

A few release date updates for everyone:  https://www.fnac.com/e65968/Black-Library?SFilt=1!34

 

The Rose in Darkness comes up for preorder on September 2nd, release on the 9th

 

Ashes of Cadia comes up for preorder on the 9th and releases on the 16th

 

Yndrasta comes up for preorder on the 16th, release on the 23rd

 

There’s also a Tyranid short story week from the 5th-9th, featuring a Tchaikovsky short story

Genefather and Fall of Cadia will therefore be up for preorder on the 23rd or 30th

Edited August 26, 2023 by cheywood

[theSpirea]

Seeing photos of Rfalmslayer, makes me wonder, how many LEs were released with some issue.

 

Lords of Mars box set had messed up logos, the latest Dawn of Fire was missing a logo so not matching the previous entries. I've seen quite a lot of posts about Fall of Cadia being damaged due to trinkets. The Shadow of the Eighth people reported the black paper was stuck to the cover and in some cases damaged the colors.

 

This is just off the top of my head for the latest releases. 

[Ubiquitous1984]

27 minutes ago, theSpirea said:

Seeing photos of Rfalmslayer, makes me wonder, how many LEs were released with some issue.

 

Lords of Mars box set had messed up logos, the latest Dawn of Fire was missing a logo so not matching the previous entries. I've seen quite a lot of posts about Fall of Cadia being damaged due to trinkets. The Shadow of the Eighth people reported the black paper was stuck to the cover and in some cases damaged the colors.

 

This is just off the top of my head for the latest releases. 

I’ve got pretty much every LE, and to be honest the vast majority arrive as advertised and in decent shape.  The Fall of Cadia indentation on the front cover is the first true ‘damage’ I have experienced with a BL LE book.  Missing logos/typos are not much of an issue IMO and rarely occurs, but I appreciate that it really annoys some collectors.  

[Felix Antipodes]

I’m more concerned with the recent rise in these sort of issues rather than errors than the distant past.  If it continues to happen with the current printer, that’s a problem.

Edited August 27, 2023 by Felix Antipodes

[DarkChaplain]

Even IF the printers are messing up, the problem still lies almost entirely with BL staff.

 

THEY are the ones sighting the first proofs. They are the ones signing off on them. They are the ones saying "good enough". They're the ones sending out the author copies with such glaring issues. They're giving the okay before printing of the entire batch goes ahead. The least they ought to be doing is to make sure these prints are as flawless as possible in the first place - and missing logos, typos in the titles etc are the first thing that gets noticed. Especially when it's book x in a series, how are you NOT lining them up in your office shelf and see that there's something wrong with the spine?

 

Either their inspections really suck something fierce and they have no idea what to look out for, or they simply don't care in the first place. Which is a reeeeeally bad stance to have when it comes to massively overpriced prestige luxury editions like BL's traditional limited editions.

 

Either way, they're bad at their jobs and it shows in these instances. These are the books with the highest profit marges for them, and they can't even be bothered to make sure to get them right.

[OpossumStrong]

WB trilogy only 1000 copies 

 

 

Edit:Ok seems i got a bit confused with other releases, i was sure previous trilogy's had 1250 copies, but no, DI and NL had 1k limit as well.

 

As well we got The rose in darkness and Blackstone omnibus.

 

I'll probably skip those books, mostly I'm excited for Genefather coming next month.

 

Edited August 27, 2023 by OpossumStrong

[System Sound]

Good luck to any one trying to get the box set. The Tyranids preorders probably gonna crash the website...

[DarkChaplain]

...multiple weeks of nothing and then they go and drop those three at the same time as over half a dozen new Tyranid kits, Codex and Combat Patrol... Their website isn't good enough for this.

[darkhorse0607]

No audio for the Word Bearers trilogy? What is this the middle ages?

[LemartestheLost]

I’m pumped for The Rose in Darkness, hopefully I can grab a copy before the site crashes this next weekend. I really do hope GW commissions a book for each of the main orders of the sisters. Our Martyred Lady gets enough screen time (in my opinion, at least) let the Ebon Chalice and Argent Shroud receive some attention.

[theSpirea]

1 hour ago, LemartestheLost said:

I’m pumped for The Rose in Darkness, hopefully I can grab a copy before the site crashes this next weekend. I really do hope GW commissions a book for each of the main orders of the sisters. Our Martyred Lady gets enough screen time (in my opinion, at least) let the Ebon Chalice and Argent Shroud receive some attention.

This is the second book in the series, originally announced as 6 books, one for each order.

[WrathOfTheLion]

I'll try and grab the Word Bearers trilogy, haven't had a chance to read those and they're my main chaos faction.

[theSpirea]

Another *** vote for reprint round: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/08/31/black-library-readers-choice-poll-make-your-vote-count/

 

So many of the titles are part of a series or a trilogy. Why would I want to reprint book 1 and still have the rest out of print?

 

Please give me Shira's trilogy limited box set, that series deserve love.

[Roomsky]

Please God let this be the year I can get a fresh copy of Lord of the Night.

[DarkChaplain]

I just don't get these picks. A bunch of these are in omnibus editions that would be much more sensible to make sure are generally available in retail. Some of them have only been reprinted recently, too.

[Felix Antipodes]

I would be more interested in these polls if the winner(s) were reprinted in a format deserving of them, such as a series of HB special editions rather than a cheap and nasty PB that will come and go in a flash.  If you are going to honour past books do it right.

[Bobss]

Space Marine Battles books should be included every_single_year in this. They are nice and chunky, with an iconic art style and even the weaker entries have at least a cult following among the fanbase. I know Helsreach featured and won, but what about Battle of the Fang? This was Wraight's real breakout novel imo

[theSpirea]

1 hour ago, Bobss said:

Space Marine Battles books should be included every_single_year in this. They are nice and chunky, with an iconic art style and even the weaker entries have at least a cult following among the fanbase. I know Helsreach featured and won, but what about Battle of the Fang? This was Wraight's real breakout novel imo

War of Fang received special edition treatment a few months ago.