Upcoming BL Stuff 2024

[cheywood]

4 hours ago, theSpirea said:

Here are numbers for the past 4 years:

2023: 31 novels (10 AoS, 19 40K, 2 HH), 2 novellas, 35 short stories, 5 anthologies
2022: 38 novels (11 AoS, 22 40K, 5 HH), 1 novella, 46 short stories, 11 anthologies
2021: 26 novels (6 AoS, 16 40K, 4 HH), 6 novellas, 32 short stories, 10 anthologies
2020: 25 novels (5 AoS, 16 40K, 4 HH), 9 novellas, 61 short stories, 10 anthologies, 4 audio dramas

* published year is consider when ebook/hardback came out. For example, Warboss LE was in 2022 and ebook/hardback in 2023 = the book is tracked under 2023 only. Or Astorath LE was in 2020 and general release in 2022, tracked only under 2023

Thanks so much for posting this! I generally go by first publication, be it LE or regular edition, which would explain our numbers being slightly different.

[skylerboodie]

5 hours ago, norDrow said:

Here are my numbers. Release year is counted as the first year a story is available, whether that is in electronic or physical format.

 

This illustrates it well for me; whilst novel numbers hold up, the loss of audio dramas a few years ago, and dwindling novellas and large fall in short stories in the past few years makes a big difference to perception of overall BL output, even though the big releases (i.e. novels) are thankfully still coming through.

 

Plus, the generally worsening communication overall and apparent complete lack of care about the BL readership from GW gives the impression/fear of how much longer BL will be 'supported'.

Edited February 16 by skylerboodie
duplicated content whilst posting

[Kelborn]

17 hours ago, grailkeeper said:

If they do a scouring series would people prefer if it was largely

 

A) a fresh start with entirely new characters 

 

Or 

 

B) A continuation of the heresy?

 

A newnseries that carried on from almost 70 other books with dozens of incomplete plot lines comes with a fair  bit of baggage.

Imma go with

 

C) a mixture of both but having the Scouring not as a series like the HH but more like the SM Battles/ Conquest novels. Focusing on single events like the Iron Cage and thus fleshing out characters and chapters.

 

Think we can (at least partially) agree that GW wasn't very successfull in delovering "cohesive" series' (DoF, Beast Arises, HH and recently the Siege).

[darkhorse0607]

32 minutes ago, Kelborn said:

Imma go with

 

C) a mixture of both but having the Scouring not as a series like the HH but more like the SM Battles/ Conquest novels. Focusing on single events like the Iron Cage and thus fleshing out characters and chapters.

 

Think we can (at least partially) agree that GW wasn't very successfull in delovering "cohesive" series' (DoF, Beast Arises, HH and recently the Siege).

 

 

Agree. With the caveat that I would like the character series to continue for folks we haven't gotten yet. I don't think I'll ever get my Krole novel, but Raldoron in particular would benefit from having a character novel in the Scouring, especially since he was largely forgotten in the Heresy and he is the one who has to take the reigns post-Siege.

[Noserenda]

Krole definitely deserves a novel, in the Emperors top 3 minions and she gets almost no attention before being arbitrarily offed...

Raldoron i agree could definitely benefit from a novel to flesh him out a bit, hes not exactly void of characterisation but he is super overshadowed by the rest of the Blood angel cast, i think one a few of the "First captains" who they decided to name but clearly nobody felt a spark to run with, which is a damn shame because the Legion #2 is a potentially fascinating role in how they play off the Primarch, and potentially their history before the Primarch was discovered and their thoughts on the changes. 

[lansalt]

19 hours ago, skylerboodie said:

Plus, the generally worsening communication overall and apparent complete lack of care about the BL readership from GW gives the impression/fear of how much longer BL will be 'supported'.

I think BL will keep being a thing while it doesn't lose money. While it doesn't make huge profits like the rest of GW products, it seems to have a big impact in marketing terms, driving engagement and sales up. Just think about the whole ecosystem of youtubers making videos about the lore, all the memes, or even Henry Cavill posting photos with a BL book in his private jet.

[darkhorse0607]

10 hours ago, lansalt said:

I think BL will keep being a thing while it doesn't lose money. While it doesn't make huge profits like the rest of GW products, it seems to have a big impact in marketing terms, driving engagement and sales up. Just think about the whole ecosystem of youtubers making videos about the lore, all the memes, or even Henry Cavill posting photos with a BL book in his private jet.

 

See, that's the thing. I agree with this, but then at the same time GW will turn around and make it a hassle for fan animations, where things like Astartes probably did more to bring people into Warhammer than the last 5 years of BL combined and GW didn't have to lift a finger for it. The smart move would've been to let the creators (and folks like Sodaz, who got kind of screwed by GW) let them do their thing as long as it doesn't cross the line and let the community come to them. Just like with the loretubers, Henry Cavill, etc. Or even do what some gaming companies will and share/endorse the projects on social media.

 

GW is weird to me sometimes. They don't want to put any effort into BL to help with outreach on the miniatures side, nor do they want portions of the community doing it with things like animations. I guess they just want to put smoking Space Marine animations into Call of Duty

 

In other news, got a notification from Audible that the Purging of Kallidus by Thorpe is up there, narrated by Andrew Wincott. And now it's gone. So who knows what's going on with them

[DarkChaplain]

Problem is that copyright law is all manner of screwed. The moment GW wanted to do their own animations, they basically had to enforce their copyright on the major fan works, lest they lose the protection. There's many ways to go about it, of course, but technically, they gotta take appropriate steps to protect their IP. Not lifting a finger may have bitten them in the arse down the line, in a much larger way.

 

And let's not forget that they did offer a few of those animators to sign up with them for use of the IP first. That's one way of dealing with protecting the IP.

 

GW does a lot of reeeeeally stupid stuff (Spot the Space Marine, anyone?), but we shouldn't forget that copyright law at its core is a mess of really stupid rules.

[LemartestheLost]

On 2/16/2024 at 3:12 AM, DukeLeto69 said:

There is definite warp (publishing scheduling) shenanigans when it comes to author output.

 

For example, we know for a fact that Abnett wrote I Am Slaughter a few years before it eventually got published.

 

I believe (hope) BL have had authors writing books that they have been holding off from releasing due to wanting to get HH:SoT done and dusted. Abnett writing a book split into three volumes (and lore ramifications) may have forced some delay/rescheduling.

 

Then again maybe I am just wishlisting?

 

I think you're on to something. The Siege had to take focus because it had been almost two decades and people were getting impatient. Not only that, but Abnett hinted at another novel, possibly Pandaemonium coming soon. A lot of people are going to regard TEATD + the lore consequences/ramfications of it for/from Pandaemonium (and possibly the new "status quo" of 40k) as the culmination of Abnett's writing career. There ARE going to be major twists as such, and I reckon BL wants everybody in the writing stable on the same page before we experience something similar to 8th edition where the lore for Cadia/Rift/Guilliman/Primaris was poorly dumped at first and then was later smoothed out somewhat.

[darkhorse0607]

Up for next week:

 

Lazarus Enmity's Edge by Gary Kloster (Hardback, ebook, audiobook)

 

Cypher Lord of the Fallen by John French (paperback)

 

Purging of Kadillus by Gav Thorpe (audio, I guess that explains the notification I mentioned yesterday)

 

Caphias Cain print on demand (Death or Glory, Cain's Last Stand, Duty Calls) which goes until March 3rd

 

There's also an End Times book "Doom of the Old World" anthology/omnibus?

[grailkeeper]

I'm not sure why all old books aren't print o  demand, except in cases where BL mightnt have access to the text for some reason.

 

Is it an effort to drive up demand maybe?

[Felix Antipodes]

As a final coda to the “BL Celebrations” I notice the eshort package has failed to materialise.  No sign of the usual sub package advertised on the pre-order page last week, or as individual releases.

 

edit:  May have jumped the gun here - forgot to add in time difference.  Still, you’d think the sub would be up already.  Just a 404 error att. 

Edited February 19 by Felix Antipodes

[theSpirea]

9 hours ago, grailkeeper said:

I'm not sure why all old books aren't print o  demand, except in cases where BL mightnt have access to the text for some reason.

 

Is it an effort to drive up demand maybe?

BL is still a small publisher, so it's not feasible to have their full catalog on PoD. Additionally, you need a minimum number of copies ordered to justify the process, which wouldn't be the case for the majority of their titles. Printing a few hundreds copies is more more expensive per book than printing 5K. It would be a scheduling and logistical nightmare, with scenarios like 500 people ordering Valedor and 1200 people ordering Skarsnik. How would you schedule the print runs? Where would you store the books? Even the current PoD process takes up to half a year to produce and ship.

Furthermore, there's the concern of cannibalizing new releases

 

I wish they offered PoDs more often but it's not that profitable and hoping most of their catalog would be available via PoD is not possible. They have over 400 titles.

[Ubiquitous1984]

We’re just lucky we live in an age where ebooks are readily available.  25 years ago we’d all be stuffed!

[DarkChaplain]

So dead weeks left and right, and now a special edition for a novel from a few years ago, but nothing actually new? Fun. Never change, BL.

[Urauloth]

I'm a little concerned by the drop-off in new releases and announcements.

[theSpirea]

I'm thinking GW might have implemented new anti-scalper system (naive, I know) and maybe they want to first test it on AoS LE, on top of that a reprint

[darkhorse0607]

3 hours ago, DarkChaplain said:

So dead weeks left and right, and now a special edition for a novel from a few years ago, but nothing actually new? Fun. Never change, BL.

 

The new Lazarus novel is narrated by John Banks so at least I can be excited about that

[Felix Antipodes]

I won’t see the Lazarus novel for awhile.  I had some MTO stuff in my basket and forgot to change to send separately  so will pick up the ebook or delve into the audible edition while I wait.

[Nagashsnee]

8 hours ago, theSpirea said:

I'm thinking GW might have implemented new anti-scalper system (naive, I know) and maybe they want to first test it on AoS LE, on top of that a reprint

 

How is testing a anti scalping system with something no one wants to scalp a test? Like most of the AoS LE take a fair while to sell out. 

 

They want a test throw the Horus Primarch book out and see if the system holds up. 

[theSpirea]

4 hours ago, Nagashsnee said:

 

How is testing a anti scalping system with something no one wants to scalp a test? Like most of the AoS LE take a fair while to sell out. 

 

They want a test throw the Horus Primarch book out and see if the system holds up. 

You don't test it on hot goods, that's too late to find out it's not working. That is probably what happened with restocking the latest SoT. Even with not popular LE, you can still monitor traffic, gather data, and evaluate.

Or maybe there's nothing special behind and it's usual/scheduled release

 

[OpossumStrong]

There is a vote for book of the year, I really think they should make different polls for AoS and WH40k/HH.

Edited February 28 by OpossumStrong

[System Sound]

TEatD getting all 3 first places will be equally hilarious and sad...

 

Personally can't decide between Genefather and Cipher.

[skylerboodie]

Why they've included 2024 books in there is beyond me; oh yes, incompetence.

[theSpirea]

9 minutes ago, skylerboodie said:

Why they've included 2024 books in there is beyond me; oh yes, incompetence.

If you mean Lord of the Lance, it's because the timeframe is from February 2023 to January 2024.