Upcoming BL Stuff 2024

[Ubiquitous1984]

1 hour ago, byrd9999 said:

 

I had no idea Thousand Sons was re-recorded! I have the Martin Ellis version, because the TS are my favourite faction, but I've never made it through the whole thing. It's a real struggle. Martin Ellis' reading is so campy, it's like an episode of the Avengers (Steed & Mrs Peel, Avengers). I love the 1960s Avengers, but grimdark it ain't.

 

Any idea why it was re-recorded, other than it could be done much better?

It’s probably the most complained about audiobook, so I guess BL responded to fan feedback and re-recorded it about seven years after the original release.  
 

I think I’ve found literally one other person apart from myself in all my time online who liked the Martyn Ellis version haha.  

[kamedake88]

I wrote a long post in a similar thread a year ago on what I believed was happening at GW and BL in general and while not vindicated because while I did specifically speculate I doubt any of my musings were/are correct but I did smell blood in the water given my career. More a my Spidey Senses were warning me about the dog dirt I was about to step in feeling. I still maintain what I wrote there though unless I see evidence to the contrary of course.  

Edited May 18 by kamedake88

[DukeLeto69]

5 hours ago, kamedake88 said:

I wrote a long post in a similar thread a year ago on what I believed was happening at GW and BL in general and while not vindicated because while I did specifically speculate I doubt any of my musings were/are correct but I did smell blood in the water given my career. More a my Spidey Senses were warning me about the dog dirt I was about to step in feeling. I still maintain what I wrote there though unless I see evidence to the contrary of course.  

Link?

[darkhorse0607]

For this week in pre-orders:

 

40k:
German Witchbringer by Steven Fischer

German Horus Heresy Anthology XIV

 

AoS:

Realmslayer Legend of the Doomseeker

Darkoath by Chris Thursten (this isn't in it's normal spot with the rest of the books, if you go looking, scroll up a ways)

 

so something? Kind of? Unless you don't count AoS?

 

Also I don't know if those AoS ones are reprints, so forgive me there. I feel like from the description the Realmslayer one is

 

Meh

Edited May 19 by darkhorse0607

[LemartestheLost]

On 5/16/2024 at 8:14 PM, DarkChaplain said:

.....on the starter set full reveal WarCom page, they then let you know at the bottom that Gary Kloster has written a tie-in novel for the starter set. YOU COULD HAVE SHOWN THAT THING ON THE PRE-RECORDED STREAM WITH PRE-RECORDED TEASER VIDEOS SPLICED IN THAT YOU BROADCAST!

 

Then again, they're such professionals, they originally only updated the WarCom EN-US/CA page with the stream even being live. The EN (UK/Elsewhere) site only got updated 20 minutes into the stream. So... after all the model reveals were over.

 

Unwanted stepchild indeed! Although it's possible that they have done this purposely as to not dredge up more scalping drama and lay low. Why announce it on stream if GW knows that it will probably sell out Day 1 because of the inevitably small print run? Just a random thought!

[Noserenda]

Oh yeah a Thousand Sons was cringey as hell in places, i recently listened to Fall of Cadia and didnt find the narrator at all good or bad tbh.

[Urauloth]

You know, if they're redoing audiobooks so they get narrators consistent across a series... how about those two Gaunt books Longworth didn't do?

[The Scorpion]

On 5/19/2024 at 12:23 PM, LemartestheLost said:

 

Unwanted stepchild indeed! Although it's possible that they have done this purposely as to not dredge up more scalping drama and lay low. Why announce it on stream if GW knows that it will probably sell out Day 1 because of the inevitably small print run? Just a random thought!

You might be onto something, but how effective can that strategy really be?

[LemartestheLost]

8 hours ago, The Scorpion said:

You might be onto something, but how effective can that strategy really be?

 It isn't in the long term, but I suspect that GW knows AoS fiction isn't AS sought after as 30k/40k and is willing to let this release go gently into that good night, as long as they don't have to listen to BOTH AoS and 40k fans caterwaul about scalpers after "New Edition Pre-Order Day".

[theSpirea]

I highly doubt anyone would scalp AoS, especially product tie-in novels. Dominion LEs were up for ages, and I occasionally see people selling them under RRP. This is just pure crappy marketing from GW rather than some conspiracy they do it on purpose to avoid the book selling out on day one.

[cheywood]

The drought is soon to be over. I repeat. The drought is soon to be over. Next month the rain will come, in the form of Steve Lyon’s Siege of Vraks novel. It’s out on the 22nd of June, preorder presumably on the 8th. Ideally this means the LE dam has burst and the street will soon flood with overpriced luxury books, but it’s too early to say for sure. 

[The Scorpion]

3 hours ago, cheywood said:

The drought is soon to be over. I repeat. The drought is soon to be over. Next month the rain will come, in the form of Steve Lyon’s Siege of Vraks novel. It’s out on the 22nd of June, preorder presumably on the 8th. Ideally this means the LE dam has burst and the street will soon flood with overpriced luxury books, but it’s too early to say for sure. 

Just in time for my birthday! I have liked Lyon's stuff so far so I'm pretty hyped about this one.

[rookie40K]

On 5/18/2024 at 2:40 PM, Ubiquitous1984 said:

It’s probably the most complained about audiobook, so I guess BL responded to fan feedback and re-recorded it about seven years after the original release.  
 

I think I’ve found literally one other person apart from myself in all my time online who liked the Martyn Ellis version haha.  

It was me. I am the only other person.  I personally really liked Martyn Ellis versions of the first 3 HH books a lot more than the newer ones. Especially when he did Horus’s voice. I still have the original first 5 HH on CD and very glad to have those versions. IMHO the new versions are much more drier and less exciting. The music added during transition to chapters was also fantastic as it added a lot.

[skylerboodie]

 

As per new topic in News & Rumours subforum; i'm on holiday that week so very sad not to be able to complete my collection, again.

[Malkydel]

18 minutes ago, skylerboodie said:

 

As per new topic in News & Rumours subforum; i'm on holiday that week so very sad not to be able to complete my collection, again.

Hopefully you're able to find someone who could go in your stead? I imagine lots of people will be reaching out to friends.

[DarkChaplain]

Lelith coming up for preorder next week. Obviously limited edition only, so for all of us other plebs who don't fight over those obscenely priced editions, it's another dead week.

[darkhorse0607]

Good to see that we are back to LE only at launch not the more reasonable method of every version

[DarkChaplain]

Meanwhile, those books with delayed limited editions still haven't been released at all, outside of the accidental releases of Ahriman's audiobook first and ebook later....

[Felix Antipodes]

8 hours ago, DarkChaplain said:

Lelith coming up for preorder next week. Obviously limited edition only, so for all of us other plebs who don't fight over those obscenely priced editions, it's another dead week.

This would have been me until recently.  Now happily waiting for the ‘unlimited LE’ edition (since there is no such thing as a true unlimited release from BL)

[Bobss]

On 5/18/2024 at 9:57 AM, grailkeeper said:

I wonder if Black Librarybis a loss leader for Gw? I doubt it but maybe it's why they're throttling back?

 

I recall ADB, during Better Days, sometime in the 2010s, stating that BL is one of the most profitable wings of GW, in terms of income vs. expenditure. And the time I think that was perfectly believable and even logically speaking it makes a good degree of sense.

 

Nowadays, however, there seems to be a very obvious stranglehold on BL, from both a creative and corporate angle. I'm not even harping on about 'The Good Ol' Days of 2009', but even compared to 5-10 years ago, there appears to be an artificial bottleneck. It's difficult to elaborate on what I mean here, without falling into random anecdotal experiences and personal opinions of my own (especially from the perspective of someone with an increasingly reduced interest in this stuff), but I think it's noticeable something is going on or has recently gone on. Looking back to 2014 or even 2019, for example, as an outsider-looking-in, it appeared much easier for a book to be pitched, written, edited, printed and distributed. There are tons of author/team statements over the past 15 years that corroborate this feeling. Are books any harder to write or edit now? I doubt it. Pitch? I suspect so. Print? I'm not so sure: straight-to-ebook, special editions and limited paperback runs/endless reruns of Horus Rising, seem to be GW's strategy now. I don't particularly like special editions, but I don't necessarily see them as part of the problem - they may even be GW's attempt to maximise profit from the market that prefers physical copies. Is it harder to distribute books now? Maybe. We've all seen a massive reduction in the amount of BL fiction in non-GW retailers. I honestly don't know.

 

I suspect the problem is with WarCom, or rather, what WarCom represents. It seems impossible nowadays for something to be released organically, without a load of WarCom noise. Ironically, there are also times when books are put out without WarCom noise, but this comes across more a case of bizarre inconsistency than choice. Is calling the people who work on this stuff a bunch of names helpful, or kind or even right? No, it's not. They're just doing their job. However, it legitimately seems impossible for something, say, like ADB in 2012, at the peak of his powers, drive and freedom, to pitch his Black Legion series, write Talon. in 2013 and release it in 2014 - to happen in AD 2024. There's a hardback, a fancy hardback and then later a paperback. Simple enough. People will fire back at me and point to examples like the recent(ish) Angron book or the Minka trilogy, as examples of routine and 'classic' BL output, but I'm not convinced. There's something going on here, and it smells suspiciously similar to what authors talk about happening around 2015 with the whole departmental reshuffle. Maybe it's not a reshuffle, but more a case of trying to turn BL into this multi-media thing that either supplements model sales or appeals to a wider audience sitting on their sofas.

 

People tend to include covid and the SOT as major disruptions/distractions in regards to the BL machine and how it's behaved since 2020, but I don't know if these are responsible for what I believe is a complete change of mind from GW. Maybe they are more interested in this WH+, multi-media approach of trying to assimilate as many people as possible into the IP, at the cost of 'us lot' posting on fringe communities about why Kibre died in Saturnine

 

The 2010s were a terrible decade for me. I greatly preferred the 2000s, and while 2020-2021 was d0gsh1t, the 2020s are shaping up to be okay. That being said, I've recently been stricken by some genuine nostalgia for 2014, 15, 16. It was a fun time to be a BL reader!

Edited May 27 by Bobss

[byrd9999]

Cost of printing a book has more than doubled, shipping costs are much higher too. Warehouse storage costs money and takes up space for other items.

 

It's significantly less profitable than it used to be, sadly.

[DarkChaplain]

Meanwhile, ebooks are more popular and commonly accepted than they used to be, yet Black Library decided to give up on most of their digital releases and early digital releases for the holidays.

 

They tried pushing ebooks hard back in the day, when the audience wasn't as accepting, and gave up on it during the pandemic times when that exact thing was being adopted and pushed by almost every relevant publisher on the market due to the production issues of print. Like, what are you doing, GW/BL?

 

Heck, can you even buy digital battletomes and codex stuff from GW anymore?

[Fedor]

On 5/27/2024 at 1:10 PM, Bobss said:

 

I recall ADB, during Better Days, sometime in the 2010s, stating that BL is one of the most profitable wings of GW, in terms of income vs. expenditure. And the time I think that was perfectly believable and even logically speaking it makes a good degree of sense.

 

Nowadays, however, there seems to be a very obvious stranglehold on BL, from both a creative and corporate angle. I'm not even harping on about 'The Good Ol' Days of 2009', but even compared to 5-10 years ago, there appears to be an artificial bottleneck. It's difficult to elaborate on what I mean here, without falling into random anecdotal experiences and personal opinions of my own (especially from the perspective of someone with an increasingly reduced interest in this stuff), but I think it's noticeable something is going on or has recently gone on. Looking back to 2014 or even 2019, for example, as an outsider-looking-in, it appeared much easier for a book to be pitched, written, edited, printed and distributed. There are tons of author/team statements over the past 15 years that corroborate this feeling. Are books any harder to write or edit now? I doubt it. Pitch? I suspect so. Print? I'm not so sure: straight-to-ebook, special editions and limited paperback runs/endless reruns of Horus Rising, seem to be GW's strategy now. I don't particularly like special editions, but I don't necessarily see them as part of the problem - they may even be GW's attempt to maximise profit from the market that prefers physical copies. Is it harder to distribute books now? Maybe. We've all seen a massive reduction in the amount of BL fiction in non-GW retailers. I honestly don't know.

 

I suspect the problem is with WarCom, or rather, what WarCom represents. It seems impossible nowadays for something to be released organically, without a load of WarCom noise. Ironically, there are also times when books are put out without WarCom noise, but this comes across more a case of bizarre inconsistency than choice. Is calling the people who work on this stuff a bunch of names helpful, or kind or even right? No, it's not. They're just doing their job. However, it legitimately seems impossible for something, say, like ADB in 2012, at the peak of his powers, drive and freedom, to pitch his Black Legion series, write Talon. in 2013 and release it in 2014 - to happen in AD 2024. There's a hardback, a fancy hardback and then later a paperback. Simple enough. People will fire back at me and point to examples like the recent(ish) Angron book or the Minka trilogy, as examples of routine and 'classic' BL output, but I'm not convinced. There's something going on here, and it smells suspiciously similar to what authors talk about happening around 2015 with the whole departmental reshuffle. Maybe it's not a reshuffle, but more a case of trying to turn BL into this multi-media thing that either supplements model sales or appeals to a wider audience sitting on their sofas.

 

People tend to include covid and the SOT as major disruptions/distractions in regards to the BL machine and how it's behaved since 2020, but I don't know if these are responsible for what I believe is a complete change of mind from GW. Maybe they are more interested in this WH+, multi-media approach of trying to assimilate as many people as possible into the IP, at the cost of 'us lot' posting on fringe communities about why Kibre died in Saturnine

 

The 2010s were a terrible decade for me. I greatly preferred the 2000s, and while 2020-2021 was d0gsh1t, the 2020s are shaping up to be okay. That being said, I've recently been stricken by some genuine nostalgia for 2014, 15, 16. It was a fun time to be a BL reader!

 

I definitely don't think GW cares much about BL now that HH is finished, and think there's a good chance you're right that creative freedom regarding pitches has been reeled in, at least when talking about AOS/40K that isn't model/campaign/big events for this edition related. I wonder if Horror/Crime ranges were created in part with the idea of them being an outlet for the writers. Both were great ideas, yet have become increasingly neglected.

 

The period of time that we first got into the books can create a bias in our outlook, though. To me, the 2010s were already into an era of much increased direct tie-in to tabletop books (which is fine as long as it doesn't overwhelm author-driven pitch stories) and blatantly populist tabletop sales-driven mandates like the Space Marine Battles/Heroes/Conquests/Victories/Handjobs deluge. It also saw the bloated commercialization of the HH series.

 

To a weary, sliightly older '90s era head like me, the period when GW's novel/novella fiction (short stories have always been a more hands-off realm of their own imo) truly seemed to be 90% author-driven/left to their own devices stories was the pre-BL late-'80s and early '90s era and the first half-decade or so of BL. By the end of the '00s and with the HH series picking up steam, things were changing and expanding quickly. That's not to say one was necessarily much better than the other, though: the pre-late '00s era had a much smaller stable of regular authors (particularly for 40k) and often paid blatant homage to classic pulp-era adventure stories/ swords and sorcery, which is not for everyone. Some of the GW-affiliated guys and debut authors were also pretty raw: McNeill, Thorpe, Counter, and Swallow. That was the messy, gonzo Unification Wars era; the '10s were the Great Crusade's glorious expansion; the '20s are the aftermath of the Heresy, the beginning of stagnation and neglect.

[Orange Knight]

Is there an explanation for the dire state Black Library finds itself in, in terms of releasing novels at a satisfactory pace?

 

It wasn't long ago that there were multiple books to look forward to every year, covering key characters and events on a regular basis. Now entire factions and legendary characters are being ignored.

[theSpirea]

It' all speculations on our part. There's no data (outside of lack of new releases) to be able to tell what the heck is going on.

 

We have LE coming out next week so we'll see if things start picking up again. We know there are books ready, sitting somewhere but just being delayed for whatever reason.