Kevin's Watch

When's the damn mass market paerback edition coming out? This has been ridiculously long.

www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=br_ss_hs/0 ... +the+earth

Amazon has 2 different paperbacks listed, is this what you're looking for?

No, those are both Trade paperbacks (i.e., the larger sized ones). The mass market edition should have been released already (imho).

I have one, different cover from the hardback.

Is it from England? I don't see any in the US that have a different cover.

I did see that in October a paperback version of Runes was published in the UK that is different from the original cover - although not by much. Still the same idea, just a different presentation.

Er, or not. I didn't look closely enough to see the forest through the trees (so to speak).

Thats my hardback.



Thats my paperback.

Yeah, that's what I saw...by the price it seems like that's what us 'mer'cans would call a mass market book, especially since it's over 700 pages long. So if there's a mass market paperback in the UK, why not here?

It was my thought, when Runes was first published, that by the time the mass market paperback came out enough former readers would have discovered it, bought the paperback (I know that some board members are *still* waiting for this), and then when Fatal Revenant came out Donaldson would almost be in full swing, with regard to sales.

Tor did something similar with the WoT books. The first two books (at least) were released as trade paperbacks, then mass market (or were they??)...I think so. Anyway, that kind of "marketing" allows for a reader to discover something before it's almost over. It worked well for Tor, as WoT has become a crazed monster. Donaldson only has four books though.

We have the mass market paperback here in Australia (it's the UK version). It's actually (if my memory serves me correctly) actually smaller than the other UK paperback Chronicles books (I bought mine mid 80s). When I saw the Runes paperback the other day I thought "awh, that's cute".

In recent years, American publishers have embraced trade paperback wholeheartedly, but not with good intentions. Standard practice now, for a book released as a hardcover original, is to issue a trade paperback a year to 18 months after the hardcover if sales warrant, and then, if the sales of the trade paperback are good enough, the mass-market edition comes 12 to 18 months after that.

Grabbing the nearest comparable book that has been issued in all three formats: A Storm of Swords, by George R.R. Martin, was published in hardcover in November 2000, trade paperback in June 2002, and mass-market paperback in March 2003. That's a gap of almost two and a half years, which is fairly typical. Based on that, we should see a North American mass-market edition of Runes in the spring of 2007.

That, of course, is if we get one at all. The Powers That Be may decide that the sales of the trade editions weren't enough to justify printing a cheap paperback.

Does anyone know the official sales figures of Runes?

I found one web site stating that it has sold more than ten million copies

That's probably not accurate (unfortunately.)

Buckarama wrote:I found one web site stating that it has sold more than ten million copies

I found one - mabye i read it wrong, perhaps it was only from that site - that said 100,000 copies. Which is rediculous.

That sounds more like it.

I think the 1st and 2nd chronicles together sold that many copies. Or perhaps just the 1st. I don't remember.

100,000 is sad...although any new author would die for those numbers. SRD isn't a new author. Those numbers should be vastly larger.

Also, I was under the impression that trade paperbacks were "milkers". For a series where a fair amount of time will pass before the next book comes out, and there isn't a guarantee of selling tons of hardcovers, they pass the time by tossing out a trade which is the same size as a hardocver, just not as expensive. Then, usually when the next book in the series is released, they put out a mass market. I can't imagine RotE not being published in a mass market edition. That would simply be insanity.

Warmark wrote:

Buckarama wrote:I found one web site stating that it has sold more than ten million copies

I found one - mabye i read it wrong, perhaps it was only from that site - that said 100,000 copies. Which is rediculous.

Publisher's Weekly (which bases sales figures on what information is given to them by publishers) says ROTE sold 100,430. BUT the list that this information is published on is (as far as I can tell) a "Best Sellers 2004" list. Since Runes was released late 2004, I would assume the 100k figure would be much greater now.

Article that the figure came from is: www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA512903.html

I have the UK paperback.

Which was a wise move, really. (The hardback was $AU45, while the paperback was $AU14.95)

I got the very first paperback copy of it - they hadn't even opened the box yet.

Seareach wrote:

Warmark wrote:

Buckarama wrote:I found one web site stating that it has sold more than ten million copies

I found one - mabye i read it wrong, perhaps it was only from that site - that said 100,000 copies. Which is rediculous.

Publisher's Weekly (which bases sales figures on what information is given to them by publishers) says ROTE sold 100,430. BUT the list that this information is published on is (as far as I can tell) a "Best Sellers 2004" list. Since Runes was released late 2004, I would assume the 100k figure would be much greater now.

Article that the figure came from is: www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA512903.html

Thats the site i found ( google ) but didnt post the link seen as i thought it was wrong.