cseresz.reborn Posted March 6, 2012 Share Posted March 6, 2012 PrologueThe Changing of the Guard: Myth or Reality?(Wednesday, August 15, 2007 | By: Patrick)The lower echelons of the fantasy totem might change significantly in the coming years, but I expect the predators at the top of the food chain to remain the same. Barring health problems (I'm sincerely hoping that he still has many years of writing in front of him), Robert Jordan should maintain his position as "top dog." With 4 consecutive number 1 NYT bestsellers and with the forthcoming A Memory of Light all but assured to debut at number one on the bestseller list, Jordan is not going anywhere. Knife of Dreams sold more than 600,000 copies in hardcover in the US alone, which is more than twice than Martin's A Feast for Crows. And that was GRRM at his apogee in terms of sales. . . Yes, but the Wheel of Time is all but over, you say. Not necessarily. . . With another prequel yet to be published, in addition to the possible "outrigger" trilogy, I would bet some good money that the WoT is not over, not by a longshot! Understandably, nobody knows how well Infinity of Heaven will be received by the fans.But consider this: Even if only 50% of RJ's fans buy that book, the author will remain the number one draw in the fantasy genre. If only 20% of his readers decide to give that new series a shot (and I can't believe in such a possibility), Jordan would still rank at number 3, standing behind only Goodkind and Martin. Even then, the novel would likely debut at number 1 on the NYT list. . .An "evil" note: Spoiler "Infinity of Heaven" has a new name: The Stormlight Archive. That was Doherty' big idea: (with three WoT books) every Wot fan will convert to BS from Robert Jordan. Thank God, I don't see this happening. 100 Bestselling Books of 200598. Knife of Dreams, Robert JordanThe Path of Daggers, lands on PW's and the New York Times charts in the #1 slot after just one week on sale -- a new milestone for the author. First printing: 360,000 and three more trips to press brings the in-print total to 455,000.Winter's Heart: 750,000 first printingWinter's Heart lands on the mass market list 650,000 copies after two printingsCrossroads of Twilight: 900,000 first printingCrossroads of Twilight: 536,802 03/22/2004 ???Crossroads of Twilight: 553,270 03/22/2004 ???New Spring: 548,937Knife of Dreams: 1,000,000 first printingA Storm of Swords: 65,000 first printing.A Feast for Crows: A Storm of Swords (2000), had a 110,000-copy first printing; this one, says Groell, will be much higher.A Feast for Crows: 200,000 first printing.3/27/2006Knife of Dreams: 514,833A Feast for Crows: 325,000Chapter OneJuly 14, 2011George R.R. Martin's A Dance With Dragons, book five in his epic "A Song of Ice and Fire' series, had the highest single and first-day sales of any new fiction title published this year: 298,000 copies in print, digital, and audio formats, publisher Random House announced today.On Tuesday, sales of 170,000 hardcovers (26% of the 650,000 pre-publication printings); 110,000 e-books; and 18,000 audio books were reported sold.100 best-selling books of 201118. A Game of Thrones26. A Dance With Dragons37. A Clash of Kings52. George R.R. Martin's A Game of Thrones (Boxed set of the first four volumes)57. A Storm of Swords64. A Feast for CrowsThese numbers are staggering. GRRM is my second favourite (epic) fantasy author, so I'm really happy with the sales figures.Well, I have a question anyway: where were these fans before?sources:http://fantasyhotlis...or-reality.htmlhttp://www.usatoday....2011/52504752/1http://www.abebooks....100-books.shtmlPublishers Weekly Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jurble Posted March 6, 2012 Share Posted March 6, 2012 I don't understand. The TV show increased his exposure and sales, I see people reading ASoIaF everywhere these days. But he wasn't unknown at all before the show, huh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grack21 Posted March 6, 2012 Share Posted March 6, 2012 No, he was not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Tachyon Posted March 6, 2012 Share Posted March 6, 2012 George RR Martin won his first Hugo in 1975. He has been a big name in Science Fiction and Fantasy for a long time but the demographic that reads these genres is limited. The TV show seems to have made him known to a wider audience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Isalie Posted March 6, 2012 Share Posted March 6, 2012 No. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lyanna Stark Posted March 6, 2012 Share Posted March 6, 2012 No, GRRM was not an unknown writer at all. With a minimum of effort you can just google ASOIAF and check wikipedia:A Game of Thrones (1996) - Locus Award winner, Nebula and World Fantasy Awards nominee, 1997A Clash of Kings (1998) - Locus Award winner, Nebula Award nominee, 1999A Storm of Swords (2000) - Locus Award winner, Hugo and Nebula Awards nominee, 2001That's does not say "unkown writer" to me. Far from it. And tAnother thing to consider is that the first part of WoT was released in January 1990, while AGOT was not released until August 1996. Give ASOIAF 6 more years and you may see the numbers get more even, or ASOIAF even overtake WoT. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shryke Posted March 6, 2012 Share Posted March 6, 2012 The awards aren't as big an indicator to the general reading public. They wouldn't even know most of them.GRRM was a fairly well known writer because he was on the NYT bestseller list afaik and at least his last few books have gotten the place of big sales on that table at the front of the bookstore.When you are sitting at the entrance of the store so people can just walk in, grab and head straight for the cash, you are well known. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Horza Posted March 6, 2012 Share Posted March 6, 2012 All of the above ^ was falsified by Them, to create the impression that "GRRM" existed before HBO decided to cut in on the ratings triumphs of Legend of the Seeker.Don't be fooled. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Ent Posted March 6, 2012 Share Posted March 6, 2012 Before the show, GRRM was an unknown writer to the extent that, say, China Mieville or Richard Morgan are unknown writers. Depending on your priors, that’s either “superfamous” or “never ’eard of ’im”.Song of Ice and Fire was certainly an extremely successful fantasy series and critically very well acclaimed before the tv series. Storm of Swords topped the internet top 100 book list (whatever it was called) for many, many years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lyanna Stark Posted March 6, 2012 Share Posted March 6, 2012 The awards aren't as big an indicator to the general reading public. They wouldn't even know most of them.GRRM was a fairly well known writer because he was on the NYT bestseller list afaik and at least his last few books have gotten the place of big sales on that table at the front of the bookstore.When you are sitting at the entrance of the store so people can just walk in, grab and head straight for the cash, you are well known.The general public rarely knows anything outside Twilight and Harry Potter. :PMy point was, one tiny googling for something very familiar (asoiaf) will bring you to wikipedia which can tell you this. It's more a comment on the question posed by the OP than on whether or not GRRM is famous/unknown/God or not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ran Posted March 6, 2012 Share Posted March 6, 2012 GRRM was also hitting the NYT bestseller lists starting with ACoK. So, no, not an unknown writer by any stretch of the imagination. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Balefont Posted March 6, 2012 Share Posted March 6, 2012 Was he a relative unknown to the general masses? Yes.Was he an unknown in the sci-fi fantasy writing world? Not at all.He wasn't even an unknown in Hollywood prior to Game given his work for the show Beauty and the Beast. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
End of Disc One Posted March 6, 2012 Share Posted March 6, 2012 For epic fantasy fans, he was probably the second most well known recent author after Robert Jordan. Maybe after Tairy as well, not sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Myrddin Posted March 6, 2012 Share Posted March 6, 2012 How many NYT bestsellers can you name off hand? Those you can't are "unknown" to us, but not their millions of fans. ;)An "unknown" writer can be living the high life with his/her millions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. E Posted March 6, 2012 Share Posted March 6, 2012 Basically aping what everyone else has said, but when a lot of people say unknown, they usually mean "Not everywhere in every bookstore, media outlet, newspaper and talk show."If I ever write a book that approaches a 200,000 first printing, I will litterally jump for joy, because that would be an unimaginable number of readers (if they all sell, of course.)But will I still be "unknown" to the mainstream?Yeah. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob B Posted March 6, 2012 Share Posted March 6, 2012 Was GRRM an unknown writer before HBO?BWA-HAAA-HAAA That has to be one of the most hilarious things I've seen on this board.Let's see...Multiple award wins and nominationsWild Cards was wildly popular before A Song of Ice and Fire publishedHollywood / TV Writer - Twilight Zone, Beauty and the BeastEditor of several anthologiesSo no, I would say something on the opposite end of the stick from 'unknown' Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grack21 Posted March 6, 2012 Share Posted March 6, 2012 He's also credited with stories that both influenced monsters in the original D&D and with a story that inspired something called "a wookiee". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sonic The Hedgehog Posted March 6, 2012 Share Posted March 6, 2012 Just because he wasn't a cultural phenomenon a few years ago doesn't mean he was unknown. When I started looking for fantasy book recommendations on the internet a few years ago aSoIaF was one of the first I saw. Ask anyone who's not a big reader, or even just not a big fantasy reader who Mieville, or Lynch, or Abercrombie are and I doubt they'll know.The tv adaption happened because Martin was already big by book standards. The show just brought him to the awareness of casual readers who don't know much beyond Grisham, Brown, and Rowling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Werthead Posted March 7, 2012 Share Posted March 7, 2012 Another thing to consider is that the first part of WoT was released in January 1990, while AGOT was not released until August 1996. Give ASOIAF 6 more years and you may see the numbers get more even, or ASOIAF even overtake WoT.Actually, ASoIaF is close to overtaking WoT in terms of numbers of readers already. Both series are heavily serialised, so we can assume that people buying later books in the series will have bought all prior books. The numbers joining the series with Book 4 or Book 7 of a very-heavily serialised story are likely negligible (the numbers who perhaps borrowed the first few books from the library and bought later ones less so, but that factor is unquantifiable).In 2007, upon Robert Jordan's death (after 11 books had come out), WoT had sold 44 million copies. In 2011, just before ADWD was published (after 4 books had come out), ASoIaF had sold 15 million copies. So that's - extremely roughly - 4.4 million WoT fans in 2007 versus 3.75 million ASoIaF fans in 2011.Of course, as the above figures do indicate this is rather unscientific. Most notably, the massively high placing for AGoT will have been responsible for quite a few of those sales versus just a few years ago, and the drop to the next book in the series indicates a lot of people who bought AGoT were not proceeding to the next book in the series, at least straight away (i.e. they are not overall fans of the series, at least not yet). However, the same is likely true of WoT (probably a notable percentage of those who bought EotW never read on in the series).So it certainly looks like ASoIaF is massively closing the gap to WoT, and could overtake it in a few years in terms of sales-per-book (overall sales seems rather less likely right now, but five or six years down the line, who knows?). However, WoT could reverse the trend and see its own sales increase if a movie or TV adaptation was undertaken (considerably more likely now that GoT has been a success), or even if the word-of-mouth about the final book is good enough and if the publishers can get some heavy marketing behind the final novel and inspire some people to pick up the series once it is finished. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pat5150 Posted March 7, 2012 Share Posted March 7, 2012 As was the case with Charlaine Harris, HBO allowed GRRM to reach the mainstream audience. Which explains the enormous spike in sales both authors have been enjoying. :)Patrick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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