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Goodkind 55: Back in the Dick Life Again


Myshkin

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19 hours ago, Werthead said:

I must admit, seeing the entire Internet united in their condemnation of Goodkind makes me think that, for the second time, Team Westeros is way, way ahead of the curve.

This is the best and most time-travellin' place on the internet, with the exception of ANY thread on women's issues.  But every house needs a toilet.

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The weird and sad thing about this latest fiasco is that I'm afraid it will actually help Goodkind sell some more books. A lot of SFF readers that had never given him a shot will now probably give WFR a read, if only to piss on it.

They say there's never such a thing as bad publicity. Guess they're right in this instance. . . :/

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I remember My* got very annoyed when it was repeatedly pointed out to him that Goodkind was the least-selling and least-popular of the Terrys of Fantasy. Brooks had outsold him 2:1 and Pratchett about 3:1  (closer to 4:1 now).

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Yes,but how is he still selling so many books in 2018?? I read many SFF blogs/forums,some with large audiences,i don't see them recommending Tairy to their readers.

Who is buying his books? All of them can't be fantasy newbs who turn up at book shops for the first time and get Tairy books rec'd to them by the staff? :huh:

Or is mostly Amazon sales due to the high (bizzare) ratings he has on there? :wacko:

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5 hours ago, Werthead said:

I remember My* got very annoyed when it was repeatedly pointed out to him that Goodkind was the least-selling and least-popular of the Terrys of Fantasy. Brooks had outsold him 2:1 and Pratchett about 3:1  (closer to 4:1 now).

Well, I would assume the woman Terry fantasy author, McGarry, has sold a lot less than Goodkind.

(I haven't read any of her books yet and so do not know how she compares in quality with the other three.)

https://us.macmillan.com/author/terrymcgarry/

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1 hour ago, Ormond said:

Well, I would assume the woman Terry fantasy author, McGarry, has sold a lot less than Goodkind.

(I haven't read any of her books yet and so do not know how she compares in quality with the other three.)

https://us.macmillan.com/author/terrymcgarry/

Well, yes, the others have 16, 27 and 33 years head start on her, so it's probably a given she's not sold as many.

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Who is buying his books? All of them can't be fantasy newbs who turn up at book shops for the first time and get Tairy books rec'd to them by the staff?

 

Fantasy libertarian Objectivist fans.

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3 hours ago, AncalagonTheBlack said:

Yes,but how is he still selling so many books in 2018?? I read many SFF blogs/forums,some with large audiences,i don't see them recommending Tairy to their readers.

Who is buying his books? All of them can't be fantasy newbs who turn up at book shops for the first time and get Tairy books rec'd to them by the staff? :huh:

Or is mostly Amazon sales due to the high (bizzare) ratings he has on there? :wacko:

According to most SFF marketing people, it appears that everything that comprises what we consider the SFF online makes up for about 15% of the overall readership. I don't think there is concrete data, but it's supposedly in that ballpark.

Which explains why authors that are basically never talked about on forums/blogs/web communities are still outselling award-winners like Jemisin by a wide margin. 

For better or worse, Goodkind has sold millions of copies of his books. In hardback alone, he ended up on the NYT bestselling list 14 times, with 3 or 4 number 1. Which means that every bookstore in North America stock his books. Such a wide distribution allows the author to gain new readers every year. Many fantasy readers like big books and long series. SoT fits that bill. A lot of viewers that started reading SFF novels after watching GoT are looking for such series. Chances are that they'll pick up Jordan, Hobb, and Goodkind more than anything else, methinks. Such readers will not spend hours going through blogs and articles talking trach about Goodkind. Like many of us, they'll probably quit around FotF. Even then, that gives the Yeard 6 book sales per readers. And plenty of them will choose to continue. 

Check out Goodreads and you'll see that most of his books have ratings of more than 4.00*, so people checking out reviews online won't immediately take a step back.

As I said in a previous post, Goodkind likely sells in 6-figure quantities every year. So even if the man is "old news" he remains a driving force in the genre and could well be Tor Books' bestselling author these days based on his backlist alone.

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2 hours ago, Lord Patrek said:

For better or worse, Goodkind has sold millions of copies of his books. In hardback alone, he ended up on the NYT bestselling list 14 times, with 3 or 4 number 1.

Only one got to #1, which was PhantomConfessor got to #2 and the rest all debuted lower down than that.

It's worth reiterating as well: getting onto the NYT list in itself is not particularly noteworthy. It's getting on there and staying on there for a fair bit of time with each book. There was an urban fantasy author who got into the Top 20 several times but dropped off pretty quickly and she noted she and her family were on food stamps. Just getting on the list isn't enough to guarantee a strong income or a high level of popularity.

Getting into the Top Ten regularly back in the day when it took a lot more sales, plus the fact he's built up a large backlist, plus he sells bizarrely well in several countries as well as the US (at one point he did very well in the UK but then fell off a cliff, to the point where his publishers were happy to let him go elsewhere), plus that TV deal, all got him a solid income and he's never going to starve. But he's not packing that sweet GRRM go-and-buy-a-cinema-and-art-centre-and-third-home-and-Tesla-on-a-whim kind of money.

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According to most SFF marketing people, it appears that everything that comprises what we consider the SFF online makes up for about 15% of the overall readership. I don't think there is concrete data, but it's supposedly in that ballpark.

 

I know about twelve years ago, when we first started getting into this blogging gig in earnest, publishers thought it was about 5%, so it's certainly grown since then. Whether it's still only 15% I'm not sure. That seems to be neglecting the sheer overwhelming popularity of Facebook, Goodreads, YouTube and Reddit, where the numbers dwarf those of traditional blogs and forums like this one (even taking into account that Westeros is literally 10 times bigger than it was back then). Certainly if you want to be a mover and shaker in the blogging world today, you need a Facebook and Reddit presence, and to get really big you need YouTube and video or podcast content. Do that and you can reach tens of thousands of readers, which for many or most books is a lot more than 15% of the readership.

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56 minutes ago, Rhom said:

Bad news folks... that patient of mine who named her kid Kahlan... she's pregnant.

The Tairy fans are continuing to breed!  :crying: 

Maybe she'll name the child Zeddicus, Gratch, or Betty, depending on its sex.

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On 3/2/2018 at 0:26 PM, Lily Valley said:

When I expanded my writing to other genres, I left these [Nicci Chronicles] covers to the publisher. 

Wait, what other genres has he expanded in to?  He wrote that one book about the Rahl relative in Kansas or something, but that was a long time ago.  Am I missing some other instant classics he has written?  They must be amazing, given how he just tossed SoT to the side and let the publishers run amok with the Nicci covers!

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8 minutes ago, Ded As Ned said:

Wait, what other genres has he expanded in to?  He wrote that one book about the Rahl relative in Kansas or something, but that was a long time ago.  Am I missing some other instant classics he has written?

You are missing Nest. It was published in 2016:

https://www.amazon.com/Nest-Terry-Goodkind/dp/1510722874/

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On 04/03/2018 at 5:01 PM, Werthead said:

Only one got to #1, which was PhantomConfessor got to #2 and the rest all debuted lower down than that.

It's worth reiterating as well: getting onto the NYT list in itself is not particularly noteworthy. It's getting on there and staying on there for a fair bit of time with each book. There was an urban fantasy author who got into the Top 20 several times but dropped off pretty quickly and she noted she and her family were on food stamps. Just getting on the list isn't enough to guarantee a strong income or a high level of popularity.

Getting into the Top Ten regularly back in the day when it took a lot more sales, plus the fact he's built up a large backlist, plus he sells bizarrely well in several countries as well as the US (at one point he did very well in the UK but then fell off a cliff, to the point where his publishers were happy to let him go elsewhere), plus that TV deal, all got him a solid income and he's never going to starve. But he's not packing that sweet GRRM go-and-buy-a-cinema-and-art-centre-and-third-home-and-Tesla-on-a-whim kind of money.

I know about twelve years ago, when we first started getting into this blogging gig in earnest, publishers thought it was about 5%, so it's certainly grown since then. Whether it's still only 15% I'm not sure. That seems to be neglecting the sheer overwhelming popularity of Facebook, Goodreads, YouTube and Reddit, where the numbers dwarf those of traditional blogs and forums like this one (even taking into account that Westeros is literally 10 times bigger than it was back then). Certainly if you want to be a mover and shaker in the blogging world today, you need a Facebook and Reddit presence, and to get really big you need YouTube and video or podcast content. Do that and you can reach tens of thousands of readers, which for many or most books is a lot more than 15% of the readership.

Just checked to make sure, and both Phantom and The Omen Machine debuted at number 1. Chainfire, Confessor, and, I think, Naked Empire peaked at number 2. Most of the others were top 10 debuts. Some of those books also appeared on the NYT paperback bestseller list. So yeah, that means a lot of units sold.

Not sure he can afford to buy a cinema, but I reckon he doesn't need to rely on food stamps! :P

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