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Daniel Abraham


Tycho

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Well, if his upcoming series from Orbit takes off like I think it might, the first series books may start finding their way back into the bookstores once Abraham becomes a 'name'.

I'm hoping nobody has to wait that long. If readers can get their hands on the complete tetralogy in a single format, requests should rise, along with semi-permanent shelf-space.

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:(

This morning I went to the B&N in Cedar Rapids. The one place I would have expected to have it, one of the busiest bookstores in the state, but no joy. What the hell did Tor do? Cut the print run to practically nothing? For fuck's sake! I prefer to support my bookstores, but it seems I have no choice but to buy it online. I wonder if they'll even bother with a paperback edition.

REG, I seem to recall Shadow having a good sized presence when it came out. Betrayal and Autumn were far less so. I haven't even heard of any blog pre-release reviews of Price so I wonder if they even sent any out. Tor really dropped the ball on this one. If you don't promote the damn book, yeah, you're not going to meet expectations. I mean, duh!

Xray, I'm going scalp-hunting complete with politically incorrect Mohawk, hatchet, and war paint. You game?

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Just checked B&N store availability of Spring in the Los Angeles, Orange County area. Out of 28 B&N books stores, there is only one that has it and that's in Huntington Beach. Closer to Myshkin than to me. Thank goodness I ordered it online.

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:(

This morning I went to the B&N in Cedar Rapids. The one place I would have expected to have it, one of the busiest bookstores in the state, but no joy. What the hell did Tor do? Cut the print run to practically nothing? For fuck's sake! I prefer to support my bookstores, but it seems I have no choice but to buy it online. I wonder if they'll even bother with a paperback edition.

REG, I seem to recall Shadow having a good sized presence when it came out. Betrayal and Autumn were far less so. I haven't even heard of any blog pre-release reviews of Price so I wonder if they even sent any out. Tor really dropped the ball on this one. If you don't promote the damn book, yeah, you're not going to meet expectations. I mean, duh!

Don't even say that! :( If you guys have such a hard time finding the hardcover right after its release, it's going to be damn near impossible to find the paperback when it's out.

It is really a great shame that Tor failed so spectacularly in marketing Abraham's books properly.

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REG, I seem to recall Shadow having a good sized presence when it came out. Betrayal and Autumn were far less so. I haven't even heard of any blog pre-release reviews of Price so I wonder if they even sent any out. Tor really dropped the ball on this one. If you don't promote the damn book, yeah, you're not going to meet expectations. I mean, duh!

Everything I've read indicates that book stores base their orders largely on previous sales of the author's work (especially for continuing books in a series). If the previous Abraham books didn't sell enough for the stores to be willing to stock them then I'm not sure what people expect Tor to do at this point.

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Well, I checked online and The Price of Spring is apparently in stock at the Union Square B&N, so we should have our hands on a copy by the end of the day.

Success! :D

Read the Prolog and Chapter 1 on the subway ride to work. Can't wait for the subway ride home so I can keep going. It's quite good already.

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So jealous. *plans daring raid on Casa X*

M, I'll try to think positive. :)

Everything I've read indicates that book stores base their orders largely on previous sales of the author's work (especially for continuing books in a series). If the previous Abraham books didn't sell enough for the stores to be willing to stock them then I'm not sure what people expect Tor to do at this point.

Well, actual publicity on a book is the publisher's responsibility and it seems to me they failed in this. I mean, hardly an information at all on the last two books in the Long Price Quartet?

You do make a good point though, and frankly, the bookstores may share some of the failure here. A good example would be the problems Tobias Buckell had with Borders. While Crystal Rain did well, it didn't meet the criteria set by the Borders corporate office and computer system so they only ordered half again as many copies of Ragamuffin. Then they're surprised sales on Buckell are down? Gee, I can't imagine why.

I got my copy of Price ordered as soon I posted this morning. I'll find something else to read until it shows up.

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Well, actual publicity on a book is the publisher's responsibility and it seems to me they failed in this. I mean, hardly an information at all on the last two books in the Long Price Quartet?

Maybe some industry insiders can chime in but I would expect publicity to be strongest for the opening book in a series. At this stage it's going to be an uphill climb for Tor to convince booksellers to heavily stock the third and fourth books of a series that hasn't performed well. I imagine it may be a bit easier with "The Dagger and the Coin" because Orbit can position it as the start of a new series and one that is a bit more accessible to mainstream fantasy fans than "Long Price".

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Still no luck in Nashville for The Price of Spring, so I bet like everyone else, my town won't have any in-store copies. Also like others, you pretty much can't find any of his books in any store (here or Atlanta).

What I also don't get is why there isnt a Kindle edition. There are Kindle editions for the first 3. Maybe its forthcoming, and Amazon just doesn't know about it yet.

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kmgrey, you are right about the first part, though there's probably more than enough blame to go around here. Really, I'm just venting because the whole thing sucks.

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What I also don't get is why there isnt a Kindle edition. There are Kindle editions for the first 3. Maybe its forthcoming, and Amazon just doesn't know about it yet.

Yeah, I wish Tor was a bit more transparent (via blog maybe?) about what they have on tap for Kindle. I really want to read The Sword Edged Blonde but I've been waiting to see if it shows up on Kindle.

They do seem to have a bit of delay- Warbreaker took a week or so to appear and I see that George Mann's Affinity Bridge is available now whereas it wasn't available during the week of release (which is a shame because I shelled out for the hardcover and the book was a giant disappointment).

So just a confirmation of "It's coming, should be available within a couple of weeks" would be nice.

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Well, after doing some research at BN.com I found one Barnes & Noble store within 30 miles of me that had The Price of Spring. Just out of my respect for the author I decided to take the trek and pick a copy up instead of ordering it online and waiting.

2 hours later (damn getting-out-of-work Tampa traffic) I'm home and one hardcover richer, 30 bucks poorer. Makes me appreciate my online ordering a lot more lol.

All for a good cause though, right?

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But it makes me even sadder Abraham's stuff is not being marketed right. He's one of the best, he deserves better.

Here's hoping that Orbit does a better job marketing Abraham than Tor did.

Just checked B&N store availability of Spring in the Los Angeles, Orange County area. Out of 28 B&N books stores, there is only one that has it and that's in Huntington Beach. Closer to Myshkin than to me. Thank goodness I ordered it online.

I checked online, and I saw that B&N in Huntington had it, but that's a little far for me. The Borders in Cerritos had it too, so I might go over there.

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If the first book had a strong in store presence, then I am just completely baffled about why it wasn't commercially successful. It's a great debut, had good reviews, it's not a doorstopper which is off-putting for a lot of readers, and it has beautiful cover art... There's absolutely no reason that I can think of for this not being as successful as... say The Name of the Wind or The Lies of Locke Lamora.

Personally I think that is because Tor did not market this properly, and Daw and Bantam do a better job at marketing.

Maybe some industry insiders can chime in but I would expect publicity to be strongest for the opening book in a series. At this stage it's going to be an uphill climb for Tor to convince booksellers to heavily stock the third and fourth books of a series that hasn't performed well. I imagine it may be a bit easier with "The Dagger and the Coin" because Orbit can position it as the start of a new series and one that is a bit more accessible to mainstream fantasy fans than "Long Price".

Of course they're not going to order a large quantity and set up display for a series that hasn't sold well, but couldn't they have ordered one or two per bookstore so that people don't have to order it online.

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If the first book had a strong in store presence, then I am just completely baffled about why it wasn't commercially successful. It's a great debut, had good reviews, it's not a doorstopper which is off-putting for a lot of readers, and it has beautiful cover art... There's absolutely no reason that I can think of for this not being as successful as... say The Name of the Wind or The Lies of Locke Lamora.

Personally I think that is because Tor did not market this properly, and Daw and Bantam do a better job at marketing.

Just my take on it, but I didn't pick it up immediately because the cover made it look SF, rather than fantasy. There is nothing wrong with the cover art, if taken without context, but I think it fails as a fantasy cover.

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If the first book had a strong in store presence, then I am just completely baffled about why it wasn't commercially successful. It's a great debut, had good reviews, it's not a doorstopper which is off-putting for a lot of readers, and it has beautiful cover art... There's absolutely no reason that I can think of for this not being as successful as... say The Name of the Wind or The Lies of Locke Lamora.

Personally I think that is because Tor did not market this properly, and Daw and Bantam do a better job at marketing.

Of course they're not going to order a large quantity and set up display for a series that hasn't sold well, but couldn't they have ordered one or two per bookstore so that people don't have to order it online.

I'm not an insider, nor do I claim any sort of expertise on the matter, but I could point out a few things that could prove influential.

1. I mentioned it in an earlier post: "Abraham", alphabetically speaking, isn't surrounded by many other popular authors. Douglas Adams and Abercrombie would be the biggest one I can think of. Reviewing Daniel's Livejournal site earlier this evening, I came across a link that relates to this

Regarding his use of a Pseudonym for Unclean Spirits:

SoY: M.L.N. Hanover is both gender neutral and conveniently positioned between Lauren K. Hamilton and Charlaine Harris, arguably two of the most prominent (and female) Urban Fantasy writers in the market today. Who made the decision to choose the name M.L.N Hanover

DA: MLN was my choice. The gender neutrality was a big part of it. I've had several people write to me or leave comments on the blog that they wouldn't have picked up the book if they'd known I was a guy, but having read it, they liked it.

As far as the placement on the shelf . . . well, one of the things I've learned as Daniel Abraham is that people don't browse in alphabetical order. I think the middle of the alphabet is a more likely place to get picked up at random than the folks up in the As and down in the Zs. The placement between Laurell K Hamilton and the Charlene Harris/Kim Harrison complex is either a blessing (because I have books kind of like theirs close to where they are) or a curse (because my one little book is getting swamped by the shelves and shelves and shelves of other people's more popular titles). I'll tell you how that plays out when I know.

2. General Series Availability: An Autumn War, book 3, was only just released in paperback. Without a large series of books (in a single format), it's easy to find yourself reduced to one or two copies of a story. If someone notices A Betrayal In Winter, they may put it back on the shelf if A Shadow In Summer isn't sitting there alongside it. As Daniel does a good job of producing books in a timely fashion, the series is often divided between paperback and hardcover. Without a permanent TPB sized story (which seems to be gaining popularity), his works, in general, have a limited shelf life.

3. Slim Pickings: "Short" or "Concise" stories might be appreciated by those who grow tired of doorstoppers, but they fail to add a sense of presence to the shelf. The contrast between Daniel's books and GRRM's is distinct. It could also be attributed to cover design, but I'll ignore that bit.

4. Passe: General fantasy isn't what it was a few years ago, financially speaking. If the shelves of Borders and Barnes & Noble are any indication, Urban Fantasy (no matter how played out it may be) is the current watermark. Meyer, Harrison, Butcher and other authors (especially YA authors) are gaining more and more shelf space. "Traditional" fantasy will not garner much attention unless the author already stands out.

5. Hype: This could be the fault of publishers. Long Price, no matter how well received it may be, still seems like an underground secret. Crossover pieces like Wild Cards are still (primarily) attributed to GRRM. While Abraham seems to be critically acclaimed, the aforementioned factors, put together, make it an uphill battle for publicity. Without a more vocal fanbase or a yet-to-be-filled niche, the Long Price Quartet is just another bunch of novels by an author people say nice things about.

If I were your average bookstore with limited shelf space, I'm not certain I'd have 20 copies of a 4th in a series of 4,$30 fantasy novel from a (generally speaking) run-of-the-mill author. If demand calls for it, orders will be placed, but initial demand, overall, won't be all that high. Toss in the increasing tendency to order online, and its hard to fault the stone-and-mortar chains.

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Good points Foreverlad. The quote about his Hanover pseudonym was particularly interesting. He's too good of an author not to become successful, but it is a shame that he didn't get that instant notoriety that other (less talented) fantasy authors have received in recent years.

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I just did the product searches for Price of Spring on both B&N's and Borders and NONE of the stores in Iowa have the book. I could have saved myself a trip this morning.

Foreverlad, good points all. It still sucks though. :(

That's pretty interesting about the browsing habits. I've always started alphabetically as that seems to make the most sense. Maybe I'm just weird. :dunno:

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That's pretty interesting about the browsing habits. I've always started alphabetically as that seems to make the most sense. Maybe I'm just weird. :dunno:

Then I'm weird too, because I'm right there with you Ben! I always start with 'A'. :unsure:

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