Where Are All The Tie

WHERE ARE ALL THE TIE-IN NOVELS? In my preparation for E3, which is the place I am right now, I’ve been digging into the numbers behind the sport-related novel. Everybody who is aware of something at all about me, knows that for about fifteen years, I edited game tie-in novels, and almost exclusively recreation tie-in novels, for Wizards of the Coast. Most of what I labored on were based mostly on the varied Dungeons & Dragons worlds, particularly Forgotten Realms, but I had a hand in a number of Magic: The Gathering, and yeah, you keep in mind, Alternity novels, too. Now I’m out alone, helping mostly video game studios department out into the wide-open new universe of e-guide publishing. And this run of numbers, thanks to some net analysis and a good friend with access to BookScan, really shocked me. I wasn’t stunned that books based mostly on video games had been doing pretty nicely by present-day publishing standards, however that such big franchises had so few books behind them, when a lot smaller franchis es, together with my own beloved D&D, are continuing to help far more strong publishing programs. Let’s take a look at some numbers . . . Two sport companies in particular, Wizards of the Coast and Games Workshop, maintain their own publishing companies. Let’s take a look at a few their releases. Dungeons & Dragons/Forgotten Realms: The Ghost King by R.A. Salvatore Novel sales topping 200,000 throughout all codecs whereas Dungeons & Dragons the sport helps an energetic player base of about two million gamers. 121,713 and counting... Okay, this sales determine for the novel is a little on the high facet. It might be as low as 200,000, and R.A. Salvatore is by far WotC’s greatest author. He’s greater than half their total publishing business, as a matter of fact, but still. . . . My personal Forgotten Realms novel Annihilation has bought 121,713 copies (not counting overseas translations) for the reason that preliminary hardcover launch in July 2004. Warhammer: 40,000: Ultrama rines Omnibus by Graham McNeill Novel gross sales 45,245. The Warhammer: 40,000 sport has an energetic participant base of about 1.5 million. There are most likely higher selling 40k novels, but I picked this one. And keep in mind that that is an omnibus and that sales figure doesn’t account for the sales of the person authentic books. The combination numbers for all versions of these books are going to be lots greater. Then we get into the video game universe. All of those are dealt with by licensees. The studios do not publish their own books. World of Warcraft: Arthas: Rise of the Lich King by Christie Golden (Pocket Books) Novel gross sales 31,595 Game sales of about 30 million across the franchise Even Warhammer 40,000, with only 1.5 million gamers, is outselling one of the best licensed video game novels, even from mega-franchise World of Warcraft, which has 20 occasions the participant base. And here are 4 extra, with descending results: EVE: The Empyrean Age by Tony Gonzal ez (Tor Books) Novel sales 17,971 . . . MMO has approximately 300,000 active subscribers â€"â€"- Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood by Oliver Bowden (Ace) Novel gross sales sixteen,538 . . . Game sales of about 26 million across the franchise â€"â€"- The God of War Novel Guild Wars: Ghosts of Ascalon by Matt Forbeck & Jeff Grubb (Pocket Books) Novel sales 10,581 . . . Game sales of about 6.5 million throughout the franchise â€"â€"- God of War by Matthew Stover & Robert E. Vardeman (Del Rey) Novel gross sales 9614 . . . Game shipped 500,000 copies on the primary day of launch Here’s what I assume this means: A massive recreation franchise can assist a much bigger novel line than licensee publishers are keen to assist. The means the normal publishing enterprise works is rapidly revealing itself to be unsustainable within the Great Recession Era. Before the arrival of the e-guide, brick and mortar bookstores purchased every thing on consignment, and had nearly limitless rights to send a gain unsold books for full credit score. For many books as much as 90% of the print run is ultimately destroyed. And all of that loss is passed on directly to the publisher. Distributors and retailers take a minimize of the cover price, which implies the writer is supporting all of the costs, from writer advances and royalties to editorial/improvement prices, manufacturing (printing), shipping, and warehousing, all of which are paid on a sophisticated fee foundation to the distributor, all in order that a retailer can hold onto a guide for a couple months on a zero-risk basis. And all those prices have to be supported by the publisher on as little as 40% of the cover price of the book. Now imagine you’re a writer who has all of those prices then you definitely add another 15% of the quilt price in licensing fees back to the individuals who management the intellectual property. At best, paper-and-retail publishing is a really fragile industry that runs on razor thin margins. In rea lity, publishers simply can’t afford to assist someone else’s property with rather more than the occasional experimental launch to test the waters. Sometimes, although rarely, this leads to a fairly successful novel line, like Halo, but it doesn’t take lengthy to comprehend that the Halo novel line is the exception, not the rule. If you place this side-by-facet with the video gamer’s basic comfort with digital supply, gadget-based entertainment, you could have a prepared-made e-guide viewers that probably already has the hardware, doesn’t thoughts at all getting into their credit card data to buy another digital file . . . should you’re good enough to ensure these e-books have some sort of metagame element to them to enchantment to the reluctant readers . . . I suppose you’ll see even the smaller studios finding their method into the e-e-book enterprise within the next couple years or much less. The publishing business has been talking a few shift to a bigger number of smaller area of interest publishers in the e-future. That future is now. See you at E3. â€"Philip Athans About Philip Athans Hey Philip; I’m the author of a number of Warhammer 40,000 novels and a recent videogame tie-in for Deus Ex: Human Revolution… You make some fascinating factors right here, however having labored within the games industry as a author for over a decade I even have to say I actually have my doubts about games studios creating their very own in-house fiction publishing departments. Perhaps at best, the biggest studios might need a crack at it, but its robust enough to get them to rent writers for his or her games, not to mention their spin-offs…! Is it possible that the video game builders are both focusing on the story of the game and never increasing their universe to permit for more books? Fill in your details beneath or click on an icon to log in: