Shelf Life

Like a Cadbury Creme Egg, The Great Bazaar is small, mouth-wateringly delicious, and leaves you wanting more. It turns out, however, that The Great Bazaar has a much shorter shelf life. Creme Eggs go on sale around New Year’s, and are gone by Easter. TGB went on sale in March, and will be gone by Easter as well.

That’s right, I just heard from Subterranean Press that based on orders, TGB will list as SOLD OUT: ALL EDITIONS early next week. The leatherbound, signed & numbered version was sold out before the book even published, and the trade edition is down to the last couple of copies. Because the business model of Subterranean is one of limited edition collector’s item books, THERE WILL NOT BE ANOTHER PRINTING.

When Easter’s gone, they’re gone.

Seriously. If you still want one, try Subterranean Press or go to Amazon.com right the hell now, because odds are no one will have it by this time next week, unless you want to pay way more than cover price on eBay, if you can find it there at all. The material might be published in some other format in the future, but it also might not.

The books were always expected to sell out, but I must confess I’m pretty shocked at how fast they went. Thanks to everyone who bought one. The Great Bazaar is a very special book to me for a number of reasons:

1) I think the title novelette is awesome. I worked really hard on it, and am very proud of the result if I do say so myself.  I think it really adds depth and perspective to both Arlen and Abban that adds weight to both The Warded Man and The Desert Spear, and perhaps puts Arlen’s conflict with Jardir in a different light. After the UK deluxe edition of The Painted Man (which the story was originally meant for) fell through, I was really worried no one would ever get to read it, especially when some of the short fantasy fiction magazines passed on it. Their loss. I’m much more pleased with how things turned out in the end.

2) The cover painting by Lauren Cannon (and the wards around it) were the first pieces of art I commissioned for my website when I first sold the book, and to this day I think that it is the best painting of The Warded Man out there. If ever a painting deserves to be on a cover, it’s this one. I tried REALLY hard to get it on the original Warded Man hardcover, but it was a no-go. I think they would have sold like hotcakes with that cover.

3) One of the least promoted aspects of the book, but one that I really love, is my notes on the writing/editing process, and insight into how a book is edited and why sometimes really great stuff is cut out for one reason or another.

4) The Krasian dictionary and ward grimoire. Not everyone likes to have appendix materials like this in their books, but I know I do. Especially when reading GRRM or Robert Jordan, those glossaries are a must for me. I really wanted to include them in The Desert Spear, but the book was already huge, and my publishers weren’t as into the idea as I was. I’m glad I got them out there in some fashion.

I am so incredibly thankful to Subterranean Press for swooping in to save the day. They were amazingly easy to work with and really turned the project around very fast. I am looking forward to doing more work with them in the future.

I will probably give some copies of The Great Bazaar away as prizes in future contests, but I only have a handful of them myself, so don’t bet the house on the odds of getting one that way.

Posted on March 27, 2010 at 6:54 pm by PeatB
Filed under Great Bazaar, Sales, Writing
9 Comments »