But I'm not bothered about fonts and point sizes, you're saying? What about the content, you ask? Well, the new edition has attractive greyscale maps which are a big improvement on the pure black-&-white of the first four books.
Monday, 20 August 2012
Books with backbone
But I'm not bothered about fonts and point sizes, you're saying? What about the content, you ask? Well, the new edition has attractive greyscale maps which are a big improvement on the pure black-&-white of the first four books.
Sparkly white teeth - Nagil would be proud of me
ReplyDeleteWhat about the people who already purchased FL 5 last week? Will they receive a copy of the first print or the new one?
ReplyDeleteI ask it because I bought the book but I've don't received it yet, and the tracking hasn't said anything new for the last days, so I wonder if amazon has blocked the delivery of the first set for every copy they could stop, in order to make us have the "perfect" copy...
That's what I hope, actually, it's not very nice to buy something and discover only some days after that what you bought isn't the final product in its perfect shape... Well, nothing horrible to be honest, but I hope everything will be right when I'll buy FL 6... :)
Unfortunately we don't have as much control with our new printer, so I can't say which edition you'll receive. It was something that Jamie and I agonized over when we realized we could fix the spine font - should we do it now, given that the most dedicated FL readers might already have ordered a copy? All I can say to anyone who gets the lowercase font version is that (a) if you save it and put it on ebay in a couple of years it'll be so rare that it sells for $50 and (b) if you should ever meet me or Jamie and present us with one of those "hot off the presses" copies, we promise to write you a personalized death paragraph in the front.
DeleteA personalized death paragraph? That sounds nice... If you'll ever visit Verona maybe this will become real, who knows? :)
DeleteAnyway, no problem for me, whatever edition I'll receive, the book will find its own place on the shelf next to the others, waiting for his "eastern" friend to come in a month or so...
I was in Verona a couple of months ago! Okay, next time...
DeleteD'oh!!!
DeleteMy copy shipped on the 18th, I hope it's one of super rare copies.
ReplyDeleteNow that's the spirit :-)
Deleteoh dear... now I'm going to have to track you down for that customised paragraph...
ReplyDeleteWho would have thought everybody would be so eager to die..?
DeleteI'll let you off writing it if you promise to write books 7 - 12 instead.
DeleteBook arrived today, it's the first edition, as expected. I like the cream colour of the paper, I hope FL 6 will have it, too. :)
ReplyDeleteGot my copy yesterday - very happy, because this is the one I never managed to get first time around. The other books teased my with glimpses of the Uttaku and I never got to see them for myself.
ReplyDeleteTime to get a look under those masks...
Wonderful, just wonderful! I just got my super rare edition of lower font "The Court of Hidden Faces" and I found myself very pleased with it, as it seems more like the old Fabled Lands book!
ReplyDeleteCheers
Joe
I have also recieved a super rare version. I hope one day to have a paragraph detailing my demise at the front of it.
ReplyDeleteA lot of satisfied customers, by the sound of it. That's what we aim for :-)
ReplyDeleteI'm looking forward to getting books 5 and 6. I still reckon books 7-12 could be the ultimate kickstarter project. Try it, you'll like it :-)
ReplyDeleteThere's something about Kickstarter that bothers me. Okay, rationally I know that people should be able if they want to throw $100 into a project to get a goody bag and their name in the credits, but I can't help feeling there's a whiff of exploitation about the whole system. I guess I'm just nostalgic for the days when you could write a book, stick it up for sale at $10, and anyone who wanted a copy could buy it. If I can overcome my aversion, you can bet we'll try a Kickstarter at some point. We just need to be famous first :-)
DeleteNot endorsing Kickstarter particularly, but the crowdsourcing model seems to be just another incarnation of capital raising, like companies issuing shares. In that case, a company hints that great profits are possible with just a *little* capital -- and investors give (in the hope of sharing some of the profits). Aid agencies and donations to charity work in a similar way. Their investors give out of kindness, sympathy, or a desire to be perceived as having the former two traits. Crowdsourcing projects also try to liberate free cash from their investors, who are more like small-scale 'angel' investors. They just want to see the projects happen. It's somewhere between the corporate investment and the aid agency model. They are all a little bit exploitative.
DeleteRegarding the Fabled Lands project -- and I think you are too modest about your fame -- it is a big project which would require a lot of work and time commitment from you and Jaimie. And, not to say it wouldn't be financed by a big publisher (except that thus far it hasn't been) but that you could explore the crowdsourcing finance option if you seriously would like to spend the time to get it made.
I'd be more comfortable if it really were *crowd*funding, in the sense of tens of thousands of people giving a few dollars each. When I see just one thousand people stumping up $50+ each, that starts to look potentially exploitative of people's fan enthusiasm.
DeleteMy other problem is that these guys aren't investors. Real investors want to know a lot about your track record and the project, and they get a share in its future success. "Crowd"funders often back something on the strength of a back-of-the-envelope pitch, and if it should prove a big hit, all they can point to is the t-shirt.
Fabled Lands LLP has a patron, Franklin Johnson. He can and does invest in a lot of big business ventures; FL just happens to be something he wants to see happen, like the angels you describe. But Jamie and I make it our first priority to return him a profit, with projects like Dirk Lloyd and Frankenstein on iPad. Then if a little bit of that profit gets spent on the core (but niche) gamebook business, everyone's happy.
Having said all that, I recognize the pre-subscription model that Kickstarter is turning into is an old and distinguished tradition in publishing. If we can build up enough of an FL fanbase with the reissued print books and the forthcoming apps, we'll certainly look into it. At the moment, there just aren't enough dyed-in-the-wool FL readers/players to make it work, even if they stumped up $50 each.
Fair enough. You have given the idea some thought. I'll still buy the new edition book 5 and 6, and hope for the rest some time.
ReplyDeleteI would dearly like to see FL 7-12 at some point in the future and in the mean time am more than happy to buy the new editions, despite owning the originals.
ReplyDeleteI hope Blood Sword will follow - I have 1-4 and a naughty PDF of 5 but the eBay prices it commands are just too high.
Would there be any mileage in releasing official PDFs of the books?
Another thought concerns the Duelmaster Books - in this digital age it would be very interesting to see those as apps.
Keep releasing the existing books, raise the funds and I hope the crunched numbers justify the effort in writing new books.
Oliver, I can promise you that Blood Sword will be returning in print form (next year, I hope) and that Spirit Media, who are developing the FL apps, have Duelmaster very definitely in their sights. FL 7-12 may take a little longer, but if our big gamebook initiative next year bears fruit, maybe we can yet nudge demand for FL up to critical mass.
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