Elizabeth McHenry
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
I love your work. I pre-purchase as soon as the option is available, add the release dates to my calendar, and countdown the days until publication! You have eight books not yet bundled together for the World of the Five Gods anthology series. That's enough for two more additions and most of a third! Will you continue this series and if so, do you have any idea when a fourth book might be forthcoming? Thank you.
Lois McMaster Bujold
I do indeed have enough Pen & Des stories for a couple more paper collections, and have packaged them that way for foreign sales, though so far the foreign publishers seem to prefer to buy the novellas ala carte and make their own assemblages.
The paper-only Baen version started out promising with sales, then the second volume was released in May 2020 when all the bookstores were closing, and so tanked through no fault of its own. Third one has not done well in sales, as far as I can tell from my royalty reports (which always arrive a year or more out of date, so, more history than current events.) I don't think any publisher could make bank with further paper volumes only, and most won't take paper without e-rights that that would reduce my income from them by half. There are scenarios where this would be a good choice, but I'm not there at this time.
Meanwhile, my ala carte e-editions and audio editions are selling just fine, and retain more flexibility for inserting prequels (which I've just again done, with the coming-very-soon "Testimony of Mute Things".)
So, short answer, no more paper collections are in the pipeline at this time. They are not ruled out for the future, but that's not up to just me.
Ta, L.
I do indeed have enough Pen & Des stories for a couple more paper collections, and have packaged them that way for foreign sales, though so far the foreign publishers seem to prefer to buy the novellas ala carte and make their own assemblages.
The paper-only Baen version started out promising with sales, then the second volume was released in May 2020 when all the bookstores were closing, and so tanked through no fault of its own. Third one has not done well in sales, as far as I can tell from my royalty reports (which always arrive a year or more out of date, so, more history than current events.) I don't think any publisher could make bank with further paper volumes only, and most won't take paper without e-rights that that would reduce my income from them by half. There are scenarios where this would be a good choice, but I'm not there at this time.
Meanwhile, my ala carte e-editions and audio editions are selling just fine, and retain more flexibility for inserting prequels (which I've just again done, with the coming-very-soon "Testimony of Mute Things".)
So, short answer, no more paper collections are in the pipeline at this time. They are not ruled out for the future, but that's not up to just me.
Ta, L.
More Answered Questions
J C
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
One of my favorite things about Barrayar (the book) is how Aral maintains personal moral integrity in a situation where there is no "good", just "really bad" and "slightly less bad". I am interested in Aral's time as Regent during the Komarr Revolt, and how he maintains his own moral center through a nihilist conflict; also, since I'm wishing, one day I hope you can finish the sequel to Falling Free?
Nathan Shrum
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
How did you land an agent? Traditional querying or something else..??
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