New Honor Novel?

SWM wrote:You clearly do not know the publishing industry. There is FAR more involved than you think. And it takes a lot longer to print and bind thousands of books than you think.

All but one of the books I listed above are from Baen. The only series that Weber sends to any other publisher is the Safehold series, through Tor/Forge. Tor/Forge handles hundreds of authors; they can only do about one, maybe two, David Weber books in a year.

Baen publishes only six or seven books a month. And that includes new editions or paperback editions of previously published books. So that's about three or four new titles a month. That's all they can handle. Of the 38 books Baen is publishing from May to October, 6 are from David Weber. The remaining 22 books are split among 20 other authors!

Are you a publisher?

All print these days is automated. It can run day and night - and no doubt does. While Baen tends to *highlight* 6 books or so each month, I'm not entirely convinced that's all they actually *print*; just the ones that are totally new or else reprints they think will have a good audience. I would suspect they print more, though the rest are probably reprints that they *don't* think people are going to be so much on the lookout for. "Restock", more or less.

Almost 30 years ago I worked for a major telephone company, and using one (large) laser printer and blank paper they printed roughly 100,000 multi-page (around 9 or 10 pages each) bills a night. That would roughly correspond to the pages of 1000 books - using only one printer for around 8 hours. If they'd had 10 printers and ran bills 24 hours a day, they'd have printed even more.

Like I noted, this is no longer the days of typesetting, inking, and printing multiple copies of a page at a time, collating them, and then binding them.

It may not be as fast as burning CD's and DVD's; but it's not the labor intensive process it used to be, either.

I suspect that if there's any real limiting factor at Baen, it's the editors and proofreaders, and, frankly, from what I've seen to date, they might as well just publish the book as it comes from the author. I've seen some of the same errors in the allegedly "unproofed" eARC's they sell as in the supposedly "proofed and edited" paperbacks I buy. Makes one wonder just *why* they even have those folks - or at least why they pay them, anyway. Maybe they just have one; and they're not really into science fiction?

Hornblower wrote:And I suppose that "coming back together" could even happen in the next novel. After all, though not explicitly stated, we have Cachet (the Torch line) and Henke (the Shadow line) already on Mesa, and Honor could easily bring a contingent herself to aid in trying to "dig out" more information about the Alignment.

It is happening in the next novel. David made that very clear.[/quote]

I wonder if he has written much of the next Honorverse novel? If not, things may change. [/quote]

Honor's rank makes it less and less likely she'd be out on the front lines among the stars. I can see her delivering terms to Earth sometime after the breakup like she did to Haven.

OrlandoNative wrote:

SWM wrote:You clearly do not know the publishing industry. There is FAR more involved than you think. And it takes a lot longer to print and bind thousands of books than you think.

All but one of the books I listed above are from Baen. The only series that Weber sends to any other publisher is the Safehold series, through Tor/Forge. Tor/Forge handles hundreds of authors; they can only do about one, maybe two, David Weber books in a year.

Baen publishes only six or seven books a month. And that includes new editions or paperback editions of previously published books. So that's about three or four new titles a month. That's all they can handle. Of the 38 books Baen is publishing from May to October, 6 are from David Weber. The remaining 22 books are split among 20 other authors!

Are you a publisher?

All print these days is automated. It can run day and night - and no doubt does. While Baen tends to *highlight* 6 books or so each month, I'm not entirely convinced that's all they actually *print*; just the ones that are totally new or else reprints they think will have a good audience. I would suspect they print more, though the rest are probably reprints that they *don't* think people are going to be so much on the lookout for. "Restock", more or less.

No, I am not a publisher. I am a librarian. I deal with publishers regularly. I also personally know people who run a small science fiction press (NESFA Press). I do know something about the industry.

Almost 30 years ago I worked for a major telephone company, and using one (large) laser printer and blank paper they printed roughly 100,000 multi-page (around 9 or 10 pages each) bills a night. That would roughly correspond to the pages of 1000 books - using only one printer for around 8 hours. If they'd had 10 printers and ran bills 24 hours a day, they'd have printed even more.

The equivalent of 1000 books? Pah. That's worthless. Baen has to print hundreds of thousands of copies of each of the six or seven titles they print in a month. And it's a lot more complicated than running it through a laser printer. The printing process for a book is far more complicated than using a laser printer. I'm afraid you don't know what you are talking about. A cheap print-on-demand press will do things they way you are thinking, but a proper press is far more complicated. If you are basing your estimates on your experience at the telephone company, your experience is not comparable to a small professional book publisher.

SWM wrote: Baen has to print hundreds of thousands of copies of each of the six or seven titles they print in a month. And it's a lot more complicated than running it through a laser printer. The printing process for a book is far more complicated than using a laser printer. I'm afraid you don't know what you are talking about. A cheap print-on-demand press will do things they way you are thinking, but a proper press is far more complicated. If you are basing your estimates on your experience at the telephone company, your experience is not comparable to a small professional book publisher.

AFAIK, Baen doesn't print anything. Simon & Schuster prints the books. S&S is part of CBS and is one of the 5 huge worldwide publishing companies. I understand that Baen has complex financial and contractual arrangements with S&S.

I just spent 15 min trying to find an old DW post on printing. From memory of what he said: Printing the actual book is the easy part.

The problem lies in SHELF space in book stores. Everyone wants THEIR authors displayed. Well, there isn't all that much display space, so it actually gets "sold" to different publishers. Baen as a small publisher simply cannot afford to pay the "extortion" fee(lets call it what it is) compared to other publishing houses.

$$$

EDIT: IT could have been posted by Tony over on the bar... now that I think on it some more. I think along the same subject line in same post or thread was something along the lines of David Drake was writing his fingers off and not making a dime even though he had essentially released a new book every 6 months for several years. People still have to buy what you are selling. On that note, DW is a cash cow for Baen. If they could publish his stuff faster, they would.

Kytheros wrote:

cthia wrote:
Question.

What is David Weber's most successful series?

In terms of numbers of books sold/revenue generated, almost certainly the Honorverse. At least, for the series that are his alone or that he's done with a partner, ie, Hell's Gate, Empire of Man, and Starfire.


Then you've got his forays into other universes - like the Bolo-verse. Are you just looking at his work in that universe or are you going to loop in the entire series?

Don't I wish. No, I'm afraid with everything on my plate and my very limited leisure time, which the forum consumes, I'm afraid even more that the Honorverse is the only trip I'm apt to take in the very far foreseeable future.

It's just that I thought the Honorverse was his most successful series, and if it is, I thought it odd that he'd leave that fan base hanging for 3-5 years.

cthia wrote:It's just that I thought the Honorverse was his most successful series, and if it is, I thought it odd that he'd leave that fan base hanging for 3-5 years.

It's a complicated question. A simple look at the mainline Honor novels alone suggests that the time between books are getting longer and longer - but fails to take in account the anthologies, Torch and Shadow split-offs.

With those included, the rate is definitely faster. Particularly when you account for the length of those books as well - it's easier to produce two books the size of OBS and HotQ than the monster pair that was ART and SoF.

Relax wrote:I just spent 15 min trying to find an old DW post on printing. From memory of what he said: Printing the actual book is the easy part.

The problem lies in SHELF space in book stores. Everyone wants THEIR authors displayed. Well, there isn't all that much display space, so it actually gets "sold" to different publishers. Baen as a small publisher simply cannot afford to pay the "extortion" fee(lets call it what it is) compared to other publishing houses.

$$$

EDIT: IT could have been posted by Tony over on the bar... now that I think on it some more. I think along the same subject line in same post or thread was something along the lines of David Drake was writing his fingers off and not making a dime even though he had essentially released a new book every 6 months for several years. People still have to buy what you are selling. On that note, DW is a cash cow for Baen. If they could publish his stuff faster, they would.

My wife *loves* Barnes and Noble (not sure why since she's constantly complaining about them not having the next book in whatever mystery series she's reading that week); and we go to one almost every weekend. The books are *not* arranged on the shelves by publisher; but by alphabetical author's name. It would be almost impossible to calculate any one publisher's percentage of use of the available shelf space. And, realistically, it could vary widely in each store on each visit - depending on what books have sold and what ones may have arrived between successive visits.

So I don't think it's a question percentage of *space*, per se.

That said, I've occasionally been around when the cart of "new releases" is there clogging the aisle prior to the titles being put on the shelf, and I've observed the following... ...namely, that most titles only arrive with about a half dozen copies at a time - or at least that's as many as they put out for display. Occasionally they will have more; like when a book is related to a movie that just came or is coming out; or from a *very* popular author.

If kzt is correct (and I see no reason to doubt that); it's probably not a question of *space*, but more likely some sort of contracted limit. S&S prints for many sources, not just Baen.

As for authors making money; the problem has always been that the actual author's reimbursement is one of the smaller parts of the total price. Prior to the internet, this made *some* sense - for an author's work to reach the public, they needed someone to publish it - and, basically, had no choice but to agree to their selected publisher's terms. And, of course, like in any business, the "buy low and sell high" rule has it's effect. No author has a reputation at the start, so for at least some time there's not a whole lot of leverage for negotiating a bigger slice. And I suspect even for an established, best selling author starting a *new* series or project, there's probably not as much leverage until the series "takes off". Plus, it's not unheard of for a publisher being presented with plans for a new series to contract ahead for some number of books. One would hope that such contracts have "performance clauses" in case the series "takes off"; but publishers aren't exactly in the charity business, either.

Why this is still true in the internet age, however, is more puzzling. Especially for a relatively well established author - with the ease of setting up a online store, and since every ebook sold there would be 98% or so profit directly to the author, and also since most authors write on computers anyway these days, it would seem to make more sense for them to sell ebooks themselves, and just contract out hardcopy to a publisher.

munroburton wrote:

cthia wrote:It's just that I thought the Honorverse was his most successful series, and if it is, I thought it odd that he'd leave that fan base hanging for 3-5 years.

It's a complicated question. A simple look at the mainline Honor novels alone suggests that the time between books are getting longer and longer - but fails to take in account the anthologies, Torch and Shadow split-offs.

With those included, the rate is definitely faster. Particularly when you account for the length of those books as well - it's easier to produce two books the size of OBS and HotQ than the monster pair that was ART and SoF.

I wonder if that's the "Safehold influence". Many of David's earlier novels were "normal sized". The first 2 Dahak series were actually rather thin; Heirs of Empire was more than double either of them. Most of the Safehold books are *huge*. Mostly because of the detail he's going into. In some places, maybe even a bit too much, but still the novels are quite enjoyable.

As for "time between books", I don't really see much difference. Indeed, David includes pieces from the other story lines in his recent novels, which would indicate there's actually *overlap* rather than time gaps.