2016: The Revenge of 2016
About six months ago (probably, Black Library puts these things out semi-annually so I'm taking this on faith) I published my personal best seller list of the year so far. Now then, with summer on the way out, here's what's jumping off the book stands in the second half of 2016
Quick Read
1. Gotrek & Felix: Rememberers
2. Final Duty
3. Deliverance Detail
Short Story
1. Infinite Circuit
2. Godless
3. Beneath the Black Thumb
Audio
1. The Beasts of Cartha
2. Fist of Mork, Fist of Gork
3. Great Red
Novel
1. Echoes of the Long War
2. Gotrek & Felix: Kinslayer
3. The Last Son of Dorn
Once again, Infinite Circuit surprises me by topping the short story pile. Unashamed bolter porn it may be, but there's something satisfying about blind priests frying Deathwatch Space Marines with lightning bolts from their hands!
The arrival of my figures for the year also lets me put to bed something I've been wanting to have a word on for a while now - this bizarre assertion that crops up on forums every so often that Age of Sigmar isn't selling. This always had a whiff of bollocks, but now I can confirm it. Here's just one like-for-like example:
Gotrek & Felix: Curse of the Everliving - lifetime sales in the mid hundreds
The Beasts of Cartha - over a thousand just in the last six months
Bear in mind won't you that Curse of the Everliving must be about four years old now, and belongs to the most popular Warhammer series of them all.
For another comparison, let's look at the short stories The Karag Durak Grudge and Unseen, both of which have sold in the lower hundreds, and my first AoS short Beneath the Black Thumb which is already pushing a thousand. Those first two stories were written early in my career, so it's possible that the lack of 'name' attached to them could have affected their performance. But, I remember being told long, long ago that Black Library sales are driven largely by what's been written about more than who wrote it; i.e. more people will buy the next Ultramarines book than the next book by Graham McNeill. Sad, but I can see the truth in that, and Queek Headtaker and Deathmaster Snikch are awesome enough to sell books on their own. You'd think.
You can still argue that Age of Sigmar is no good if you want to, indeed I think Unseen in particular is one of my best (so much so that I recently sent it along with an excerpt of Slayer as part of my begging letter to the editor of anther IP - hopefully more on that another time!) and if some of those AoS readers want to pick up a copy of that instead then I'd be thrilled. What you can't argue is that it's not selling. Because it is.
Quick Read
1. Gotrek & Felix: Rememberers
2. Final Duty
3. Deliverance Detail
Short Story
1. Infinite Circuit
2. Godless
3. Beneath the Black Thumb
Audio
1. The Beasts of Cartha
2. Fist of Mork, Fist of Gork
3. Great Red
Novel
1. Echoes of the Long War
2. Gotrek & Felix: Kinslayer
3. The Last Son of Dorn
Once again, Infinite Circuit surprises me by topping the short story pile. Unashamed bolter porn it may be, but there's something satisfying about blind priests frying Deathwatch Space Marines with lightning bolts from their hands!
The arrival of my figures for the year also lets me put to bed something I've been wanting to have a word on for a while now - this bizarre assertion that crops up on forums every so often that Age of Sigmar isn't selling. This always had a whiff of bollocks, but now I can confirm it. Here's just one like-for-like example:
Gotrek & Felix: Curse of the Everliving - lifetime sales in the mid hundreds
The Beasts of Cartha - over a thousand just in the last six months
Bear in mind won't you that Curse of the Everliving must be about four years old now, and belongs to the most popular Warhammer series of them all.
For another comparison, let's look at the short stories The Karag Durak Grudge and Unseen, both of which have sold in the lower hundreds, and my first AoS short Beneath the Black Thumb which is already pushing a thousand. Those first two stories were written early in my career, so it's possible that the lack of 'name' attached to them could have affected their performance. But, I remember being told long, long ago that Black Library sales are driven largely by what's been written about more than who wrote it; i.e. more people will buy the next Ultramarines book than the next book by Graham McNeill. Sad, but I can see the truth in that, and Queek Headtaker and Deathmaster Snikch are awesome enough to sell books on their own. You'd think.
You can still argue that Age of Sigmar is no good if you want to, indeed I think Unseen in particular is one of my best (so much so that I recently sent it along with an excerpt of Slayer as part of my begging letter to the editor of anther IP - hopefully more on that another time!) and if some of those AoS readers want to pick up a copy of that instead then I'd be thrilled. What you can't argue is that it's not selling. Because it is.
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