Radoslav Kirilchev asked Lois McMaster Bujold:

In one of your previous answers, you mention having given up on the UK market years ago. As someone currently living in the UK, I'm curious: Why was that? Was it only due to bad book covers?

Lois McMaster Bujold Four different UK book publishers over two decades failed to sell my books to their satisfaction (or mine). The last-but-one forgot that they had bought three books from me, and would not have published them at all except that we prodded them as the license was about to expire. Just as the line was dying; the editor brought in to oversee this demise didn't even bother to read them in order to write cover copy, but just cobbled something together from online reviews. Sales (once they bothered to print them) were microscopic. The last publisher dropped my series midway because they failed to sell enough copies, which they phrased as, the book failed to sell enough copies.

That book was Paladin of Souls, winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards for best novel, and a NYTimes bestseller. Yeah.

I don't know what's wrong with British publishers versus me, but it was plain by then that it was nothing I could fix by writing better or faster or anything else under my actual control to do.

Happily, my direct-placement e-books have given me a way to route completely around the UK publishers and book distribution and reach readers directly. My e-titles on iTunes and Amazon UK have been selling modestly but steadily since 2011, with no sign of slacking off. As more UK readers get into e-books, I expect that to continue.

Ta, L.

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