Andrew Brooks
asked
Michael J. Sullivan:
any idea what happened to Blackguards? The Kindle & ebook versions appear to not exist
Michael J. Sullivan
Hey Andrew. I know a bit, but definitely not the "whole story." Here's what I know. The publisher (Ragnarok Publications) ran on hard times and I think they now cease to exist. There was an announcement made in November 2017, and hhere's an excerpt from that announcement.
"It’s time for a hard decision. In order for us to get our feet under us again, we have to reboot in a way. It’s extremely unfortunate and we wrestled with this decision, but for now, we’re closing down the majority of our novel contracts. We feel like the authors we work with are family and this is the last thing we wanted to do — hurt our family. We love and believe in all the novels we’ve published, but we simply cannot afford to keep them in print, nor can we afford to put out new novels at the level of quality that we are known for.
And according to an article on the BlackGate blog, they were removing their titles. Here's what they said in their 11/17/17 post:
"In addition, Ragnarok will not be keeping their existing books in print — so if there are titles you’ve had your eye on in their catalog, we suggest you move quickly."
I think it was "absorbed" into Outland Entertainment (I'm not sure if it's the same people running it). The announcement about that said they were keeping some existing titles (including Blackguards) but it doesn't look like that happened. Here is a portion from the March 4, 2018 announcement.
"When we announced last year (2017) that we were making changes to Ragnarok Publications, the intent was to maintain Ragnarok as an imprint of Outland Entertainment. But as we started to move forward, it became more and more obvious that there was just too much negative press associated with Ragnarok. None of which really had anything to do with the current team behind the company as it stands.
So, rather than try to continue publishing with one arm tied behind our back, we’ve made the decision to absorb Ragnarok into Outland. It also helps to bring everything under one banner in terms of management and production."
It looks like the audiobook version still exists, and some people are "reselling" the paperback at astronomical prices. But as far as the ebook is concerned, I don't think it can be purchased any longer.
"It’s time for a hard decision. In order for us to get our feet under us again, we have to reboot in a way. It’s extremely unfortunate and we wrestled with this decision, but for now, we’re closing down the majority of our novel contracts. We feel like the authors we work with are family and this is the last thing we wanted to do — hurt our family. We love and believe in all the novels we’ve published, but we simply cannot afford to keep them in print, nor can we afford to put out new novels at the level of quality that we are known for.
And according to an article on the BlackGate blog, they were removing their titles. Here's what they said in their 11/17/17 post:
"In addition, Ragnarok will not be keeping their existing books in print — so if there are titles you’ve had your eye on in their catalog, we suggest you move quickly."
I think it was "absorbed" into Outland Entertainment (I'm not sure if it's the same people running it). The announcement about that said they were keeping some existing titles (including Blackguards) but it doesn't look like that happened. Here is a portion from the March 4, 2018 announcement.
"When we announced last year (2017) that we were making changes to Ragnarok Publications, the intent was to maintain Ragnarok as an imprint of Outland Entertainment. But as we started to move forward, it became more and more obvious that there was just too much negative press associated with Ragnarok. None of which really had anything to do with the current team behind the company as it stands.
So, rather than try to continue publishing with one arm tied behind our back, we’ve made the decision to absorb Ragnarok into Outland. It also helps to bring everything under one banner in terms of management and production."
It looks like the audiobook version still exists, and some people are "reselling" the paperback at astronomical prices. But as far as the ebook is concerned, I don't think it can be purchased any longer.
More Answered Questions
Uhuit
asked
Michael J. Sullivan:
Mankind in Elan is much younger than in our world, and has come from Calis, where humans are dark-skinned. Does that mean that all of humanity, also those in Elan, is much more dark skinned (than caucasian people in our world) in general, since there hasn't been that much time, evolutionary speaking, to develop different features such as pale skin? (How) would this influence the mir?
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