Lit Journey to The Force Awakens: Twenty new books upcoming this fall

I love those coverarts

 

Wow that second one is really rocking the retro 80s vibe.

 

Francavilla is well worth keeping an eye on.

 

I don't think so. Funny thing is that out of "20 new books", only 1 has actually been a full-length novel.

 

probably because the novels don't sell as well as the young reader books

 

Also stickers rule.

 

If you put the stickers in Aftermath it'll probably make it that much cooler

 

Knowing it comes with stickers might win back all the people who got bent out of shape by the present-tense writing.

 

Can it have a color-by-number page too? Telling us what colors things should be will make it more canon.

 

If they're not sold by Wedge and RAE SLOANE, I kind of doubt they're going to be sold by stickers.

 

Really?

 

Yeah, they're pretty consistent about selling over 100,000 copies in the year of release. Star Wars novels stopped breaking 100,000 around the time of Legacy of the Force -- Invincible, the TFU novelization, and Traviss' TCW film novelization were the last three to break 100,000, and each did so only barely (Betrayal and Sacrifice did not). Obviously there's a lot of factors that go into it, like when the prequel films were being released, the NJO was selling 200,000+. I suppose they marketed that pretty well because I don't believe that the prequel tie-ins were quite as successful at the time, although some were, mostly early on (Rogue Planet, Shadow Hunter), so I think it does say something that Destiny's Way and The Unifying Force did as well as they did in 2002 and 2003, compared to the Clone Wars multimedia project novels, or even Tatooine Ghost and Survivor's Quest. There are also economic considerations I suppose (c. 2008) but if that was a major factor you would expect a bounce back by now which never happened... Plus there's the advent of the popularity of the ebook. But ebook sales numbers are also available, and IIRC the novel Darth Plagueis barely broke 50,000 taking into account physical copies and ebooks. Apocalypse was under 50,000.

The bestsellers lists are pretty misleading. It's pretty much a given that a SW novel will hit the list, as there are enough fans to buy the books upon release to ensure it will have relatively high numbers for a given week... the ones that sell really well hit it consistently for weeks or months. Hitting it for one or two weeks at #18 or whatever doesn't mean squat.

 

That's depressing. Hopefully it will change when the films start coming out.

Surely price has something to do with it though. The Young Readers books are a hell of a lot cheaper than the Adult books, especially the Hardcovers, and the pure number of sales isn't fully representative of profit?

 

I find it odd that people are bothered by the present tense - it's not particularly unusual?

 

I love I, Jedi, especially since it was one of the first EU books my brother and I owned, but present tense will infuriate me because Star Wars is meant to be written in past tense.

 

I thought the ROTS novelization handled present tense pretty well.

 

Can't tell if you're serious or not half the time

 

Should we leave you two alone?

 

Is there a master release schedule for September 4th? I want to find one so that I can make a list of books & comics to pre-order.

--Adm. Nick

 

I still don't understand this statement.

ROTS and Traitor both had present-tense scenes. Even if they didn't, why is Star Wars "meant to" be written in the past tense? Is there some hard-and-fast law written somewhere that says "THOU SHALT WRITE STAR WARS BOOKS ONLY IN THE PAST TENSE!" No, that's silly. To me, it just sounds like yet another copout reason you don't care to try the new stuff. That's just my reading.

I mean, honestly, I'd be totally fine if you said "I don't like that it's written in present tense" or "present tense just isn't for me." Fine, whatever, that's your opinion and you have the right to it. But what the kark does "it's meant to be written in past tense" even mean? Seriously, can you explain this to me. I am mystified.

 

Re: Comics - you will find various info on what is expected, but will only be confirmed about a week before!

Book release dates are far more stable and reliable.

 

Define "cheaper". You pay less, but you get less. The adult books are cheaper per unit-of-time-spent-reading.

 

Cheaper per unit. I was responding directly to the statement that youth books sell more units, which I said doesn't necessarily indicate that they make the company more money.

 

Which book are we suppose to read first? Aftermath and Lost Stars comes out on the same day. Lost Stars seems to happen first in the timeline, but Aftermath is the more touted book. Do we know which one they intend on us to read first, or will they be totally separate tales and it wont matter?

-C