Lit Flashback: National Newspaper Coverage of the Finale of "Vector Prime"/Chewbacca

Isn't another issue with looking at Data be that the size of the readership wouldn't indicate success or failure in any regard.

What I mean is, if you write a book that you know will have a niche audience then one wouldn't expect the amount of people to read the book be a 100 million people.

To them 10,000 is a successful number.

Now not sure how that applies to a brand like Star Wars given that it is a known entinity but still...to quote Yoda "Size matters not...Look at me, judge me by my size do you" ...or in this case the size of the amount of readers each individual book is making.

 

But it was the probably the first real chink in armor. No matter how people groaned over Bantam, I don't recall there ever being the vitriol over anything of that era that compared to VP or SBS, or TUF...and the subsequent series had similar detraction, though seemly with fewer voices as the readership did seem to trail off.

 

Well that and Bantam never really took any real risk with any of the characters...pretty much everything returned to Status Quo in the end with only a few minor changes.

Honestly biggest changes were in the Zahn books but that's only because the Twins were born and the Empire and NR made peace. But in terms of anything major happening Bantam was pretty safe in that regard.

 

I'd just found this place in 1999, come across the dark lord schism that was Veitch-KJA and Zahn-Stackpole, Waru, but nothing that controversial.

Then VP came out three months later and the forum exploded.

 

If success is determined by equaling or surpassing yourself is one thing.

If success is determinted by equaling or surpassing your competition is another.

I think modern Star Wars is successful in the later, mostly on the prominence of the name brand. The former...has been a long long time.

 

I mean at the end of the day there still making Star Wars stuff so clearly whoever green lites this stuff at the end of the day must be happy with the results regardless of what any of us fans who don't know really much at the end of the day about the innerworkings of a mega corpration think

 

Over the last 20 years, while on its most high profile projects - NJO, Denningverse, the ST - SW was busy throwing characters into a blender for a quick success high, over in Trek, the DS9 relaunch was quietly doing something quite different, on entirely non-canon basis.

Where it is significant, compared to Legends, is they still made changes to the ongoing story but in a more sustainable manner than Wars was doing.

 

https://boards.theforce.net/threads...-new-star-wars-biography-may-4-2021.50055529/
Just an example.
The brand sells. It just does. People who are not even fans buy for people who may not even be that big of a fan.
The machine moves because it does make money.
It HAS to make money.
But the question remains, is it as successful as it might be...and right now I think the answer to that lies less in the material itself, as hooking more purchasers beyond the core audience.

There will always be fans who will pay.
There will always be fans who wait for reason to buy.
There will always be new fans waiting to be sold to.
There will always be a mysterious "other" market that buys.

However they slice that pie, if they reach net+1, gravy.

But who knows what the ambition of the publisher is for the title. They may be just fine with a steady expectation of revenue. Just don't fall below this line, and who cares if the book hits the best seller list.

 

I mean who knows without data where Star Wars is...But if I'm gonna be blunt I think we have MORE Star Wars fans now than we ever did....or at the very least compared to 2008-2012 time period when i felt the fandom was really entering it's dying thralls.

Or at the very least entering it's retirement party time.

 

One area I'm convinced that Disney are leaving money on the table is on not doing physical releases.

The fear is if they did that they would lose streaming subscriptions but I'm not convinced of that. If anything, where fans are concerned, there is more likely to be a double dip effect - see film at cinema, buy disc; watch week-by-week release on Disney+, then buy disc. The amount of people who would be willing to wait for disc release and remember to cancel Disney+? Very much a minority.

 

The physical release will come when the streaming data says Mandalorian and Clone Wars are not driving people to the service.

They now have a very invasive tool to see into our viewing habits, and they will use it to maximize the sales potential of the property.

They know the physical sales money is there and they will tap that well when the streaming numbers dip.

 

That and I'm skeptical these days if people care about physical copies anymore.

I mean I barley watch DVD's unless they aren't on a streaming service. I only keep mine just to keep them and not really watch them.

I just don't think the demand for physical copies is that high anymore especially among younger demographics.

 

An entire industry around UltraHD discs says people care enough about physical releases.

Maybe the tech infrastructure progresses to the point where it can match disc quality, but it's not there yet.

 

They know that. But who cares "why" someone buys. The point is "will" they buy?

Answer is YES.

My friends with all the seasons of Clone Wars will walk on hot coals to complete the set on the shelf.

 

And THAT.

 

My Clone Wars Blu-Ray/DVD collection looks empty without S7.

 

I had to get a Russian S2 DVD set to get The Lost Missions.

 

A local Meijer for me.

My VHS collection is also lacking without ROTS. Australia was the only place that was released right?

 

It's either that, or they hope to sue the bootleggers who start peddling fake DVDs at every convention around the globe.

Remember how long it took George to release the OT on DVD? Sheesh.

 

Oh yeah that was painful

 

All I can say is that it would be a challenge. Every single book of the 19 book NJO series made the NYT Bestsellers List. (And often for multiple weeks for each book). No small feat -- especially going up against heavy hitters like Harry Potter or Dark Tower.

As for sales figures, we know that NJO sold about 4 million copies by the time of Dark Nest. Each book would sell at minimum 300,000 copies, typically more (especially for hardcovers).

This is certainly not true. It was out of an effort to get out of Bantam 'autopilot' that NJO as a concept was invented. Fortunately, Salvatore has said that the majority of response he received for the book was positive, and sales figures for the rest of the series reflected a similar sentiment. So I would say the more bold approach worked on the whole.

 

Haven't most of the High Republic novels made NYT Bestsellers

I know Light of the Jedi did.

 

I think that's testimony to the mass level SW operates on. Only a fraction of the fans read the books, but it is still enough sales to qualify for the bestseller status.

 

That is very true.

Like what Star Wars book has EVER been mainstream? Or at least mainstream to be popular beyond the normal cohorts of Star Wars fans and Star Wars lit fans.

Like The Thrawn Trilogy maybe but we have no hard data to know how widespread that book went.

 

While true, DNT and LotF did not enjoy similar levels of consistent bestseller success (although FotJ almost did). Different series have different levels of success. Probably worth mentioning here that NJO's success should be contrasted with the fact that Bantam was selling a lot less immediately prior to.

There is some data on that. The Thrawn trilogy was quite successful and still is. Over 15 million copies sold. The books themselves were mainstays on the Bestsellers List for quite some time after release.