Hanneke pointed to this, and I thought I’d pull it out so everyone would see it:
Michelle Sagara West has posted that DAW is not going to publish the final arc (4-6 very long books) in her Essalien/Averalaan world (so far consisting of the Hunter duology, The Sun Sword series, and the House War series, and a few self-published short stories), that they have published under the Michelle West name for the last two decades.
She has now started a Patreon to enable her to write them.
She will probably post an update on Patreon once a month at most, as she does on her blog, and hopes to keep to the usual DAW deadline of one book a year (barring unforeseen circumstances).
Good luck to Sagara / West! I hope this goes well for her.
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I was riveted by the Hunter Duology, and loved the Sun Sword series. Thanks for the info.
I wish her luck. I wandered over to her site and notice she’s focused on print. If she priced the ebooks better than her publisher does/did she would probably do better than she has been. If she got rights to them all back and reissued at good price points she could gain readers and the money that flows from readers.
Or so it seems to me sitting here.
Hilari Bell and Susan Dexter both had this happen, where the publisher wouldn’t publish the last book(s) in a series… They finished the series by publishing independently. I’m guessing that we’re going to see that more and more now that indie is a good option.
Elaine T., she works part-time in a physical-books bookstore, and knows there are readers who prefer those to ebooks. But she also knows that even with Patreon support, she won’t be able to get her very long books available in a print-on-demand (trade paperback) version at a price comparable to a paperback or even a hardcover.
So she’ll bring them out as ebooks, she’s clear on that, but seems to feel the need to warn those who want to support her in this endeavor, that even if this works (it appears to be doing so) they will not get a paper book out of it in the end.
She appears to be someone who always worries about how her book will be received, so I guess this is a part of that stress for her – will readers who want a paper book be disappointed, and get mad at having supported her without getting what they wanted from that support? Better to be clear about that upfront.
Hanneke, her post was picked up over at The Passive Guy’s blog and the first comment wonders where she got that price estimate for paper and did a back of then envelope calculation for one of her books and came out with about $20 for a paper copy. I think she needs to think some more.
I live with two people who prefer paper when they can get it. But from my observations, for self-pubbed work, ebooks sell a lot better and do better for the author.
I’d like her to finish the story. But I also think she needs to take a break and figure out what needs to actually go in the story. I’ve been one of those leaving increasingly disappointed reviews on Amazon.
Elaine, someone mentioned this on her blog, and she responded to the $18.95 price they’d costed for a paper book. That price seems to be only if you purely go for the Amazon PoD option, and don’t want to offer it through real bookstores. For those it has to go through Ingram which adds 40% to the price, which is where the bookstores and distributor get their income from. Hence the price of well over $30 she was recconing with.
I can understand someone who works in a bookstore not wanting to enable Amazon undercutting all the physical, local bookstores this way; I don’t buy from Amazon if there is any alternative for that reason, as I want my local shops to be able to stay open. But it still seems a pity if people won’t be able to get the books in print because of that.
Maybe in a year’s time, when the book is finished, she’ll figure out a way to get it out on paper as well. No hurried decision needed for now.