Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire
  • Mood: mellow
  • Music: SJ Tucker, "Witchka."

Audio book status.

Because this has become a very popular question in the past few weeks, here's the status of the Toby Daye audio books:

Brilliance Audio, which has been wonderful to me, and a joy to work with, only initially bought the rights to record the first three volumes. Audio book production is not cheap, and that makes producers move with caution. Right now, there is no contract to continue the series. I'm very sorry about that, but it's the only answer that I have.

Now, this does not mean you should flood Brilliance with demands that they continue; they need to know that there's a market, but no one likes to be nagged. It does mean that you can increase the chances that the series will continue in audio form by buying additional copies of the existing recordings for friends or family members who might have an interest in audio books.

I've occasionally seen people say, when authors made posts like this, "It's not my job to support your career." This is absolutely true, and I am in no way asking you to support my career (beyond, you know, buying books to feed my cats). But! If you are someone to whom the audio book editions are important, the best way to get more audio books is to buy things from and provide feedback to my audio book publisher. I can say there's a demand until I'm blue in the face; if the sales figures don't support it, I will not be heard.

Again, Brilliance has been nothing but a joy to work with. I would love to do more Toby with them. If the sales figures of the first three volumes support that, I will hopefully be able to do so.
Tags: business needs, late eclipses, recording, toby daye
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  • 32 comments
...go 3 levels up... Expand

aiglet

February 28 2011, 03:25:59 UTC 6 years ago

That may very well be what the customer wants, but it's not terribly good for the author in terms of making the sales count in places that they need to in order to keep selling books (like best-seller lists), I don't think. Of course, several whole minutes of Googling fail to tell me if that sort of delivery counts as "on sale the day you bought it" or "on sale the day it gets to you."

See also here for why that might make an unhappy blonde alert as well as some of Seanan's other posts about book buying necessities.

salacious_pop

February 28 2011, 03:47:40 UTC 6 years ago

I absolutely understand the other side of the argument, so I apologize for overstepping on something Seanan has already commented on. I also misspoke when I used the word "purchases" in my first line, I meant "shipping". A purchase made before the ship-date is simply a preorder because no money has really exchanged hands yet.

As someone who enjoys various fandoms, I know that if I want to obtain something the SECOND its legally available via a hard sale that the author/publisher can see in their sales data, and I can afford it?

I'm going to a physical retailer that's offering a midnight release. There's really just nothing better, because you're paying retail and you get to interact with other people in line who are into the fandom as much as you are.

But when money is tight or if I was disabled? I'm going to rely on mail order, and I can't count the amount of times I had to wait for something that couldn't ship until the street date, takes 2 days to get out the door, plus 3-6 days of ground transit... it'll be a week before I get my hands on it.

Factor in Spoiler Warning failures on the internet and it can make for a very devastating fan experience. That makes me.. not want to use mail order at all, and Amazon is a pretty good retailer. If I can't *get* to a store, it means I won't be a part of 1st week sales data at all.

Items that ship early to arrive the same day you could get it in stores would still be a pre-order, something that publishers absolutely see from retailers.

Amazon doesn't offer this service for every product, meaning its something negotiated contractually.

seanan_mcguire

February 28 2011, 04:11:17 UTC 6 years ago

Yeah, it's a case-by-case thing. I totally understand the value of and reason for mail order. Mail order makes the world a better place, yo.

yoritomo_reiko

March 1 2011, 20:39:56 UTC 6 years ago

Yeah. I have to go Amazon with a lot of my books because I live in a small town in the UK and the closest thing we have to a decent bookstore is a WH Smith. Which had Feed! (I've bought, still need to read.) But still has never had any of the Toby Daye books.

Also, I thought it was going to be ages before I was able to get Late Eclipses because the confirmation e-mail I got in October for the preorder said it wouldn't be released until the end of the month. But apparently it's out at the same time here, since I've had a note saying its on its way. I was a much happier fan when I saw that.