So the publisher specifies the size and shape of the novel. Considering that, oh, I dunno, the last 20 MTG books have all been printed and published by Wizards, I think it's safe to say that yes, it is Wizards who controls the end product, and is the decider behind the format and regularity with which books are published.
Wizards may claim they're promoting their authors, but the fact that it is incredibly difficult for me to actually purchase books by them leads me to believe otherwise.
Actually many vendors are moving away from buying the regulation sized paperbacks, making a lot of the publishers start to switch to the larger softback novel formats. The publishing industry as a whole has a lot of catches and such that alter the way the publishers themselves can turn out products.
This isn't a matter of what they did in the past, this is a matter of what the industry is having them do NOW. Like I said, read the threads that Laura and Ari posted over at Gleemax. It might give you some insights about the the industry.
Actually many vendors are moving away from buying the regulation sized paperbacks, making a lot of the publishers start to switch to the larger softback novel formats. The publishing industry as a whole has a lot of catches and such that alter the way the publishers themselves can turn out products.
This isn't a matter of what they did in the past, this is a matter of what the industry is having them do NOW. Like I said, read the threads that Laura and Ari posted over at Gleemax. It might give you some insights about the the industry.
I already went through some of them, I'm sick and it's late and I really don't have the time or energy to read some 80 pages of forum posts.
And regardless of what vendors are doing, Wizards had a loophole to vendors in the first place, giving the books out in fatpacks. Which had greater distribution AND more market penetration. Why a company would switch away from a method of distribution that is both wider and more effective than their current model baffles me.
You know how many places locally sell fatpacks? Five. You know how many bookstores we have? One.
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"The difference between MTG and science is that one has people dressed up in silly clothes, using words you can't understand and doing potentially quite dangerous stuff while the other has people dressed up in silly clothes, using words you can't understand and doing potentially quite dangerous stuff while playing cards."
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I already went through some of them, I'm sick and it's late and I really don't have the time or energy to read some 80 pages of forum posts.
And regardless of what vendors are doing, Wizards had a loophole to vendors in the first place, giving the books out in fatpacks. Which had greater distribution AND more market penetration. Why a company would switch away from a method of distribution that is both wider and more effective than their current model baffles me.
You know how many places locally sell fatpacks? Five. You know how many bookstores we have? One.
Yeah, like I said, they were long as hell.
I won't really argue the fatpack thing, mostly because I tend to agree with you about them. At the same time, we only have 1 gameshop here, though the great evil corporation also sells fatpacks, but not regularly. They get like 1 shipment in and that's it, bringing up the total to 2 places to get them. Meanwhile, we have 6 bookstores in town and you can get magic books at 4 of them.
Ugh Barinellos, I really wish you wouldn't have given me those links....
Do you need to read AGENTS OF ARTIFICE or any other books before reading THE PURIFYING FIRE?
Since -I- hadn't read any other MAGIC books before writing THE PURIFYING FIRE, I'll go out on a limb here and say: NO
First off that is just bad advertising, say yes so people will go out and buy AoA oi oi!
but this has been my problems from day one! Maybe I am different but if I am given an assignment at work that someone else has worked on I don't just rush into things and finish it, I see what thye have done and then do my work. While Purifyin Fire wasn't horrible it didn't have any throw backs to MtG of old except "Chandra knew Jaya". I think these new authors need to read what has happened to appreciate the storyline they are now a part of. Maybe then we would have less continuity errors since MtG seems to not give a heck about continuity anymore.
Absolutely. I write in my spare time, and when i even hear about a new series, I try to rush out and get the books. If I was commisioned to write for a series, I'd own every book in that series within the week. People are slackers.
Just what the world needs, alternate art version of a planeswalker hardly anyone plays ....
It would at least be nice of WotC to update the page with something like "The publishing date has been pushed out/ the books been canceled - or something. They drive me crazy with just yanking stuff off their site with no explanation.
Yeah, but at least it'd be an acceptable reason for me to delay it for a while. That, or extra time to proof read, or trying to tie it in to some later storyline are all acceptable reasons for me to be in the dark for a while. As you said, yanking it off like that bothers me too.
Yeah, but at least it'd be an acceptable reason for me to delay it for a while. That, or extra time to proof read, or trying to tie it in to some later storyline are all acceptable reasons for me to be in the dark for a while. As you said, yanking it off like that bothers me too.
I dunno, they got their hands on the Purifying Fire and gave us that mock-Shadowmoore-esque storyline in "the worlds covere dind arkness and ruled by an evil prince!"
By the time it comes out, it better be a promo of Liliana 2.0.
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"The difference between MTG and science is that one has people dressed up in silly clothes, using words you can't understand and doing potentially quite dangerous stuff while the other has people dressed up in silly clothes, using words you can't understand and doing potentially quite dangerous stuff while playing cards."
My Decks: WAnglesW WUBRGThe BroodGRBUW WUGAllymillGUW
That would be awesome. A new liliana would be nice but do you think they'd promo her so soon?
I dunno, half of me doesn't even care anymore. I don't really have the motivation to wait a year and a half for one book.
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"The difference between MTG and science is that one has people dressed up in silly clothes, using words you can't understand and doing potentially quite dangerous stuff while the other has people dressed up in silly clothes, using words you can't understand and doing potentially quite dangerous stuff while playing cards."
My Decks: WAnglesW WUBRGThe BroodGRBUW WUGAllymillGUW
I was discussing this today with a friend I'm introducing the magic books to. I'm convinced wizards is trying to destroy their book buisness.
I said this a couple pages ago when Barnellios tried to argue that there were "rules" in the printing industry preventing Wizards from publishing their books in the same way they've done for the past decade.
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"The difference between MTG and science is that one has people dressed up in silly clothes, using words you can't understand and doing potentially quite dangerous stuff while the other has people dressed up in silly clothes, using words you can't understand and doing potentially quite dangerous stuff while playing cards."
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I remember, I was trying to say you convinced me. I brought the point up to her, and she laughed.
I was also thinking about something else today. Is there anything we can do. I mean besides complaining on a forum. I'm not a huge fan of people who complain, without doing something productive to change it. We've complained a helluva lot. Let's do something productive. I'm down for extremes too btw. If anyone wants to drive down to the Wizards office and do some protesting let me know.
I dunno, they got their hands on the Purifying Fire and gave us that mock-Shadowmoore-esque storyline in "the worlds covere dind arkness and ruled by an evil prince!"
I don't mean any in-house editing. Just some basic typo fixing and stuff like that. To make it flow better in a way.
I was also thinking about something else today. Is there anything we can do. I mean besides complaining on a forum. I'm not a huge fan of people who complain, without doing something productive to change it. We've complained a helluva lot. Let's do something productive. I'm down for extremes too btw. If anyone wants to drive down to the Wizards office and do some protesting let me know.
The problem is that anything we do must be done with our money. However, what we want them to do is not eliminate a product, but produce more of it, which is difficult because a very limited amount of the product(books) is available on the market. The problem here though is that if we buy LOTS of the books, they'll think their new tactic worked, but if we don't buy the books, they'll think we don't care about the books and stop making them.
We could not buy fatpacks, but the thing is, we'd be doing so not because we don't like the price or that we don't want fatpacks anymore, it's because we want them to include the books in them again.
The way Wizards has it set up, is that our money is now divided, either buy the cards without the book(which has an advert for the book, so logically if we don't buy the book then the advert isn't helpful), or buy the book without the cards, which is problematic if you can't find the book.
Without very overt communication with Wizards, as well as coordinated buying/boycotting effort(which really hurts stores more than Wizards), they're not going to get the point.
So right now, I think we need a lot more "MAKE MORE BOOKS NOW!!!" threads on the official forums, along with lots and lots of complaints.
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"The difference between MTG and science is that one has people dressed up in silly clothes, using words you can't understand and doing potentially quite dangerous stuff while the other has people dressed up in silly clothes, using words you can't understand and doing potentially quite dangerous stuff while playing cards."
My Decks: WAnglesW WUBRGThe BroodGRBUW WUGAllymillGUW
Forums are easily dismissable. 20-50 people marching on the wizards office could not be ignored. ALthough I could see half of the group melting into Brady's arms when they see him. lol.
But seriously, Boycotting in this situation seems to have too many negative effects, but we need to get our point accross. If we needs to do so with threads, so be it. But I call for action!
Forums are easily dismissable. 20-50 people marching on the wizards office could not be ignored. ALthough I could see half of the group melting into Brady's arms when they see him. lol.
But seriously, Boycotting in this situation seems to have too many negative effects, but we need to get our point accross. If we needs to do so with threads, so be it. But I call for action!
The thing is they will always come up with an excuse. I do not believe it is the publishing industry that is holding them back from making more books, I believe it is the fact that they do not get a great reception with their novels and thus we get less of them. Who knows, maybe Hasbro doesn't want them publishign so many novels because it isn't getting a good enough revenue?
Maybe the fanc ommunity should start writing their own Magic novels, how awesome would that be?
Maybe the fanc ommunity should start writing their own Magic novels, how awesome would that be?
I'm sure we could, but the key is that we can't write anything without some idea who these characters are, inventing the world isn't so bad, but when you've got no idea about Chandra other than she's a fire-mage, well, that doesn't leave a lot of room for consistency.
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"The difference between MTG and science is that one has people dressed up in silly clothes, using words you can't understand and doing potentially quite dangerous stuff while the other has people dressed up in silly clothes, using words you can't understand and doing potentially quite dangerous stuff while playing cards."
My Decks: WAnglesW WUBRGThe BroodGRBUW WUGAllymillGUW
I'm sure we could, but the key is that we can't write anything without some idea who these characters are, inventing the world isn't so bad, but when you've got no idea about Chandra other than she's a fire-mage, well, that doesn't leave a lot of room for consistency.
I am talking about making our own continuity, say, alternate reality where we take over the story after Zendikar. It would be interesting but I doubt any of us have the time, lol.
The thing is they will always come up with an excuse. I do not believe it is the publishing industry that is holding them back from making more books, I believe it is the fact that they do not get a great reception with their novels and thus we get less of them. Who knows, maybe Hasbro doesn't want them publishign so many novels because it isn't getting a good enough revenue?
Maybe the fanc ommunity should start writing their own Magic novels, how awesome would that be?
Wizards probably doesn't want to print more magic books so they can crank out another thirty Drizzt novels. Blech.
The thing is, Magic isn't the only imprint that Wizards publishes. The rest of their stuff, especially the Forgotten Realms junk sells better. You can't lay this completely at the Magic team's feet. It's not that I'm ignoring the Magic team having something to do with this, it's just that I wanted to illustrate a point. Wizards and Hasbro ARE a larger coorporation than just Magic. We don't really know what other things could be impacting their publishing branch.
Wizards probably doesn't want to print more magic books so they can crank out another thirty Drizzt novels. Blech.
The thing is, Magic isn't the only imprint that Wizards publishes. The rest of their stuff, especially the Forgotten Realms junk sells better. You can't lay this completely at the Magic team's feet. It's not that I'm ignoring the Magic team having something to do with this, it's just that I wanted to illustrate a point. Wizards and Hasbro ARE a larger corporation than just Magic. We don't really know what other things could be impacting their publishing branch.
Which is why, indeed, I have laid the blame for publishing limitations on Wizards themselves. Not that Hasbro could sell water in the desert though. But it sure as heck isn't "market factors" or "vendor preferences" or some other weird BS that we're getting. Wizards changed the shape of Fatpacks, which changed the availability of books, which were then cut back in scope and scale.
Creative gets the blame for lacking focus in their books or simply not writing them well, but yeah, they're not at fault for not publishing them.
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"The difference between MTG and science is that one has people dressed up in silly clothes, using words you can't understand and doing potentially quite dangerous stuff while the other has people dressed up in silly clothes, using words you can't understand and doing potentially quite dangerous stuff while playing cards."
My Decks: WAnglesW WUBRGThe BroodGRBUW WUGAllymillGUW
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Actually many vendors are moving away from buying the regulation sized paperbacks, making a lot of the publishers start to switch to the larger softback novel formats. The publishing industry as a whole has a lot of catches and such that alter the way the publishers themselves can turn out products.
This isn't a matter of what they did in the past, this is a matter of what the industry is having them do NOW. Like I said, read the threads that Laura and Ari posted over at Gleemax. It might give you some insights about the the industry.
http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75842/18888530/Purifying_Fire_author_Q38;A
http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75842/18888562/Agents_of_Artifice_author_Q38;A
Admittedly, both these threads are LONG as hell, but there's a lot of interesting subjects covered in them.
I already went through some of them, I'm sick and it's late and I really don't have the time or energy to read some 80 pages of forum posts.
And regardless of what vendors are doing, Wizards had a loophole to vendors in the first place, giving the books out in fatpacks. Which had greater distribution AND more market penetration. Why a company would switch away from a method of distribution that is both wider and more effective than their current model baffles me.
You know how many places locally sell fatpacks? Five. You know how many bookstores we have? One.
WAnglesW
WUBRGThe BroodGRBUW
WUGAllymillGUW
Yeah, like I said, they were long as hell.
I won't really argue the fatpack thing, mostly because I tend to agree with you about them. At the same time, we only have 1 gameshop here, though the great evil corporation also sells fatpacks, but not regularly. They get like 1 shipment in and that's it, bringing up the total to 2 places to get them. Meanwhile, we have 6 bookstores in town and you can get magic books at 4 of them.
First off that is just bad advertising, say yes so people will go out and buy AoA oi oi!
but this has been my problems from day one! Maybe I am different but if I am given an assignment at work that someone else has worked on I don't just rush into things and finish it, I see what thye have done and then do my work. While Purifyin Fire wasn't horrible it didn't have any throw backs to MtG of old except "Chandra knew Jaya". I think these new authors need to read what has happened to appreciate the storyline they are now a part of. Maybe then we would have less continuity errors since MtG seems to not give a heck about continuity anymore.
I know right? I spent the EARLIER part of my morning marathoning the topics, and I just woke up this afternoon.
Hey, maybe they're delaying Chain Veil because they're printing a promo card for it? How nice would that be
It would at least be nice of WotC to update the page with something like "The publishing date has been pushed out/ the books been canceled - or something. They drive me crazy with just yanking stuff off their site with no explanation.
I dunno, they got their hands on the Purifying Fire and gave us that mock-Shadowmoore-esque storyline in "the worlds covere dind arkness and ruled by an evil prince!"
By the time it comes out, it better be a promo of Liliana 2.0.
WAnglesW
WUBRGThe BroodGRBUW
WUGAllymillGUW
I dunno, half of me doesn't even care anymore. I don't really have the motivation to wait a year and a half for one book.
WAnglesW
WUBRGThe BroodGRBUW
WUGAllymillGUW
I was discussing this today with a friend I'm introducing the magic books to. I'm convinced wizards is trying to destroy their book buisness.
I said this a couple pages ago when Barnellios tried to argue that there were "rules" in the printing industry preventing Wizards from publishing their books in the same way they've done for the past decade.
WAnglesW
WUBRGThe BroodGRBUW
WUGAllymillGUW
I was also thinking about something else today. Is there anything we can do. I mean besides complaining on a forum. I'm not a huge fan of people who complain, without doing something productive to change it. We've complained a helluva lot. Let's do something productive. I'm down for extremes too btw. If anyone wants to drive down to the Wizards office and do some protesting let me know.
Yeah, pretty much.
I don't mean any in-house editing. Just some basic typo fixing and stuff like that. To make it flow better in a way.
The problem is that anything we do must be done with our money. However, what we want them to do is not eliminate a product, but produce more of it, which is difficult because a very limited amount of the product(books) is available on the market. The problem here though is that if we buy LOTS of the books, they'll think their new tactic worked, but if we don't buy the books, they'll think we don't care about the books and stop making them.
We could not buy fatpacks, but the thing is, we'd be doing so not because we don't like the price or that we don't want fatpacks anymore, it's because we want them to include the books in them again.
The way Wizards has it set up, is that our money is now divided, either buy the cards without the book(which has an advert for the book, so logically if we don't buy the book then the advert isn't helpful), or buy the book without the cards, which is problematic if you can't find the book.
Without very overt communication with Wizards, as well as coordinated buying/boycotting effort(which really hurts stores more than Wizards), they're not going to get the point.
So right now, I think we need a lot more "MAKE MORE BOOKS NOW!!!" threads on the official forums, along with lots and lots of complaints.
WAnglesW
WUBRGThe BroodGRBUW
WUGAllymillGUW
But seriously, Boycotting in this situation seems to have too many negative effects, but we need to get our point accross. If we needs to do so with threads, so be it. But I call for action!
The thing is they will always come up with an excuse. I do not believe it is the publishing industry that is holding them back from making more books, I believe it is the fact that they do not get a great reception with their novels and thus we get less of them. Who knows, maybe Hasbro doesn't want them publishign so many novels because it isn't getting a good enough revenue?
Maybe the fanc ommunity should start writing their own Magic novels, how awesome would that be?
I'm sure we could, but the key is that we can't write anything without some idea who these characters are, inventing the world isn't so bad, but when you've got no idea about Chandra other than she's a fire-mage, well, that doesn't leave a lot of room for consistency.
WAnglesW
WUBRGThe BroodGRBUW
WUGAllymillGUW
I am talking about making our own continuity, say, alternate reality where we take over the story after Zendikar. It would be interesting but I doubt any of us have the time, lol.
Wizards probably doesn't want to print more magic books so they can crank out another thirty Drizzt novels. Blech.
The thing is, Magic isn't the only imprint that Wizards publishes. The rest of their stuff, especially the Forgotten Realms junk sells better. You can't lay this completely at the Magic team's feet. It's not that I'm ignoring the Magic team having something to do with this, it's just that I wanted to illustrate a point. Wizards and Hasbro ARE a larger coorporation than just Magic. We don't really know what other things could be impacting their publishing branch.
Which is why, indeed, I have laid the blame for publishing limitations on Wizards themselves. Not that Hasbro could sell water in the desert though. But it sure as heck isn't "market factors" or "vendor preferences" or some other weird BS that we're getting. Wizards changed the shape of Fatpacks, which changed the availability of books, which were then cut back in scope and scale.
Creative gets the blame for lacking focus in their books or simply not writing them well, but yeah, they're not at fault for not publishing them.
WAnglesW
WUBRGThe BroodGRBUW
WUGAllymillGUW