[Books] Well there you go.

[celestineangel]

Now that I have my brain back, I can say a little more about The Prodigal Mage, but I'm not in full review mode yet.

Mostly, it's just that now I've finished it, and The Reluctant Mage isn't out yet, I've moved on back to Robin D. Owens' The Summoning books, with the third one, Protector of the FlightAnd immediately, the difference is noticeable.

Comments

[celestineangel]

As for the out-of-print, middle books don't do well.

On one hand, I can get why, considering it all depends on how prolific an author can be as to how fast they put books out. Not everyone is Jacqueline Carey, who can turn out a new book once a year like clockwork. And so people might lose track of the series until the end of it.

Still, to put one of the middle books out of print when the rest of the series sells just seems crazy to me. It's making me wonder how sucky the third book must have been to see such a dramatic change in sales that the fourth book didn't do well. :/ Maybe people figured out how formulaic they are? "I don't have to read it, I know she's going to stay, and win her fight, and get with this guy over here." (Yeah, I'm less than 80 pages into the third book and I already know who the designated man for this Exotique is.)

And yet, it costs money to manufacture the books. Still. As a reader, it's highly annoying to be able to purchase the rest in a bookstore or through Amazon, but have to search through hell and high water for one of them. Bah!

[raeraesama]

It doesn't make sense to me either. The sad thing is, the second book for the Doctrine of the Labyrinth book is my favorite.

Apparently series are problematic. Publishers like series. Bookstores don't. Unless you're the hottest seller, it's kind of difficult to keep all the books in stock, especially with how long you have to wait for the next one. Lots of people pick up a book, see it's the 2nd or 3rd in a series and put it back because the first one isn't on the shelf. Some like Ace seem to think that magically removing the numbers from series will help sales of middle books, but I think it's actually more detrimental... >>;

[celestineangel]

Apparently Luna thinks so too, as the cover of Protector of the Flight just says "The Summoning continues..." So, you know it's part of a series, but you don't know which one, and there's no list in the front of the book to tell you. Or even what the titles of the others are so you'll know which one is the first. That's why it's taken me this long to pick up this series in the first place, because I could never tell which was first. Finally, I bought the second, realized it was the second, and purchased the first off Amazon. Even then, it took me a while to read through my backlog enough to decide to read Guardian of Honor, and apparently since then the whole series has disappeared off the shelves.

Which makes me want to say, "Wow, looks like people really didn't like it after all." Which makes me feel bad because apparently Owens has won an award?

I knew publishers love series, because hey, that's more than one book to sell (assuming they sell). I didn't know bookstores don't, but I can see the reasoning. That's the type of thing that spawns a slew of "if I owned a bookstore" comments. Such as, "if I owned a bookstore, I'd make sure to have the first book of any series on the shelf at all times so this sort of thing wouldn't happen." But, of course, the more practical side of me knows there's much more to consider in owning and running a bookstore.

Oh, but wouldn't it be nice?

[raeraesama]

Well smaller bookstores could likely do that. One commented on a discussion of this very thing that they try to keep a whole series in stock when possible. X3

[celestineangel]

A friend and I actually dream of owning a used bookstore. We would have bought one in town except we couldn't get the money. Sigh.

[raeraesama]

I have the same dream. Well, mine would be more like a bookstore/comic store. There was this one site for lease that was PERFECT for what I envisioned but then they remodelled it and split it into two stores while I was looking at starting business loans and grants.:C

[celestineangel]

It would be awesome to own a business! Especially one that we know still makes money, even in this economy. :D The lady who wanted to sell her store wanted to sell because she was old and wanted to retire, not because the store had stopped making money.

I still, on occasion, look at the commercial buildings I see around town and think "Wow, that place would make a great bookstore." There was one that was L-shaped, so you could put the desk in the corner and then be able to keep an eye on people down both sides of the building. But that one's been sold. There's another one that used to be a dry-cleaning place and it has huge front windows perfect for large displays. :D But it would require some major remodeling. D:

[raeraesama]

I was looking at a former-car-repair with large windows that would need some remodeling too. X3 It's been empty since I moved in this area. I really should look into those grants, but with the economy(especially locally), I'm not sure if I could risk my current job for a dream right now.

[celestineangel]

So what you need is someone who likes to cook and can do it well to manage your non-Starbucks bookstore cafe. :D