DelRey Update - B5 Short Story Anth., Novels, etc.

[Joseph DeMartino]

Re: Morons

To Dream was a new title for Del Rey, which means it would be advertised and promoted, and they would expect higher sales for it than they would for the teep trilogy which they had published several years before. True, it was a reprint - but the Dell version came out when the show was still in production, so long ago that probably half of today's B5 fans had never heard of the show yet. These people were checking conventions, used book stores and the on-line book sellers desparately trying to find an old copy to buy (often at inflated prices) before Del Rey came to the rescue.

Maybe you wouldn't buy the book, but what about the millions of fans who discovered the show between the time the original edition went out of print and the day the Del Rey version arrived?

Regards,

Joe

 

[ElScorcho]

Re: Morons

True, it was a reprint - but the Dell version came out when the show was still in production, so long ago that probably half of today's B5 fans had never heard of the show yet.

I didn't watch any of B5 until it was aired on TNT and I managed to find a copy of the first (Dell) printing in a local bookstore (along with Shadow Within) . And that was after I had purchased and read the Psi Corps trilogy. In fact, the Psi Corps trilogy was what got me interested in the books in the first place.

Actually, it was at the time when I started buying the books that I noticed the Dell books disappearing (because I didn't buy every one I saw, I waited until I was finished the one I was reading). Obviously, there were other fans in my town that had the same idea.

I loved the trilogies. But in typical B5 fashion, the releases were spread so far apart that it was hard to remember where the last book left off without flipping back through it. It seems to me that the release schedule actually lost the interest of some fans. I still see books in the Centauri trilogy on the shelves.

And the rep from DelRey said that there wasn't enough "new" fans. That doesn't stop Star Trek from releasing like fifty books a year, does it? Enterprise must really be raking them in. I know, ST has a much bigger fanbase than B5 - but I used to read a lot of ST books and the quality has really declined, although the quantity hasn't.

 

[phoenixrising]

Re: Morons

Personally, I avoided the B5 novels when they first came out. I read the first one ("Voices" I think it was) and was not impressed and figured the rest were like the glut of "Trek" books out there, published to take advantage of the "brand name" and generally sucking pond water.

The two that have been reprinted so far, are much superior, while the trilogies I haven't got to reading yet (trying to finish LOTR before it opens). If they could all be like those, I think they might sell better.

Of course the ultimate coup would be for JMS to write one. Can anyone say "bestseller"?