The Bujold Nexus

September 2005

Subject: (Chat) a real-life Enrique Borgos
Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2005

So...

In my library DVD browsing this week, I ran across a half-hour nature TV series out of Montreal, 12 episodes, titled Insectia. It's hosted by a French-Canadien fellow by the name of Georges Brossard, who is a loon for bugs and co-founder, apparently, of an insect zoo in Montreal. Anyone else seen this delightful series? Brossard could be a grown-up... scratch that, grown-older Enrique to the life, which seems to be imitating art again. I'm now having this vision of the later Enrique being a sort of Barrayaran Mr. Wizard on the equivalent of Vorbarr Sultana kids' educational TV...

Ta, L.


Subject: (News & Chat) Hill House Hallowed Hunt
Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2005

Ha! Try saying that really fast...

My author's copy of the Hill House fine press edition of The Hallowed Hunt was was waiting in my mail when I got back from my morning walk -- it is insanely gorgeous. Boxed in red silk, interior art (the Dave Bowers piece), interior decoration the like of which I've not seen. For the collector or mad person, but it really is astonishing.

www.hillhousepublishers.com

or

www.hillhousepublishers.com/lmb-hallowed01.htm

for a peek. The prototype photos don't do justice to the finished work (for one thing, the color's off -- the real silk is a deep blood-red tone. Which is rather apropos, really.)

Ta, L.


Subject: (chat) Hallowed Hunt pb
Date: Wed, 07 Sep 2005

I am asked,

"So when are we likely to see a paperback edition of The Hallowed Hunt?"

The usual one year after first pub date -- June '06, likely.

I get more royalties from a hardcover sale, though, plus hardcover returns are more expensive for the publisher. So I hope the print run of those gets turfed out.

Paperback returns can be absorbed up to 50%, i.e., a 50% sell-through, but the publisher starts cringing at hardcover returns over 30% of their print run, i.e., less than a 70% sell-through, I'm told. And becomes less enthusiastic proportionately about one's next manuscript offering. So hardcovers need to sell efficiently.

For those who don't know, "remainders", those hardcovers being sold off in piles on tables for $4 - $6, are leftovers -- books that were printed, sent out and sent back, or never ordered at all. They are sold off below cost in job-lots at the end of a book's life cycle to get them out of the warehouse, and the author receives no royalty for them.

There is a wonderful wicked poem that starts "The book of my enemy has been remaindered -- and I am pleased..." which sums it up pretty well. Through the magic of Google:

ug.cs.dal.ca/~johnston/poetry/bookofmyenemy.html

Ta, L.


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