Re: David Gerrold - War with the Cthorr

On Fri, 2 May 2008 20:49:27 -0400, acwheele@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 (Andrew Wheeler)
wrote:

>John Schilling <schillin@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

>> On Fri, 02 May 2008 01:15:16 GMT, Carl Dershem <dershem@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
 
>> >diverwpg <wgemedicaid@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in
news:b28130c8-bcc2-4550-8255-
>> >9dc49fc653f6@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> >> I would like to finish reading the series before I retire - 7.5
years.

>> >> Does anyone have any news?  His website - www.gerrold.com - seems to
>> >> have disappeared.

>> >Finish?  I don't know.  But he's written considerable amounts of the
next 2
>> >books, and what I've read is very good.  But he's been distracted by
having
>> >to make a living.
 
>> Isn't Gerrold a professional writer?  You know, someone who makes a
living
>> by, like, writing stuff?

>> And it's hard to imagine what he could have written that would have
made
>> as much money as the next Chtorr book.  Some new Trek franchise
material,
>> perhaps, but that's not been what he's been writing the past fifteen
>> years.  The nine novels he did manage to publish in that period, I
doubt
>> any of them made as much as the last Chtorr book.
 
>> So I'm kind of skeptical on the whole, "making a living" thing. 
Writer's
>> block or lack of enthusiasm for that particular series, seems a whole
lot
>> more plausible.

>You have a lot more faith in the selling power of book five in a dead
>series than most publishers would.

Perhaps, but it wasn't "book five in a dead series" for the first few
years of that period, at least.

And later in that period, he saw fit to write and got someone to publish
_Blood and Fire_.  Which was either book three or book four of a dead
series.  Dead and forgotten, for the most part.


>If Book 5 doesn't stand on its own, the potential audience is
>essentially limited to people who 1) have read the first four books, 2)
>liked them, 3) remember them, and 4) are still alive. Every year since
>the publication of the previous book brings those numbers down
>substantially, and the only way to bring them back *up* again is to
>republish the first four books to establish a new audience...which you
>won't want to do unless #5 is *guaranteed* to come along.

As I understand it, though, this is somewhat countered by the fact that
if #5 does come along and doesn't flop, it gets you lots of essentially
free sales for the first four.

And in any event, having a small potential audience for a book that
doesn't sell on its own, seems preferable to having *no* potential
audience for a book that fails on its own.  Unless being a sequel
to the Chtorr tetrology actively *impeded* sales, which I'd think
could be avoided with proper marketing, it should still be at least
as good a prospect as most of his new and/or standalone works of the
past fifteen years.


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