Room For Improvement

Any other ideas for how we can get more books into readers' hands?
Currently the Pathfinder Tales novels are not finding their way into many libraries. This is due solely as a result of their trade paperback format; many libraries won't even consider adding them to their collection, and even those that will tend to place them on a shelf specifically for trade paperbacks. These books are not usually cataloged or tracked as they are taken out, not always expected to be returned, and these shelves are dominated by romance novels, and as a result not frequently browsed by individuals who would want to read Pathfinder fiction. As it is, I can't even donate a copy of the novels to the local library; they won't accept it. Things would be different, however, if a hardcover or library bound alternative were available.

I missed this comment, but as a librarian I feel I should add a little. Libraries are a great gateway to younger (YA) readers and people who want to give something a try before buying it. I've definitely made my own collections after enjoying an author from the library.

Cataloging of Mass Market PBs is usually very basic-- they are a browsing collection. What does tend to happen, unless the librarian ordering the genre is careful and actually into the series is that books can get ordered on a haphazard manner. That's when stand-alone, loosely linked titles are an advantage. Yet, for building a customer base, series work very well...

Certainly libraries tend to buy hardcovers more readily than PBs, and that's simply a matter of wear and tear-- pay a little more and keep the book for years rather than months. PBs get ragged and nasty really quickly.

Libraries, particularly ones with a less than enthusiastic SF/Fantasy selector, will simply buy the popular authors. Get a popular author, or a popular set of authors in an anthology, in a hardcover, and you'll get automatic institutional sales. The more dedicated selectors will read through Publisher's Weekly, Booklist and a few other periodicals to get ideas. They tend to buy starred reviews and not a lot more. Rarely, a SF/Fantasy junkie (like myself, though I'm not selecting for any adult collections in libraries at the moment) will look at SF and fantasy magazines and blogs.

***If you want your local library to stock Pathfinder Tales, you must request the books from a librarian!!!***

This is very important. Most libraries can't handle donations and particularly PB donations in detail and many donations are sold to raise funds. At my library jobs, if someone requests an item (I know, since I've done this with some pretty obscure stuff) it ends up being added to the collection. This is something all of us can do for Paizo if we feel motivated.

Now, from a bookselling perspective, displays are very cool (as was mentioned by some other posters). Cheap cardboard displays help with marketing a lot and save time for the store employees. They much prefer slotting together a simple display over making their own, particularly when overworked-- most chain bookstores have a skeleton crew these days.

Again, hardcovers get faceouts and preferential treatment by workers because they are easier to handle, more noticeable, and convey a serious book :) to the frequent reader more than mass market or even trade paperbacks. Also, famous authors! This really helps, much as I hate to admit it, as a writer myself. I'll grab the new Stephen King or Neil Gaiman on trust. That matters on a limited budget, either for a reader or a library selector.

Thanks for all the comments, folks! Keep 'em coming!

Regarding the Kindle--we're still working on it. Trust me, nobody wants this thing on the Kindle more than I do, but the wheels turn slowly. :)

Speaking to the rules in fiction--as far as I'm concerned, the game rules represent our attempts to model the physical and magical laws that govern Golarion, and as a result any Pathfinder Tales story should take them into account. It's true that the first two books introduced some new and different things (in much the same way that our APs or modules introduce new elements), but neither "break" the game in my mind... the riffle scrolls were in fact statted up in a preview article for Kobold Quarterly, and the mapping thing is indeed beyond what a wizard like Declan should be capable of--hence his own confusion. (Perhaps if folks like the characters enough, we'll get to return later and tell the story of what that weird power's all about....)

In any case, the new books coming down the line are more conservative in that regard, and adhere to the rules to the best of my editing ability. That doesn't mean you'll always be able to tell exactly who has what stats (I don't know that it's worth the reader's time to call out that the fighter with Quick Draw drew his sword while walking forward), but you can rest assured that we're not in the business of disregarding the rules we've come up with. The stories we tell are, first and foremost, Pathfinder stories!

William O' Connor, Wayne Reynolds, and my personal fave...Vinod Rams.

If the cover is not amazing, I think most people will never give it a second look.

I think shared world anthologies are great fun, having participated in both Wild Cards for many years as well as the World of Darkness anthologies.

As a small perspective on that, while "just stories" shared world anthologies are generally easier for the editor to edit and the writers to write, the ones that are generally the most popular with the fans are the ones that have an interweaving plot from story to story, making it so that the entire anthology reads more like a novel. Indeed, in Wild Cards the tradition is that the third book of every trilogy is a full on mosaic novel where each author writes their own section with their own character, but all the transitions are smoothed out so it reads as a solid novel with all the authors listed on the title page but nowhere else.

With the regular Wild Cards anthologies, there's also the workhorse position for one writer where they write the Interstitial, the framed narrative that works to introduce all of the other tales. It's a tough but rewarding job and generally gets the best response from the fans, partially because all of the other authors' stories work to bolster the interstitial and partially because the Interstitial author works so hard to get it done right.

In Golarion, if you were to do a shared world style anthology, it would likely be best to set it in one specific area with a specific theme, say, "Tales of the Nightstalls" with a Katapesh setting with all the tales set in the bazaar and some overarching plot threading from one to another as all of the individual characters dealt with their own stories save for the interstitial which sets the frame in Arabian Nights fashion and tells its own tale, bolstered by all the other tales.

Beyond that, what's been said about paperback and hardback formats for libraries needs to be stressed. Trade paperbacks are an unfortunate betwixt and between position and librarians really don't know what to do with them unless they have their own binderies to turn them into more durable hardbacks.

As for the webfiction, one thing to look at might be to chapbook them using comics-size printing as was done once with "Beautiful Stories for Ugly Children," which was DC's bit of putting out chapbooks with comic book size printing and distribution. I really loved that series and it would be an easy way to print the web fiction as chapbooks, both as convention giveaways as well items to sell on the website and in traditional brick and mortar store, especially given then number of game stores that are also comics stores.

Thanks for all the comments, folks! Keep 'em coming!

Regarding the Kindle--we're still working on it. Trust me, nobody wants this thing on the Kindle more than I do, but the wheels turn slowly. :)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the stories are distributed as .epub here on Paizo. So why don't purchase them here, convert them to .mobi (which can be done by some software in just one click) and transfer them to your Kindle.

Count me as the one who thinks "If you can hear the sound of dice rolling, it's not working as a story". Not to say the author should write whatever he or she wants and ignore the gaming rules. But to make the novel read like someone's last night gaming session is not really that interesting. On top of that, I think it's the very reason new readers hesitated to pick up fictions based on games because ,well, they haven't play the games yet. Just my two cents.

4) Are there any fantasy-related book blogs or online communities that you think might enjoy Pathfinder Tales, if only we were to advertise/send review copies/etc?

Two most read fantasy and SF blogs on the internet are:

http://fantasyhotlist.blogspot.com/

and

http://fantasybookcritic.blogspot.com/

I have my own blog in Serbian, although I did several interviews with writers such as Ken Scholes, S. M. Stirling and Daniel Abraham, and I have in the pipeline interviews with Brandon Sanderson and Michael Stackpole among others. Because I live in Europe, foreign (from my point of view) publishers send me .pdfs of their books to promote them in my country and write reviews.

http://nightfliersbookspace.blogspot.com/

That said, I'm of the "If you can hear the sound of dice rolling, it's not working as a story" philosophy.

So am I. Good call!

In Golarion, if you were to do a shared world style anthology, it would likely be best to set it in one specific area with a specific theme, say, "Tales of the Nightstalls" with a Katapesh setting with all the tales set in the bazaar and some overarching plot threading from one to another as all of the individual characters dealt with their own stories save for the interstitial which sets the frame in Arabian Nights fashion and tells its own tale, bolstered by all the other tales.

I would buy that in a heartbeat!

Beyond that, what's been said about paperback and hardback formats for libraries needs to be stressed. Trade paperbacks are an unfortunate betwixt and between position and librarians really don't know what to do with them unless they have their own binderies to turn them into more durable hardbacks.

Just to make sure there's no confusion, since an earlier post made this claim as well... the Pathfinder fiction are not trade paperbacks; they're mass market paperbacks. Since a lot of genre fiction is only ever released as mass market paperback, libraries have had to deal with the format for quite some time whether they like them or not. Most copies I have seen have the covers taped up with some stiff tape of some kind that hardens the cover and makes the whole thing at least as durable as a TPB in practice.

I think we're making too much of the format. I'd be surprised to see Pathfinder fiction in any format other than MMPB. Most WotC and Black Library fiction is published in that format too, with the exception of the Black Library omnibus collections, in TPB format.

3) Which cover art do you like the best? Why?

I liked the Winter Witch cover more. Like somebody else said the Prince of Wolves cover seems almost cartoon like, and Radovans face looks odd to me. If I could choose an artist I'd say Lucas Graciano.

5) Any other ideas for how we can get more books into readers' hands?

Hard covers personally but I'll be buying either way...

1) The web fiction, I feel should be more 'daring' than the novels. Not Hook Mountain Massacare kind of daring (I want to be able to read them at work) but thinks like Alkenstar work better, to me, until the novels get their feet firmly planted.

2) Dunno, I'm not sales and marketing ;-)

3) Stark cover art, action vs passive.

4) Send Dark Mistress a copy of everything, she seems to excell at reviews.

5) Dunno, I'll be getting a copy of Prince for my godkids most likely.

1) Is there anything you'd like to see more of or less of from the novels or web fiction?

Grittier, darker, and an even richer exploration of Golarion and its people. In this regard, I'm thinking R. Scott Bakker, Steven Erikson, and Joe Abercrombie. When I think of these authors I think "serious fantasy," and this is not a moniker I use to describe "gaming fiction."

What makes Golarion standout is this darker, grittier and more mature edge, and so I would like to see that embraced.

I have rarely liked any "gaming fiction" and so I typically shy away from it. I would like to see Pathfinder Tales stand on their own as "serious fantasy" set in the world of Golarion.

2) What do you think would help new readers unfamiliar with Pathfinder pick up the novels if they ran across them randomly in a bookstore?

An interesting cover, and back blurb.

3) Which cover art do you like the best? Why?

Winter Witch. There was something more interesting about it. It seemed less like typical fantasy to me. I want a cover that is less cartoony, and more in the direction of Franzetta. Or something very classic and stylish, like the Prince of Nothing series covers.

4) Are there any fantasy-related book blogs or online communities that you think might enjoy Pathfinder Tales, if only we were to advertise/send review copies/etc?

Not familiar. I usually hear about books word of mouth and just the luck of the draw, as it were.

5) Any other ideas for how we can get more books into readers' hands?

Iconics would probably help. Continue to get well-known authors. But I also think a less gaming fiction presentation is the way to go. Bottomline, keep the quality ultra high, and the word will get around.

4) Send Dark Mistress a copy of everything, she seems to excell at reviews.

Are you trying to drive me insane? Besides I already subscribe to the fiction line so I have the books. I just have no clue at all how to really review a novel with out spoiling said novel. I have similar problems with adventures which is why i rarely review them.

James, I haven't read any of paizo's stories, and although I enjoy fantasy and scifi, don't have much time to read them anymore. However, if you could suggest the book you think that would be the proper introduction to your novel line, I will happily purchase and read it, and tell you where it takes me.

Well then... who can resist that sort of offer? :) I'd say that of the three novels that are out (or about to come out), it's really just a matter of taste:

Prince of Wolves is best if you like Ustalav and gritty, gothic stuff... werewolves and weirdness, and strong voices from the PoV characters (rough-and-tumble Radovan and snooty Varian).

Winter Witch is best if you like Irrisen and the Linnorm Kingdoms, with a dash of Slavic fairy tale for good measure... a more classic sort of journey story, plus a snarky little dragon who's proved far more popular than we initially expected.

Plague of Shadows (which releases soon) takes place mostly in revolution-torn Galt and the Five Kings Mountains, and is probably the most traditionally epic fantasy of the three... a quest by a party of adventurers to find an ancient artifact before it's too late to save their friend.

Really, you can't go wrong as far as I'm concerned--just take a look at the reviews, and see what sounds best!

For those of you who want Pathfinder Tales on your Kindle, you don't need to wait. There are free utilities such as Calibre that will allow you to use the current ePub editions on your Kindle.

5) Any other ideas for how we can get more books into readers' hands?

Let me ask a more specific question—and one that's actually very important right at this moment.

We've done a pretty good job getting the big book chains to buy Prince of Wolves and Winter Witch, so many stores currently have copies on their shelves. If they sell them soon, they'll order more, and the line will prosper. If they don't sell them soonish, they'll start returning them, and they won't order as much in the future, and the line will not survive.

What ideas do you have for getting people to buy the two books that are already in stock at their local bookstore?

Note that we don't want to encourage artificial demand—for example, if everyone reading this went to the store today to buy three copies each thinking they're helping. That would actually be bad, since that would encourage stores to over-order restocks, or over-order the next book, and then *those* would get returned—and in higher volume—and that would be even more harmful than not selling the current stock.

So we're just looking for ideas to attract people who you think will probably like the books, but who don't currently know about them, or know about them but haven't tried them yet.

To help sell the books already there? Get them reviewed in some mags I am not really sure which ones would work. Get reviews up on Amazon of course but more importantly get reviews up on the book store sites like Barnes and Nobles site etc. Then if the authors would do it, a book signing tour would draw attention. Finally as I mentioned before a standup display. Especially one that emphasised the world and pulp aspects of it and didn't mention the RPG at all. make people think the books will be set in a new pulpy world. Thats all i can really think of. I would encourage people I know to buy them but everyone I know that is into fantasy books prefer to buy them online but my mom and she is on a tight budget, so i just lend her mine.

Getting people to buy stuff in the next month or so? A little tricky. I'd suggest advertising in the program books of some of the small regional conventions or at very least sending a box of promo copies for swag bags. More conservatively? There are generally charity book auctions at various conventions. A single autographed copy will be seen by a lot of attendees, meaning one box of books broken up would mean a lot of exposure.

Sending review copies to various smaller web reviewers would also raise the profile, especially if sent to reviewers who don't generally do game tie-in novels.

One of the most influential reviews I remember from years ago was the one by the ALA reviewer for Uhuru's Song which she had on her list of "Ten Books You Must Have for Your YA Collection." She went on to tell librarians to ignore the prejudice about it being a Star Trek tie-in and focus on the fact that it was well written with a strong young female African-American protagonist. Getting the books into the hands of the ALA reviewers would be a good step.

That said, I think the most important thing to do would be to have a presence at Comicon in San Diego. It's 300,000 people, and as one of the editors from DelRey told me "all of them read." Yes, table space is about impossible to get, but isn't that necessary. Some publishers (SmartPop and White Wolf, for example) sponsor off-site parties, and Mary Elizabeth Hart, who runs Mysterious Galaxy (which has a table), also runs the author track with signings afterward and books for sale there. There was standing room only at some of the panels and they were turning people away, and this was in a huge room. Melinda Snodgrass, Caroline Spector, Paul Cornell and myself were on a panel representing Wild Cards and the room was packed.

Since people mentioned reviews, I should point out that one of the most important things anyone can do to help the line is review the books on Amazon.com. Books with more reviews--even if they aren't all 5-star--have more credibility. While it's awesome to see people posting reviews on paizo.com, the fact remains that if you're here, you probably already know about Pathfinder Tales. Amazon's another story--we want to catch those folks who aren't already in the loop, or who maybe have just heard about the books in passing.

If you at all enjoy reviewing things, please review Pathfinder Tales on Amazon (and hey, if you want to cross-post that review to our site, your blog, a forum, wherever--even better!). The direct links are:

Winter Witch

Prince of Wolves

We've seen firsthand the power the Paizo community wields. If you like the idea of Pathfinder Tales being in the same category as Dragonlance or Warhammer books a few years from now--help us spread the word!

AudioBooks!!!

I would love fiction in the form of Audio Dramas...

And you can rent EBooks from your local Library Now :)

http://www.sfsite.com/fsf/ Is the site for SF Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine, they published "The Dark Tower" by Steven King first.
As well as "Flowers for Algernon" and many other great things. Been arond since the 50's. They have blog, and so forth.

I like the more Realistic in the art. For Example my icon is a great pic :) And Sexy Seoni is always a fan favorite :) Or a live pic of the model that dressed like her... hmm no that would be too harlequin romance...

We could do novels that flesh out the history of the iconics :) and then take them ferther :)

Oh yeah and lots of Eando Kline adventures :)

1) Is there anything you'd like to see more of or less of from the novels or web fiction?

There's only been two books yet, so hard to say anything beyond "good stories" (not helpful, I know). I guess in general I prefer character-driven stuff with plots that are allowed to take their time to spin out to stories that rely on action set-pieces. I also wouldn't mind if the books were a bit longer - I read fast enough that if I really like a book (like Winter Witch, for instance, I'll gobble it up in 2-4 hours at the current length.

3) Which cover art do you like the best? Why?

Of the ones we've seen so far Winter Witch - not because Jesper Ejsing has such a beautiful first name, but because of the composition of colours and the characters' poses - it's nice and bright, the characters are realistic-looking enough for my tastes. Same goes for Plague of Shadows but to a lesser degree.

If I were to make any suggestions for other cover-artists, I've said elsewhere that I think Anne Stokes would my real nifty ones (and I suppose hoping for some art noveau style ones wouldn't do me much good considering the current style in Paiz-art). I'd also add that you should stay away from the (to me, at least) incredibly boring style used by Raymond Swanland for the The Fighters, Sembia, and The Twilight War series for WotC. Oh, and speaking of the Sembia-series - Therese Nielsen does wonderful stuff!

5) Any other ideas for how we can get more books into readers' hands?

Bribe librarians.

One thing, you could make the little paper backs into little hardcovers... Roughly the same size as the the normal paperback. Like the Old Hardy Boys, Tom Swift, Bobsy Twins...

We can tease readers and peak interest by putting the Pathfinder Glyph of the Open Road on the Cover, or the Sihedron Rune...

Eggsample: Tale of the Runelords, the first book cover is a Sihedron Rune. The next book cover would be Karzoug on his throne :) And on the spine the Pathfinder Glyph of the Open Road.

For the first Pathfinder novel that is about the Pathfinders Guild, I would put the Glyph of the Open Road on the front :)

For The Adventurers, but 2 up front in focus and a couple of others in the background. Ie. Seoni and Merisiel in front and a couple others in the back doing things.

I have reservations about putting the iconics in books just because they're iconics. I remember seeing a lot of books on store shelves of stores featuring the 3.5 D&D equivalents (Mialee, Regdar, etc) and they were still sitting there in large numbers on the very same shelves looking rather sad several months later. I also think putting the iconics in fiction is potentially opening a Pandora's box regarding artwork in modules/Pathfinder products, with messageboards posters pontificating about whether iconic x who is known to specifically hate the heat because it says so in novel y would really be in the part of the campaign setting featured in product z? It seems to me that setting things in stone about the iconics takes away some of their airs of mystery, and limits Paizo's ability to use them at will. At best on the iconic front, I think maybe give the occasional short story filling in background of the iconics (to some extent these have already been touched on in stat blocks and on blogs) before they became serious adventurers.

I shudder to mention this, but if the aim is simply to sell a metric assload of books set in Golarion, is there a market there for a fantasy version of the romantic novel? People buy those things in huge numbers if the frequency with which such literary works occupy my local bookstore shelves is anything to judge by; and the public libraries where I live have whole sections devoted to them. Occasionally a blockbuster one (Gone with the Wind?) even ends up being turned into a Hollywood film...
Hmm, I've only vaguely heard of the the Twilight books, but aren't those some sort of recent popular fantasy romantic novels - or are they only a passing fad aimed at a particular cultural generation?

I think you need word of mouth (maybe assisted by reviews in the media and/or dramatisations) to help sell existing novels to people who have no idea who Paizo are or what Golarion is? Can you get authors out touring book-clubs? Can you get authors (or Paizo staff) speaking on arts programs about books? I don't know about television, but here in the UK there's a radio program called Front Row which when it comes to the literary front occasionally has writers like John Updike on to discuss their work and/or speak about a recent novel. I assume you must have much bigger arts programs than anything we have here in the UK over there in the US.

Apologies to any fans of romantic novels I offended with my 'I shudder to mention it' lead in to a paragraph in my previous post. I'm not a fan of the genre, but that was an excessive and unnecessary turn of phrase I used. It was an attempt at humorous exaggeration that went wrong.

AudioBooks!!!

Add this one. Don't know why I didn't think of this. I know plenty of people that are heavily into audio books.

I'm so going to tell if this blog is illegal!

There is no Christmas in Golarion. :-P

Well, at least until we can get rid of Baba Yaga's presence in Irrisen.

I dunno about sales, but sending a copy to the editors of Locus is about the best thing you can do to be officially recognized within the SF/F publishing community.