Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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We've just implemented some changes to the Planet Stories imprint and to Planet Stories subscriptions that we believe will significantly increase the quality of the books in general and enhance the value of your subscription.
Starting with June's Robots Have No Tails, by Henry Kuttner, Planet Stories subscribers will enjoy a 30% discount on new Planet Stories volumes (up from 20%). Additionally, subscribers will be able to order older Planet Stories books at a substantial 15% discount off the cover price as an added benefit of subscribing. We hope this new discount structure makes it easier for collectors to pick up volumes they may have missed from earlier in our series.
Also in June, Planet Stories will shift to a roughly bimonthly publication schedule, with six volumes scheduled per year into the future. We're worried we may be producing Planet Stories books faster than subscribers are able to read them, so we want to slow things down a bit and give each book a chance to make a strong impact on the marketplace and in the minds of our faithful readers. We hope to increase the frequency in the future, but doing so will require significantly more subscribers than we have now and better penetration into local and national bookstores. We believe these changes will come with time, and reducing the frequency in the meantime gives us an opportunity to ensure that Planet Stories has the best possible foundation in the years to come during a very challenging period for the book publishing industry.
The biggest change to the line will become apparent when we send out Robots Have No Tails in the upcoming weeks: We've completely revised the Planet Stories format to pack in more story for your buck and to include illustrations that harken back to the pulp era from which many of our stories are drawn. In the case of this summer's The Ship of Ishtar, by A. Merritt, we've even negotiated rights to publish illustrations by noted pulp illustrator (and the best man at the wedding of C. L. Moore and Henry Kuttner) VIRGIL FINLAY!
Those of you familiar with Finlay's marvelous work will no doubt be jumping up and down with excitement. Those of you who have not encountered his work are in for a real treat. Other Planet Stories volumes will contain interior illustrations (many original to the Planet Stories line) as well, and we hope to set a new standard of design excellence with the series. We've posted sample page layouts on the Robots Have No Tails product page to give you a taste of what's in store in the very near future.
The very best way that you can help to ensure a bright future for Planet Stories is to subscribe, and to evangelize the line to your science fiction and fantasy-reading friends. We hope to double the number of Planet Stories subscribers in the next year, and we're going to need all the help you can provide in order to achieve that goal.
We're more excited about the Planet Stories line than we've ever been. In many ways, we're finally publishing these stories in a format that does them justice and best matches our original plans for the line. We hope you love what's in store, and that you continue to support Planet Stories.
It means the (strange adventures on other) worlds to us.
Sincerely,
Erik Mona
Publisher
Paizo Publishing, LLC
Thanks Erik. This is good to know.
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What about Kindle versions of Planet Stories? Do you know what it would take to get these books on a Kindle? Does it even make sense for Paizo to do this?
Last shown someone (I think it was Erik) said that they didn't have the digital distribution rights to the PS. I would love to see them on the Kindle, but for now I pick up one here or there. One of the few dead tree books I still buy (outside of game books).
I love the new changes, and believe it is the right way to go all the way around.
I suppose it will be interesting to see if the new format is more popular. The two column thing I am certainly not much of a fan of. Although ok with the replica look, illustrations, etc.
As far as electronic goes - try not to lock yourself into US-only, if you can avoid it.
Bundling both for subscribers would be cool, too. :)
Very happy about bigger discount, though! :)
On evangelising, though :-
Swag could help here, where people can buy t-shirts, posters, stubbie holders, that sort of thing?
Banner images for websites/blogs? Wallpapers, etc?
You lack excerpts, downloadable catalogue with covers, all that sort of stuff?
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Chief Technical Officer
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Will the size of the books be changing? Other than the always variable thickness, of course. How about the paper stock?
Those of us who shelve them for display purposes wish to know :)
The new format is about an inch taller and a bit more than a half-inch wider. We are changing printers at the same time, so the paper stock won't be exactly the same, but it'll be pretty close.
I like the new look for Planet Stories. The illustrations look good and the two column thing doesn’t bother me, since I’m used to it from reading other pulp reprints.
The new size is going to wreak havoc on my shelves since I was arranging the series by original publication date. But whatever annoyances the size might cause will be easily made up for by the series great new look.
Thanks a lot!
... during a very challenging period for the book publishing industry.
What’s up with the publishing industry?
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Chief Technical Officer
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The new format is about an inch taller and a bit more than a half-inch wider. We are changing printers at the same time, so the paper stock won't be exactly the same, but it'll be pretty close.Will the size of the books be changing? Other than the always variable thickness, of course. How about the paper stock?
Those of us who shelve them for display purposes wish to know :)
We've received some finished books. The new paper is noticeably whiter, which is nice. Both the paper and (especially) the cover stock have a bit more flex than the old materials, so the whole book is less rigid, feeling a bit more like a classic pulp. I'm not sure if I like that or not. Please tell us what you think when you see it.
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I started up a Planet Stories subscription after attending the seminar at PaizoCon, and I am really excited to get my brand-new collection going! My only regret is that I didn't realize exactly what the Planet Stories line was all about before last weekend, so I will need some time to collect all the books I've already missed.
Personally, I love the interior artwork because it adds an important piece of history to the book (and it looks great :-). I also think you guys made a brilliant decision with giving the books a pulpier feel for the covers and layout. These books are something special, and they should stand out from the crowd of contemporary sci-fi/fantasy novels. And honestly, the price is great -- especially considering the awesome introductions you manage to put together!
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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3. The book is flimsy. I feel like I'm going to need to be very careful when reading this or I'm gonna bend or break it.
4. Here's my biggest complaint - the paper. The paper quality went straight downhill. The quality of the paper now seems little better than newspaper grade. Seriously. I feel like I'm going to tear the pages as I flip through them.
We are experimenting with a sturdier cover and interior stock with the next book. The size and interior illos are here to stay, but Robots came in a bit flimsier than we were anticipating, and I hope to improve this aspect of the books substantially with The Ship of Ishtar.
Thanks for the comments, folks! Keep 'em coming - what do you like about the new format? What do you dislike? Reader feedback goes a long way toward shaping our strategies, but we don't know what you think unless you speak up...
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I attended the PaizoCon seminar on Planet Stories. Definetely an interesting product line that I had not heard much about prior to your talk. I really enjoyed hearing James, Pierce, Erik, et al talking about the line, and hearing some of the back stories behind the individual authors.
I was checking into a subscription at 30% off cover ($12.99 cover price - reduced to about $9 with the old format), but realized they are increasing to $14.99 or $15.99 with the new format. Even at 30% off, I think I will hold off on a subscription for now and just pick up a few individual books that jump out at me.
I just got my copy of "Robots Have No Tails" in the mail. I love Paizo and I love the Planet Stories line, but I very strongly dislike the new format.
I thought the cover illustration for "Robots" was by far one of your best yet, but the cover layout really bugs me. Why the omnipresent Planet Stories logo? Gah!
Because of the layout and the paper stock, I think "Robots" is too much like a magazine for its own good--it feels disposable. I'm not sure people will pay $12.99 for something that looks and feels like it should be read once and then thrown in the recycling bin. I assume the magazine look is intended to capture some kind of nostalgia for the pulps, but are any of your readers that old? (I'm 41, and I don't have any nostalgic feelings toward that era.)
Add me to the list of those who are not fans of the two columns of text on each interior page--it's hard on the eyes. Modern magazines that use a format like that put an illustration of some kind on virtually every page to break up the text and make it more appealing to the eye.
Finally (and I apologize, because I am full of complaints today), some of your choices for the line are confounding to me. I can't wait for A. Merritt, but why Piers Anthony? It seems like you're really running two different book series under the same name. Maybe I'm being too nit-picky, but it seems like some of your books (Piers Anthony, Gary Gygax, Worlds of Their Own, etc.) belong in a separate series from Planet Stories.
I suspect there are financial realities that make a lot of these choices necessary, so I understand if you feel you have to do some of these things to keep the line alive.
I really want you guys to be successful, but if "Robots" is the future of the line, it is hard for me to imagine continuing my subscription.
Thanks for listening.
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Off topic...
Add me to the list of those who are not fans of the two columns of text on each interior page--it's hard on the eyes. Modern magazines that use a format like that put an illustration of some kind on virtually every page to break up the text and make it more appealing to the eye.
That's interesting. Newspapers tend to be used as the example of the "fact" that two columns is easier on the eye. Supposedly there is a limit to the number of characters on a line that the eye can comfortably handle, so the two column thing gets around this. At least that's what the type setters that created TeX and LaTex thought, as far as I have seen....
I just got my copy of "Robots Have No Tails" in the mail. I love Paizo and I love the Planet Stories line, but I very strongly dislike the new format.
I thought the cover illustration for "Robots" was by far one of your best yet, but the cover layout really bugs me. Why the omnipresent Planet Stories logo? Gah!
Because of the layout and the paper stock, I think "Robots" is too much like a magazine for its own good--it feels disposable. I'm not sure people will pay $12.99 for something that looks and feels like it should be read once and then thrown in the recycling bin. I assume the magazine look is intended to capture some kind of nostalgia for the pulps, but are any of your readers that old? (I'm 41, and I don't have any nostalgic feelings toward that era.)
Add me to the list of those who are not fans of the two columns of text on each interior page--it's hard on the eyes. Modern magazines that use a format like that put an illustration of some kind on virtually every page to break up the text and make it more appealing to the eye.
Finally (and I apologize, because I am full of complaints today), some of your choices for the line are confounding to me. I can't wait for A. Merritt, but why Piers Anthony? It seems like you're really running two different book series under the same name. Maybe I'm being too nit-picky, but it seems like some of your books (Piers Anthony, Gary Gygax, Worlds of Their Own, etc.) belong in a separate series from Planet Stories.
I suspect there are financial realities that make a lot of these choices necessary, so I understand if you feel you have to do some of these things to keep the line alive.
I really want you guys to be successful, but if "Robots" is the future of the line, it is hard for me to imagine continuing my subscription.
Thanks for listening.
Well taste in artwork is as individual a thing as taste in books or music,but I like the old Planet Stories logo look to the front cover. For me,the illustration is ok,definitely better than the artwork on your other books. It could still be better though. The old magazine format inside is a bit lame. Especially the two columns. Also,if these new books are going to be even bigger than before,I totally don't like that idea. It just makes them awkward to read and to store etc. Every book you buy these days is a different size,I think the smaller,the better.
Now,I've said before what I think of Henry's Gallegher stories...corny,silly...but of course most sci-fi people love it so...??? I know your hearts are definitely in the right place and all that,but this stuff is about as far away from romantic sci-fi/fantasy adventure as you can get!! It was all published by the people who HATED Planet Stories type of writing! John Campbell jr. and his crew of hard science fiction/Scientologist weirdos at Astounding!!...Hello?!?!...This was the exact OPPOSITE to what was happening at Planet Stories etc. But Henry's robots are a million times better fit for the series than anything written by Piers Anthony or Gary Gygax or Hugh Cook!! Yes,I know I've whinged about all this before,and a lot of your subscribers seem to worship this Gygax dude,but really there is just SO much better stuff out there for a series like this. Whether anyone except me would actually buy,say,a Wallace West book is a whole other story! What about Raymond F.Jones? Was he any good? This Island Earth was one of the best of the 50's sci-fi movies,maybe his stories are worth checking out,you don't see his books second hand much,they often had great covers! I'm still savouring the Northwest of Earth collection,only reading one story every month or so...the best!! Well,not as good as Jirel,but close! I've mentioned before,there are enough Leigh Brackett stories that haven't even been published in book form(as far as I know)to fill at least one good thick volume. I've listed all these elsewhere here,now that would be a very seriouly cool thing to publish!!
I'm glad to hear the paper stock will be changing. It feels like newsprint to me as well, although I am sure to one in know it doesn't feel anything like it.
I really, really hope the 2-column spread doesn't keep. I dislike it intensely. I realize I may be in the minority though.
Interior art is neat. Stylistically to my taste or not, the small touch of art is fun.
Thank you for continuing to make these stories so much more easily available.
(I just really hope the 2 column thing goes away. Please?)
Well, I have exactly 2 Planet Stories books now: The Sword of Rhiannon, and Robots Have No Tails. I have to say, I don't mind the slightly larger size. (Having worked at a used bookstore for 6 years, I almost expect tradesize paperbacks to be different sizes now).
The two column format doesn't bug me. I wouldn't say I like it, but indifferent yes. Actually, it's sort of novel to have the two column format, so I would be inclined to put my lot into the "keep it" column.
The interior art I'm in strong favor of. I like interior art, especially when it's at the beginning of separate chapters or stories. It does give that 'old school' feel.
As for the paper. Well, it's not quite news paper quality poor, but it has gone down in quality.This is an issue you've already mentioned that you're going to resolve so I'm not too worried.
The cover doesn't bug me, it's not as stiff as "The Sword of Rhiannon" cover, but it doesn't seem any flimsier than most paperbacks.
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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>>>
Finally (and I apologize, because I am full of complaints today), some of your choices for the line are confounding to me. I can't wait for A. Merritt, but why Piers Anthony? It seems like you're really running two different book series under the same name. Maybe I'm being too nit-picky, but it seems like some of your books (Piers Anthony, Gary Gygax, Worlds of Their Own, etc.) belong in a separate series from Planet Stories.
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The first Piers Anthony book has a 300% increase in orders from the most recent (or, for that matter, any) Henry Kuttner offering. That tells you just about everything you need to know about why we'll occasionally publish books by more modern authors. Books like Steppe and Sos the Rope _allow_ us to continue publishing material from the 30s and 40s, which otherwise has next to zero modern audience (or, rather, might have a sizable modern audience, but since buyers won't order strongly on it, it might never find that audience).
The Gygax and Worlds of Their Own books were an effort to attract Paizo's existing audience of gamers to the line. It's debatable how successful that effort was (it varies a bit depending on the title), but in any event we've published all the Gygax we care to publish for the time being, and I don't anticipate doing another book like Worlds for a goodly long while.
The new look is an attempt to pack in more story per page (and thus reduce cost of goods) while at the same time giving us a better canvas for cover art and interior experimentation. The big Planet Stories logo is to hearken back to the original magazine, and to brand the entire line in a way that consumers and buyers will remember. Your average book buyer of today might not know who Otis Adelbert Kline is, for example, but we hope the new line look is a memorable way to stick out on the shelves and remind people to keep checking back with us.
The paper stock issue is being investigated now, and I hope to have a resolution (involving hardier paper stock) ASAP. We're expecting a "white sample" from the printer with proposed new stock for the next book this week, and I should have more info on this front shortly.
My own sympathies are to publish nothing but slam-bang adventure stories from the 30s and 40s. As long as I am calling the shots on the line, a significant percentage of the books in Planet Stories will follow this criteria. But launching a book line is a tricky thing, and the numbers on these books MUST improve for Planet Stories to remain a viable part of Paizo's overall business. I have patience, and I'd like to give the line enough time to "mature" into something stable with a strong base of subscribers and essentially guaranteed orders from bookstores that allow us to publish whatever we have a wild hair to publish. But until we achieve those benchmarks, I've got to be able to defend the resources that go into Planet Stories against, say, a new Pathfinder RPG product, which would probably garner similar subscription numbers to Planet Stories in less than a week, if not in a day.
Planet Stories presents the finest tales of fantasy and science fiction we can get a hold of and that we personally like. It is not specifically a pulp reprint brand, though of course we publish an awful lot of pulp material. Everything we publish falls basically under the category of thrilling adventure stories, but every once in a while we'll put out something quirky like Robots Have No Tails or Who Fears the Devil simply because they are awesome books (even if not thematically perfect). And every once in a while we'll publish something a little more recent and mainstream in order to garner the attention of the jaded buying public, both in the stores and at the corporate HQs of the folks who order our books direct from the distributor.
As always, we really appreciate all the feedback. We didn't enter into this new format lightly, but I believe it gives us the best chance to ensure that Planet Stories has a long and vibrant future filled with thrilling, exciting adventure fiction.
I hope you'll stick around as long as you possibly can.
The Finlay illustrations for Ship of Ishtar are super exciting!
I just read Merrit's "Woman of the Wood." Good stuff!
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Just got mine too and here's the break down, haven't read the story itself but since everyone is nit picking the new format I'll go into it..
1) I don't like the cover. The art is good. But the big black block of Planet Stories is just an ugly eye sore. Please go back to the old logo and try to find a similar layout!
2) I like the inside art. It invokes a bit of an old school feel. Many of the classic "novels" I read as a child had illustrations like these inside them. So to me, they're nice bits of nostalgia.
3) Paper quality is terrible. I'll be shocked if this paper last 10 years. The original books had print bleed through, but this is much worse. I'm glad you're changing it.
I can't comment much on the 2 column layout as I haven't read this yet, but I doubt it'll bother me.... even if it looks odd in a book.
I'd like to add that the unifying theme of Planet Stories, to me, has always been "historically significant SF." That doesn't just mean pulps - it means authors that we think have had a major impact on the genre. H. P. Lovecraft loved Henry Kuttner, and thought Kuttner's work would long outlast his own. Gary Gygax has arguably done more to popularize fantasy than anyone since Tolkien. Piers Anthony's Xanth books remain a major touchstone and entry point into the genre for countless modern readers, and the chance to publish some of his early, formative work was too good to pass up. They're all different, but they're all classics, by one metric or another.
All of that said - please do know that we're always listening, and that your feedback on these boards is read and discussed by every member of the staff. As subscribers and Planet Stories enthusiasts, you're our first and best idea of what's working with the line and where it can improve, and your feedback is worth more than you can imagine. Together, I believe we can build a line that will stand the test of time - as these stories all deserve to.
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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I hear what you guys are saying about the columns. I really do. They are here to stay in the short term, and really urge you to be patient with it, read a book that way, and see what you think "in play". I appreciate that it is different. It may not last forever. But we are going to try it out for a while and see what happens on the sales front, which is crucial at the moment.
The columns do not create such an instant negative reaction in me, though they are different (if I'm reading in columns, it's usually a reference book or the Bible--even the periodicals I read are not double column). I just hope the nifty planet logo doesn't completely disappear.
<---still waiting for mine
I like the changes in the sense that it makes the book stick out, both inside and out. Moreover, if these changes insure the continued vibrance of the line, I'm all for it. I do agree about the overall flimsyness, but that is being addressed.
Best.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6
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I hear what you guys are saying about the columns. I really do. They are here to stay in the short term, and really urge you to be patient with it, read a book that way, and see what you think "in play". I appreciate that it is different. It may not last forever. But we are going to try it out for a while and see what happens on the sales front, which is crucial at the moment.
I enjoyed the column look. Actually made the book more readable, closer to a pocket paperback than a trade. And caught the magazine feel nicely.
You don't need to hear more about the cheap feel of the paper/cover for Robots, so I'll leave it at that :)
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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On a second note, you obliquely referenced the performance of the line in the passage quoted above. Could you give us some sense of overall how Planet Stories is doing? I hope to see these books for a long time to come.
Sure.
We have made a (small) profit on most of the books in the line, with a couple of exceptions regarding too low price points, too large a print run, too many pages and not all that popular, etc. Basically bad/rookie mistakes on our behalf unrelated to the quality of a book in general.
Ultimately a book looks like it will do better if Barnes & Noble orders it, and we tend to frown a lot when they don't, because it means the long journey to profitability will take longer. On the other hand, with distribution to B&N comes MUCH higher returns than to other channels, so sometimes a book that posts impressive preorders will turn out to not do so hot a year or so down the road, when a lot of those copies have come back.
Elak of Atlantis is a good example of this. No major chains ordered this book significantly, and thus the returns on it have been negligible (sales haven't been great, but we're making money off that title). For a while it looked like that book was not going to do well for us, but as time has gone on it has backlisted pretty well. I think that is one of the greatest values of reprinting really old books--they're already dated well before we get to them, so another year or two won't hurt much.
Right now Planet Stories is _just_ profitable enough that I haven't been ordered to cancel it, and we have books signed all the way into 2011 (including some absolutely incredible titles that I cannot believe we were able to secure). But it could be doing a lot better than it is, and we're constantly trying to think up ways to improve the line's performance because it is a labor of love for just about everyone involved.
Honestly speaking, launching a science fiction imprint has been a LOT more difficult than I had anticipated, largely because we have not started with an "installed base" of an audience in the same way that we have each time we launch a new Pathfinder RPG product line.
Another problem is that no one in the science fiction or book buying community really knows or cares who we are, though after hitting three consecutive Book Expo Americas and building up relationships with the sales team at our distributor and with major buyers this is starting to change. Part of the struggle is that it just takes a couple of years to even get on people's radar. Another problem is that a lot of print magazines like Publisher's Weekly require review copies three months before the release of the book, which is fiendishly expensive to print and doubly difficult to coordinate, especially since Planet Stories is not the primary (or even secondary) focus of the company. Also, the limited advertising we've done for the line so far hasn't seemed to have had much effect, but again I think this is more an issue of taking time to properly establish the imprint. These things do not happen overnight.
I would breathe a lot easier if we had about twice the number of subscribers than we have at the moment (though there have been a lot of new additions in the last three weeks--thanks!). Right now we have fewer than 300 subscribers. With double that, the future of the line would be assured forever, because we would be more than halfway to profitability on each book before it even left the warehouse. This is the paradigm under which we operate for a lot (most) of our gaming lines, so the fact that Planet Stories lags behind its gaming cousins is something of a cause for concern. I'm hoping that lowering the frequency makes it easier for people to stay on top of their subscriptions, and the added discounts/subscriber benefits are a way to make subscribing even more enticing an option for our customers.
I am cautiously optimistic.
On a second note, you obliquely referenced the performance of the line in the passage quoted above. Could you give us some sense of overall how Planet Stories is doing? I hope to see these books for a long time to come.
Sure.
We have made a (small) profit on most of the books in the line, with a couple of exceptions regarding too low price points, too large a print run, too many pages and not all that popular, etc. Basically bad/rookie mistakes on our behalf unrelated to the quality of a book in general.
Ultimately a book looks like it will do better if Barnes & Noble orders it, and we tend to frown a lot when they don't, because it means the long journey to profitability will take longer. On the other hand, with distribution to B&N comes MUCH higher returns than to other channels, so sometimes a book that posts impressive preorders will turn out to not do so hot a year or so down the road, when a lot of those copies have come back.
Elak of Atlantis is a good example of this. No major chains ordered this book significantly, and thus the returns on it have been negligible (sales haven't been great, but we're making money off that title). For a while it looked like that book was not going to do well for us, but as time has gone on it has backlisted pretty well. I think that is one of the greatest values of reprinting really old books--they're already dated well before we get to them, so another year or two won't hurt much.
Right now Planet Stories is _just_ profitable enough that I haven't been ordered to cancel it, and we have books signed all the way into 2011 (including some absolutely incredible titles that I cannot believe we were able to secure). But it could be doing a lot better than it is, and we're constantly trying to think up ways to improve the line's performance because it is a labor of love for just about everyone involved.
Honestly speaking, launching a science fiction imprint has been a LOT more difficult than I had anticipated, largely because we...
Thank you Eric for being so open and candid with us. I am a recent subscriber. Your new incentives were the final straw to get me to subscribe to the line. And I'm rather glad I did. I subscribed just in time to receive "The Sword of Rhiannon." and it was quite a fun little read. "Robot's Have No Tails" however is a blast. I love it. I plan on picking up the other Henry Kuttner book you've published now (I believe that it was the mentioned "Elak of Atlantis") as well as the other Leigh Bracket novels you have available and the Gary Gygax novels (and probably the rest honestly, but Henry Kuttner is the top of the list). I certainly hope the line sticks around. I'm rather pleased I subscribed to it, and I'm a little sad it took me so long (I honestly waffled about subscribing for quite some time).
On a second note, you obliquely referenced the performance of the line in the passage quoted above. Could you give us some sense of overall how Planet Stories is doing? I hope to see these books for a long time to come.
Sure.
~snip~ Good Stuff!!! ~snip~
~sighs~ Ah hell. I doubt I will read these books anytime soon, (I already have wayyyy too many books to read) but I have been (very) impressed with what Paizo has put out. Count me in as a subscriber!!!
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Hey, Underling, I did something stupid with the system and accidentally deleted your post. I'll post my monster reply to a part of it below.
--Erik
Hey no worries. I am happy to hear that you can put your position at "cautiously optimistic". Thanks for being so open about the line. To be honest, I wanted to subscribe for a long time, but 12 books a year was just too much. Now that its bimonthly, you have a subscriber for life.
Once again, its products like these and candor like your long response to my question that reaffirms why I support this company. Here's hoping for a long and fruitful run for Planet Stories!
Hey, Underling, I did something stupid with the system and accidentally deleted your post. I'll post my monster reply to a part of it below.
--Erik
Hey no worries. I am happy to hear that you can put your position at "cautiously optimistic". Thanks for being so open about the line. To be honest, I wanted to subscribe for a long time, but 12 books a year was just too much. Now that its bimonthly, you have a subscriber for life.
Once again, its products like these and candor like your long response to my question that reaffirms why I support this company. Here's hoping for a long and fruitful run for Planet Stories!
AMEN!!!
Honestly speaking, launching a science fiction imprint has been a LOT more difficult than I had anticipated, largely because we...
On the promo front - not sure about how you go about choosing books - but are you listed in the various writer's market things? As in - if you have old stuff here that might suit, send me one?
I never look at such things, so wouldn't know, but just an idea on the promo front.
You have the rights to some old mags I think - Amazing? If you do, you could pluck the occasional story that fits from there that isn't going to be published otherwise, and put on website as promo to get people to come look.
Baen basically has a supporters club for the magazine, where people pretty much give them money because they like them - over and above the subscription (and do get the odd thing like swag, talks with people at conventions, etc.) No idea if you do that sort of thing with the RPG stuff already.
If you are trying to cross over into the gaming crowd, apart from more modern books I guess you have to have gaming material - where I'd be fine with mini Brackett Mars adventures at the end of books - not sure if others would hate it?