The Law and novella

[Conspiracy Theorist]

2 books a year means he needs a short story collection next year, if The Olympian Affair comes out next year,  only The Good People, Little Things, the Microfictions, and The Law are known to exist and not otherwise formally published. Little Things is part of a compilation so will have restrictions on republication as will The Law.

There might be other shorts not otherwise published, and frankly a new collection will require not previously published or widely disseminated material, of which The Law is at least partly in that category

[Mira]

2 books a year means he needs a short story collection next year, if The Olympian Affair comes out next year,  only The Good People, Little Things, the Microfictions, and The Law are known to exist and not otherwise formally published. Little Things is part of a compilation so will have restrictions on republication as will The Law.

There might be other shorts not otherwise published, and frankly a new collection will require not previously published or widely disseminated material, of which The Law is at least partly in that category

The last collection sold was compiled of all the old short stories that were previously published in the anthologies.  I cannot remember if it included a new story or not.

[Dina]

I am still excited to know he is writing again. I am sad about The Law but I am looking forward to "The Olympian affair"

[Regenbogen]

Honestly I don't really care what his motivations are. I just want to read what he writes. And if that means, I'll have to wait longer, I'm not happy, but I will do so. I am sure, one day in a future not so far away in this galaxy on this planet, there will be "The Law" for everyone to boldly read, what few people have read before.

Edit: Just think about 2020: There has been so many stuff for free on his website, including microfictions.

[Conspiracy Theorist]

The last collection sold was compiled of all the old short stories that were previously published in the anthologies.  I cannot remember if it included a new story or not.

Day One  and Zoo Day were previously unpublished.

[g33k]

Your calculations don't take into account either the profit margin, or the turnover rate.
the signed-lettered-hardcover are much more profitable than paperback ...

There is no "turnover" here.  It's a one-and-done collector's edition (two thousand and twenty-six total books).

There are only twenty-six of the "Lettered" books.  Even at $300per, the gross revenue is substantially under $10K.

A lot of that is going downstream, to the paper-mills and the printing houses.  Limited runs and color plates are expensive!

If Jim gets as much as 25% of that gross, I'd be shocked... but that'd be just shy of US$2000.  Which is nice, I guess -- I wouldn't say "no" if someone wanted to give me 2 grand!  But it's not gonna make a dent in a divorce-proceeding or otherwise be life-changing for Jim.

His share of the larger 2000-edition print run is likely a smaller percentage, but higher in absolute dollars:  even though his income-per-book is lower, 2000 copies is a LOT more than 26, so his total income from that will be higher.

Neither of which are even close to what he gets from the mass-market, which sells in the hundreds of thousands.

[Mira]

If Jim gets as much as 25% of that gross, I'd be shocked... but that'd be just shy of US$2000.  Which is nice, I guess -- I wouldn't say "no" if someone wanted to give me 2 grand!  But it's not gonna make a dent in a divorce-proceeding or otherwise be life-changing for Jim.

Which makes no sense because with a $30.00 book he gets a 45% royalty I looked up how that works.  And it is a huge risk because, though unlikely, what if the new novella turns out to be a real stinker? Word will get out and sales will suffer.

[Dina]

I was pleased to see that the official site is active again, with a new community manager. That is all what I wanted, to have some news and feel like someone cares for stay in touch with us readers.

[g33k]

Which makes no sense because with a $30.00 book he gets a 45% royalty I looked up how that works.

Where is your data from?  45% (of the retail/MSRP price?) sounds like WAY too high a share.

Most of what I can find -- and the numbers vary from one resource to another -- say the author's % varies by...
 - lower % on paperbacks than hardcover
 - lower % for the first 5K to 10K copies, higher % thereafter (I presume Jim can negotiate for the higher % throughout)
 - generally topping around 20%-25% for the proven sellers
I cannot find ANY source saying the author gets over 30%
 

[Ed0517]

My own WAG -- a realworld WAG vs a Dresdenverse WAG -- is that the issue isn't "revenue" but contracts & "exclusive rights..."  I theorize that Jim has negotiated the end of Subterranean's "exclusive" rights to this novella, so they match closely with the end of a bunch of other anthologized shorts.  So it'll all be available around the same time, for him to produce a new Dresden collection.

But the story is written & available, and big enough to be its own thing; so he releases it in a "deluxe" collectors' edition, and the well-heeled megafans can get their hardcore itch scratched, and Jim gets a bit of revenue, pending the rest of his collection exiting their excusive-first-rights periods.

Or even they already had an option on him - didn't they publish Backup, was it? Maybe that was a two book deal.

and the "No current plans" to publish The Law could be "no date yet" when he is thinking " "Little Capers" comes out when I have 350 pages of material to make it worthwhile. "   

[Conspiracy Theorist]

I prefer Cold Cuts if the stories are all post Winter Knight.

[KurtinStGeorge]

Which makes no sense because with a $30.00 book he gets a 45% royalty I looked up how that works.  And it is a huge risk because, though unlikely, what if the new novella turns out to be a real stinker? Word will get out and sales will suffer.

Except it's sold out already.

Oops, I forgot the audible version.  Yea, a series of weak reviews that came from the fanbase could hurt sales there, but the limited edition stuff was pre-sold pretty quickly.

[Arjan]

After a while e gets the rights back and he can sell the story again in any form he wants. It is a form of market segregation.

[g33k]

Jim has something to do with those contracts, they do not happen in a void..

Yeah...  That's exactly my point.

My WAG is a multi-step process --

1.  Back when he had no specific reason to ask them to vary the contractual-exclusivity duration, he took the default terms (or close to them).  Even for a best-selling author like Butcher, there's only so far he can negotiate away from a "standard" contract, before it begins costing him in other contractual terms.  Without a backlog of uncollected shorts, he didn't ask for anything terribly unusual on this front.

2.  Now -- mid-2022 -- there is a backlog of Dresdenfile shorts -- stories published in multi-author (often "themed") anthologies.  So he's eyeballing those, and the expiration of their original-publication exclusivity clauses, and it's looking to him like it's getting close to a new Dresden Files collection.

3.  But, it needs a bit more.  Another short, or two.  Maybe collect all the microfictions, etc.  But really, he wants to add a nice meaty piece, a reward to the Dresden fans who bought other anthologies (at least in part & maybe primarily) for his work, so it's not only buying the same content multiple times.

4.  He may also have some target dates in mind with TOR, because of their other publishing commitments &c.

5.  And so he saw these dates lining up, but then had a burst of inspiration for this story & knocked it out... before it was needed.

6.  With a large unpublished story in-hand, but the other shorts still contractually locked-up, he decided to release a "collector's edition" early, with its own exclusivity-clause that would line up with the other stories.  Expensive enough and a limited edition, to the general fandom won't experience the "buy it twice" phenomenon.

Thus do I WAG.
Thus may it be.
Amen.