RE: Hapworth 16, 1997?


Subject: RE: Hapworth 16, 1997?
From: Malcolm Lawrence (Malcolm@wolfenet.com)
Date: Mon May 26 1997 - 16:44:46 GMT


>First, the title has been delayed from its original March date. It's still
coming >out, but the tentative new date is mid-December.

I would assume that all this boils down to is that when JDS originally
decided to publish Hapworth he probably told Orchises: "I don't want to
deal with some huge corporate thing like Puttnum or Doubleday. Sure, they
could print the copies up in one day, but it probably won't sell THAT much.
Maybe a print run of a couple hundred thousand would suffice, if that. No
one's going to be that interested. The critics hated the story when it
first came out, anyway."

Then when the news broke and he (they) realized the potential number of
people who would actually buy a copy Orchises had to decide to either let
another publisher put it out, or to be able to find the resources to be
able to fill all the orders of the potential buyers (meaning keeping the
hamsters on the Habitrail 24 hours a day so they could crank out all the
copies). So I would assume they're just going to stockpile their warehouse
until they can put out a million or two million all at once, rather than
having 10,000 come trickling out every few weeks and keep customers furious
on an extended basis. Probably the only strategy a small press really has a
option with when confronted with a potential watershed such as Hapworth.

Malcs

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