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1 hour ago, shinros said:

I mean hell Josh Reynolds answered quite an interesting question about how well fantasy books were doing

Could I ask what was said? I would check myself but I can't access Twitter properly. 

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1 minute ago, Enoby said:

Could I ask what was said? I would check myself but I can't access Twitter properly. 

(To add Gav said the times of legend series were the only books to sell well in a tweet dealing with this.)

Gav:He speaks truth.

Gav:Though I’d add that Time of Legends sold better than other Warhammer titles.

Question:I read a thing that said WHF books didn't sell well. Is that true? Do AOS books sell?

Josh:I can't speak for other authors, but generally, yeah, fantasy sold poorly...compared to 40K. Compared to general fantasy novel sales? They were mid-list, on average.


My lowest WHF seller topped out at 7,000 copies, which is just under the wire for earning out its advance. The rest crossed the 10,000 copy threshold within 2-4 years of release. My first 40K novel earned out in half the time, with twice the overall sales. 40K/HH sells like gangbusters. Mid-list, science-fiction gangbusters.


AOS books had a rocky start, but most of mine have earned out within the last year or two, due mostly to the variety of formats they're available in. So, comparatively, they're selling better than WHF. At least my WHF novels.


From my experience (and that of other writers I've talked to), most genre novels don't earn out their advance immediately, unless you're one of the lucky few. Some earn out after 5-6 years, others never. One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was to consider royalties 'found money' because you can't count on them, and you shouldn't budget for receiving them. You can't count on royalties - you can only count on the advance. Tie-in novels, in general, disrupt that paradigm somewhat. They often sell ridiculously well, especially if you're a first time author.


To sum up, WHF novels sold poorly in comparison to W40K, but probably about average for the genre. AOS novels on average sells less than W40K, but better than WHF - so, staunchly mid-list in terms of sales.

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3 minutes ago, shinros said:

(To add Gav said the times of legend series were the only books to sell well in a tweet dealing with this.)

Gav:He speaks truth.

Gav:Though I’d add that Time of Legends sold better than other Warhammer titles.

Question:I read a thing that said WHF books didn't sell well. Is that true? Do AOS books sell?

Josh:I can't speak for other authors, but generally, yeah, fantasy sold poorly...compared to 40K. Compared to general fantasy novel sales? They were mid-list, on average.


My lowest WHF seller topped out at 7,000 copies, which is just under the wire for earning out its advance. The rest crossed the 10,000 copy threshold within 2-4 years of release. My first 40K novel earned out in half the time, with twice the overall sales. 40K/HH sells like gangbusters. Mid-list, science-fiction gangbusters.


AOS books had a rocky start, but most of mine have earned out within the last year or two, due mostly to the variety of formats they're available in. So, comparatively, they're selling better than WHF. At least my WHF novels.


From my experience (and that of other writers I've talked to), most genre novels don't earn out their advance immediately, unless you're one of the lucky few. Some earn out after 5-6 years, others never. One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was to consider royalties 'found money' because you can't count on them, and you shouldn't budget for receiving them. You can't count on royalties - you can only count on the advance. Tie-in novels, in general, disrupt that paradigm somewhat. They often sell ridiculously well, especially if you're a first time author.


To sum up, WHF novels sold poorly in comparison to W40K, but probably about average for the genre. AOS novels on average sells less than W40K, but better than WHF - so, staunchly mid-list in terms of sales.

Thank you! (I would give a reaction but I've ran out for today) 

That's very interesting. I was always under the assumption that AoS novels didn't sell all that well, especially due to their lukewarm reception at the beginning. That said, more people play AoS than WHFB so maybe that has something to do with it. 

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Just now, Enoby said:

Thank you! (I would give a reaction but I've ran out for today) 

That's very interesting. I was always under the assumption that AoS novels didn't sell all that well, especially due to their lukewarm reception at the beginning. That said, more people play AoS than WHFB so maybe that has something to do with it. 

One of the first and hardest lessons a professional author learns is that public reception/perception often does not fully align with cold, hard sales data.  

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What I have really enjoyed about AoS fluff so far is it gives you quite a generous license to make your own stories and worlds. The mortal realms are vast and varied. If I want a city of wizard golems floating across an iron sea hunting for a mountain sized kraken, AoS gives you a bit more creative permission to do that. It was much more difficult to do that in the old world. While I am glad they are adding maps etc. I do hope they leave room for that sort of individual storytelling.

This is also helped by the broader grand alliances, which allow you to make interesting armies of converted minis, free cities of cobbled together misfits, group-spanning species and anything else you can think of. 

Once I had read City of Secrets, Spear of Shadows, Overlords of the Iron Dragon etc. I just began to fall in love with the breadth of the setting. Now I have loads of maps sketched, timelines drawn up, family trees noted down and sketches of more and more far-fetched races. A lot of this could be done in WFB, but I feel in AoS it is actively encouraged, because each book throws out some microcosm of a new and wonderful civilisation.

So while I had a hard time getting through some of the realmgate wars because it felt so different, I have now fully embraced the setting, and to be honest its got me back into the hobby like never before.

 

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2 minutes ago, Brad Gamma said:

A lot of this could be done in WFB, but I feel in AoS it is actively encouraged, because each book throws out some microcosm of a new and wonderful civilisation.

And sorry just to expand on this. Sometimes these new and different civilizations are mentioned just in passing and leave a lot of detail out, but that's okay. Its almost inviting you to expand upon them in your imagination, or even just suggest to you what is possible, and that's why I love it.

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9 hours ago, Brad Gamma said:

While I am glad they are adding maps etc. I do hope they leave room for that sort of individual storytelling.

Oddly I think adding maps could really help allow readers to engage with the whole AoS background.

I'd class myself as a fairly prolific reader, generally I've two books on the go (one at work one at home) - a good book can help transport you from this mundane world to somewhere else, be it the war-torn planet of Istvaan, the boiling Realm of Ashqy or 1920's Britain.  Since I can remember, one thing that always help to orientate me as an "observer" is having a rough idea of where everything fits together.  You get a map of Hyboria in some of the Conan books, a map of Middle Earth in The Hobbit etc.  It doesn't need to be accurate, to a set scale or even have many place names, but it just allows me to go "oh, that monument is sort of East to that mountain".  It was one thing that AoS lacked when it first arrived, the maps available being much more similar to the mariner sea charts (here be dragons), which did get across how vast the realms were, but not much else.

I don't think that adding maps will hamper storytelling in the slightest and as time goes on the maps will be shaped by the stories written and the stories shaped by the maps.  I'm including fan fiction in this too, being able to pick a realm in the new edition will mean more people will want to write little backstories and we'll now have a map to point at and go "my army comes from there".

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21 minutes ago, RuneBrush said:

I don't think that adding maps will hamper storytelling in the slightest and as time goes on the maps will be shaped by the stories written and the stories shaped by the maps.  I'm including fan fiction in this too, being able to pick a realm in the new edition will mean more people will want to write little backstories and we'll now have a map to point at and go "my army comes from there".

Oh I agree that maps are a good thing and allow a lot more people to engage with the source material. At the beginning of AoS I was very much lost and confused about the form of the world and how things fit together and I was crying out for maps. (EDIT: Which as you say helps people to tell stories)

What I hope however is that they leave some portion of the realms either uncharted or vague. For example if I look at the preview on warhammer community for the core book and some of its maps, it looks like they have charted "the prime innerlands" that comprise a central portion of the realm of Shyish, but there is a huge expanse that extends outwards into the realm where you can be a bit more flexible.

AoSPreviewCoreBook-June11-Spread96-97er.

40k is a good example in that it has a huge established lore, but there are still swathes of uncharted space and countless planets that you can create a history for, or your people/chapter/forgeworld can hail from.

For example if we look at @Davariel's awesome westreach thread, they have set out what feels like it could be a continent in Ghyran, and the story they are telling is richer for it. I myself have drawn maps of a far flung region on the edges of Chamon.

So overall I think its moving in exactly the right direction.

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1 hour ago, Brad Gamma said:

Oh I agree that maps are a good thing and allow a lot more people to engage with the source material. At the beginning of AoS I was very much lost and confused about the form of the world and how things fit together and I was crying out for maps. (EDIT: Which as you say helps people to tell stories)

What I hope however is that they leave some portion of the realms either uncharted or vague. For example if I look at the preview on warhammer community for the core book and some of its maps, it looks like they have charted "the prime innerlands" that comprise a central portion of the realm of Shyish, but there is a huge expanse that extends outwards into the realm where you can be a bit more flexible.

AoSPreviewCoreBook-June11-Spread96-97er.

40k is a good example in that it has a huge established lore, but there are still swathes of uncharted space and countless planets that you can create a history for, or your people/chapter/forgeworld can hail from.

For example if we look at @Davariel's awesome westreach thread, they have set out what feels like it could be a continent in Ghyran, and the story they are telling is richer for it. I myself have drawn maps of a far flung region on the edges of Chamon.

So overall I think its moving in exactly the right direction.

I agree that having the whole area totally mapped out and set in stone (as much of the Old World was) can be a little restrictive but it seems to me they are going with the 40K mode you mention so everything is going to continue on the same vein. 

@AaronWIlson glad to hear it. I’ve been loving it. I think it’s been a much more accessible lead in to the new edition than Endtimes or Gathering Storm. The free easy to read short stories with a staggered release seems to have got a lot more people involved than the monster (and expensive) source books. I do love a source book but it does seem less popular generally which means the narrative doesn’t get out as well. 

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17 hours ago, Brad Gamma said:

What I have really enjoyed about AoS fluff so far is it gives you quite a generous license to make your own stories and worlds. The mortal realms are vast and varied. If I want a city of wizard golems floating across an iron sea hunting for a mountain sized kraken, AoS gives you a bit more creative permission to do that. It was much more difficult to do that in the old world. While I am glad they are adding maps etc. I do hope they leave room for that sort of individual storytelling.

This is also helped by the broader grand alliances, which allow you to make interesting armies of converted minis, free cities of cobbled together misfits, group-spanning species and anything else you can think of. 

Once I had read City of Secrets, Spear of Shadows, Overlords of the Iron Dragon etc. I just began to fall in love with the breadth of the setting. Now I have loads of maps sketched, timelines drawn up, family trees noted down and sketches of more and more far-fetched races. A lot of this could be done in WFB, but I feel in AoS it is actively encouraged, because each book throws out some microcosm of a new and wonderful civilisation.

So while I had a hard time getting through some of the realmgate wars because it felt so different, I have now fully embraced the setting, and to be honest its got me back into the hobby like never before.

 

Exactly this.

We get really weight borders what's possible in the realms compared to the tide World that Was. Even if the lore we got is quite scattered through the books we got 3 years of lore. I played 9th Age for about 2,5 years. After making a continue for the old world they decides, making there own world (making a WHFB sized world), but didn't deliver much background. It's more a problem there because of the quite small world, where you need consistent background instead of 7+ nearly infinite realms where you have nearly all posibilities and never could be filled entirely by GW.

In fact 8 years ago I wrote a little background for a massive slaanesh project (Warriors of Chaos, Chaos Daemons, (Chaos)Ogres, Dark Elves, (Chaos)Orcs) with about 33.000 Points. Beside for the part, that the characters weren't that fleshed out, the main problem was, I created my own lands for campaigns but there was no place where this could be take place.

If I now look at the mortal realms, that idea would be quite possible somewhere in the realms. Also I started to write my own shortstories for multiple projects to find in my blogs here.

 

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The creative freedom of AoS is absolutely its biggest strength IMO. Even so, I'm really excited for the new maps and more detailed lore coming our way - it looks like GW is striking a really good balance between giving a solid foundation to the setting (and to tell their own stories) and giving people room to make up their own stuff.

It's all about providing context to our own stories - I mean, the narrative freedom existed from day one, but for me there was just nothing to connect to in the early parts of AoS background. Everything seemed so nebulous and vague, and even though I could have told the same stories I am now, it would have just felt like a random hiccup rather than part of a living, breathing setting.

That's the key I think - letting people feel like a part of the setting, rather than apart from it.

For me it was the Sylvaneth battletome that first gave me that. It did a really good job  of telling how this race lived and breathed, whilst also leaving plenty of room for creativity. I could (and did!) make up my own clan and give them their own totally unique story, but I could also position them within the setting. I created a backstory and it immediately sparked narrative hooks based on the official lore: e.g. my clan is very closely bonded with a kingdom of aelves... so their relationship with the Outcasts and Drycha was going to be very, very uneasy.

The narrative side of AoS has just been getting better and better ever since IMO, especially with with Malign Portents and the new core book. For me it's not about having everything mapped out, it's about having a richer foundation to build on - and as I said, I think GW's got the balance just about right.

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