Book sales

[ellenel13.livejournal.com]

Let me start this by saying that i haven't read anything since CS in I don't plan to because that book remains the worst I've ever read. I wanted to ask if anyone knows how many books LKH is selling. If her blog is anything to go by, she's selling so many books that it's made her too famous to go anywhere without a bodyguard. I want to know how the her series are actually doing though. Have her sales begun to sag because of the large drop in quality or not? Does anyone else suspect that LKH became well known after the books turned in to soft core porn? I certainly don't remember hearing much of her before the ardeur made it's debut. Now everytime I try to buy any paranomal or sometimes even fantasy book, the whole "fans of early Anita Blake will enjoy this" line is pastede on the cover. (It's seriously beginning to turn me off the genre since I want nothing that reminds me of the Anita Blake crapfest.)

Thing is, I don't remember reading "fans of Anita Blake will enjoy this" on the cover of any book five or six years ago. Is it because the series was too new then, or because LKH hadn't achieve penis fame yet? Do you think her sales continue to rse because people actually like the porn? Usually, with more famous writers you can tell right of the bat if a book tanks because everyone is talking about it (lol Breaking Dawn) but since LKH is a genre writer, the effect is much more . . . contained.

Comments

[apis-mellifera.livejournal.com]

As a reviewer who sometimes resorts to using that phrase in reviews (I'm very curious as to which books you've seen it on; I would never use it on a non-paranormal title)--I am extremely limited in the space I have; it's a very good shorthand for "this book features a smart-ass and prone to getting in trouble heroine with lots of violence and guns and vampires/werewolves/stuff" without having to say all that so I can concentrate on other things I liked--or didn't like--about the book.

Do remember when you're looking at book that has blurbs on it that the author doesn't get to pick their blurbs, generally. That's the province of the publisher and they pick the ones that they think will help move the book from the bookstore to your house. Like it or not, Laurell K. Hamilton's books have really done a lot to help make paranormal fantasy the huge sub-genre it currently is.

[ellenel13.livejournal.com]

Maybe that's what's gotten tiring about the whole thing. I thing I've gotten burn out from the whole genre.

[missingvolume.livejournal.com]

I snicker at that phrase, "fans of early Anita Blake will enjoy this". This clues in the smart reader that this will not be the sexfest that the later books have become. Any Blurb on a book is going to compare it to every hot series out there. Of course I also laugh at any book that a publisher uses a quote by a certain #1 Amazon review. So for the most part I ignore any "review blurbs" on the book.

[slayra.livejournal.com]

I think that same phrase is on some of the early Dresden Files paperbacks. *shudders* Harry and Anita are worlds apart. O__o

[http://users.livejournal.com/_the_firedancer/]

Fun factoid: The Dresdenverse was sorta kinda vaguely inspired by the earliest ABs - in a "here's how you could do this better," kinda of way.

[naeko.livejournal.com]

I'm almost certain that's one of those nasty rumors going around that has no basis in truth. Nothing I've ever heard from Butcher himself has given any indication that's true. Storm Front was written back when the ABVH books were still entertaining and Butcher was a fan. He may still be, actually, of only because she introduced him to her agent and helped him get started.

[nialla]

They were sort of inspired by the AB series in that it was an early example of success in what's now lumped under the "urban fantasy" subgenre. It wasn't really "here's how you could do this better" but more of "there's not enough of this type of book out there, I'll write one" kind of thing.

[naeko.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, the latter I'll totally buy. I get really, *really annoyed, though, when people present the Dresden Files by saying, "Jim wrote these because of a feud he had with LKH that ended in her going, 'Fine then you do it better!'" It bugs me because it makes Jim look petty and sort of brings down the worth of his books.

Unfortunately, I tend to hear it a lot around LJ :/

[nialla]

The concept of there having been a feud amuses me for some reason. Jim started writing what eventually would become The Dresden Files in college. He didn't even meet LKH until years after (seven years of rejection letters later, IIRC), and she's the one who introduced him to her then-agent (they both have different agents now).

I guess some are latching onto this misinformation thinking it makes LKH look like even more of a loser, not realizing it's also a slam against Jim too. I haven't heard it around LJ, but for book fandoms, I'm generally a passive reader in comms just for news and such.

I mainly hang around here just for the lulz watching LKH continue to be, well... extremely lulz-worthy. She's an artiste at the lulz.

[naeko.livejournal.com]

Goddammit, internet!

Ignore the double-posting. My work internet has herpes or something.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_the_firedancer/]

Hey, as nasty rumours go - that's really not very nasty now is it? Even when it was entertaining, ABVH was always crack-fiction - YAABI was a common term among fans by book three - and as far as I know it was meant in the sense of: 'Lookit the flaws in the worldbuilding,' not in a derogatory way.

The internet is indeed a wonderful place for rumors, but this predates Storm Front even being published, (from the days when we were all on the same mailing list) so I feel fairly comfortable commenting on it. Wouldn't have mentioned it otherwise. He's now a public figure, so it behooves him to be tactful, eh? ;)

Internet hiccups np, happens to us all.

[naeko.livejournal.com]

Are you talking about the the LKH fan mailing list? I remember it well! Sometimes I wonder why more people didn't listen to that one guy who was always talking about how the books were going downhill ;)

Don't bring the list up to Jim in person, though; the one time I did, he got kind of bitchy about it. I'm assuming it's because people usually try and be like, "HEY! REMEMBER WHE WE WERE BFF ON THE MAILING LIST?!?!??" (He was perfectly nice after he realized that WASN'T my goal, though; I'm not trying to slight him in the least.)

I'd never heard that rumor on the list, though.

[librarista.livejournal.com]

Which reviewer is that? There's one reviewer on Amazon I know to ignore and she reviews every book anywhere near the genre but I've never seen her blurred on a book. I need to know if there's someone else to look out for.

[missingvolume.livejournal.com]

It is who you are thinking of. I saw her quoted on a Tor novel.

[tsubaki-ny.livejournal.com]

I think under the new system she has actually stopped being number 1. It's the end of an era...

[missingvolume.livejournal.com]

I didn't even know they even got rid of that system. That is how much I pay attention to it. LOL

[easol.livejournal.com]

It sucks in some ways -- they've removed the votes of anyone who's voted more than ten times for reviews of the same person, on assumption that A) everyone must be artificially pumping up their rankings, and that B) "fans" are a bad thing and would NEVER naturally vote for multiple reviews by the same person.

Since I have over a thousand "fans" I've lost over ten thousand votes. Charming.

[missingvolume.livejournal.com]

Wow I just went and looked and boy has she fallen in the ranks. LOL

[missingvolume.livejournal.com]

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1570726,00.html

[jya-bd-cp-ttgb.livejournal.com]

Wow, am I late to the party or what? *rolls eyes*

I'm still reading the genre, and I've seen the 'early Anita Blake' blurb you're talking about. The quality of the books it's been on is hit or miss, Personally, Jeanine? Frost isn't that bad, Yasmine...Glasnorn? is okay. Keri Arthur...I want her to write more about the gay twin brother Rhoan and his partner Lisander than about the main character Riley, but the secondaries - Nathaniel and Jason, Stephen and Gregory - are the reason I still borrow Anita from the library. *shrugs*

LA Banks is someone else I'd recommend. I wasn't fond of her..Huntress? Dark Huntress? series, but I've read one or two of the single-verse books that weren't bad.

Oh, and try..*headdesk* OSI is the series. Occult (crime) Scene Investigators. I don't remember the author for that one, but it's like reading a supernatural CSI episode. Kinda...surreal.

[nialla]

Does anyone else suspect that LKH became well known after the books turned in to soft core porn?

I think the difference is that's also about the time the series went to hardcover. While that may keep more casual fans from buying when it first hits bookstore shelves, it means libraries will be more likely to buy them, which in turn brings in a whole new set of readers. Libraries are quite a big ready-made market for hardcovers.

At my library, almost all of the people who were regularly reading the series have stopped because of the sexpactacular. I've only got one or two who are still kinda hardcore about it. They seem to like the "Complete brain candy, but with vampires, guns and sex!" aspect and readily admit they're not good, but they're trashy fun.

Now everytime I try to buy any paranomal or sometimes even fantasy book, the whole "fans of early Anita Blake will enjoy this" line is pastede on the cover.

I think the distinction of "early Anita Blake" is rather telling, as I think so many of us enjoyed those books and are looking for something to fill the void.