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<blockquote data-quote="Staffan" data-source="post: 8170305" data-attributes="member: 907"><p><strong>2</strong> per month? At its height, I believe 2e was more like <strong>20</strong> products per month... definitely double-digits, at least. Of course, those were significantly smaller than 5e's hardback behemoths, but TSR pushed out <strong>tons</strong> of stuff back in the 90s.</p><p></p><p>I believe those were just novels. Once game stuff is sold to distributors, it's no longer the publisher's problem to sell it. However, the mass-market book trade have the right to "return" books to the publisher — and I use the term "return" in quotes, because they only have to return the covers and then pulp the rest.</p><p></p><p>As I recall the tales being told back in the day, the cycle went something like this:</p><p>TSR publishes the first Dragonlance novels, which sell a boatload and saves them from bankruptcy. Management goes "Well, that seems to have worked well. Let's do more of that." This leads to TSR publishing lots of D&D-based fiction, which is sold both through game stores and the book trade. However, much of what they publish don't sell anywhere near as well, so the book trade "returns" unsold books in return for credit. They then use the credit to buy more books, many of which don't sell and get "returned". This cycle then goes on for a while, until the book trade (via, I believe, Random House) go "You know what, your shlock doesn't sell. We don't want credit anymore. Give us money."</p><p></p><p>Meanwhile, TSR had made a lot of other dubious choices, such as spreading out over about a dozen campaign settings, leading to poor sales of individual books and poor cash. Licensing Buck Rogers probably didn't help either. Anyway, TSR was not doing so well financially, and then Random House's demand for money back broke the bank to the point where they couldn't pay their printer to print new issues of Dragon and Dungeon, or other books. As I recall, this was explained to magazine subscribers as being "a problem at the printer".</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Staffan, post: 8170305, member: 907"] [B]2[/B] per month? At its height, I believe 2e was more like [B]20[/B] products per month... definitely double-digits, at least. Of course, those were significantly smaller than 5e's hardback behemoths, but TSR pushed out [B]tons[/B] of stuff back in the 90s. I believe those were just novels. Once game stuff is sold to distributors, it's no longer the publisher's problem to sell it. However, the mass-market book trade have the right to "return" books to the publisher — and I use the term "return" in quotes, because they only have to return the covers and then pulp the rest. As I recall the tales being told back in the day, the cycle went something like this: TSR publishes the first Dragonlance novels, which sell a boatload and saves them from bankruptcy. Management goes "Well, that seems to have worked well. Let's do more of that." This leads to TSR publishing lots of D&D-based fiction, which is sold both through game stores and the book trade. However, much of what they publish don't sell anywhere near as well, so the book trade "returns" unsold books in return for credit. They then use the credit to buy more books, many of which don't sell and get "returned". This cycle then goes on for a while, until the book trade (via, I believe, Random House) go "You know what, your shlock doesn't sell. We don't want credit anymore. Give us money." Meanwhile, TSR had made a lot of other dubious choices, such as spreading out over about a dozen campaign settings, leading to poor sales of individual books and poor cash. Licensing Buck Rogers probably didn't help either. Anyway, TSR was not doing so well financially, and then Random House's demand for money back broke the bank to the point where they couldn't pay their printer to print new issues of Dragon and Dungeon, or other books. As I recall, this was explained to magazine subscribers as being "a problem at the printer". [/QUOTE]
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