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<blockquote data-quote="Mistwell" data-source="post: 7729226" data-attributes="member: 2525"><p>The entire fiction novel industry has taken a massive dip in the past 10 years. The quantity of fiction novels for sale has increased, but sales have stagnated and even decreased, even with e-books. Most books are only selling to people who previously bought books from that author or universe, and that number of people drops each year without replacement buyers. That, combined with a level of saturation for their stories, and I think it's pretty clear the market for these novels has meaningfully changed in the past decade. We're just not talking about the kind of market that was here in the 80s for the Gord and Dragonlance books, or the 90s and 2000s for Forgotten Realms books. </p><p></p><p>It's not that WOTC couldn't try and break back into that industry, but the effort required to obtain a lot of new readers would mean a whole lot of focus and marketing on those products, which would distract from their focus on the successful game line. In some ways I guess you could say the massive success of the RPG line, which remains in the top 100 of all books sales even almost four years later, makes it more difficult for them to pull focus onto the novels. Even with more staff, it requires a level of coordination and dedication of time and resources that would necessarily cause some level of distraction from the more successful lines. And, it just doesn't seem like the potential payoff from that distraction would be worth it. </p><p></p><p>As others have said, if the movie is a big success, I suspect that will be enough to justify the time and resources to devote to a novel line again. But right now, in this fiction market, with this level of saturation and other products to focus on, it just doesn't make enough sense to do it.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Mistwell, post: 7729226, member: 2525"] The entire fiction novel industry has taken a massive dip in the past 10 years. The quantity of fiction novels for sale has increased, but sales have stagnated and even decreased, even with e-books. Most books are only selling to people who previously bought books from that author or universe, and that number of people drops each year without replacement buyers. That, combined with a level of saturation for their stories, and I think it's pretty clear the market for these novels has meaningfully changed in the past decade. We're just not talking about the kind of market that was here in the 80s for the Gord and Dragonlance books, or the 90s and 2000s for Forgotten Realms books. It's not that WOTC couldn't try and break back into that industry, but the effort required to obtain a lot of new readers would mean a whole lot of focus and marketing on those products, which would distract from their focus on the successful game line. In some ways I guess you could say the massive success of the RPG line, which remains in the top 100 of all books sales even almost four years later, makes it more difficult for them to pull focus onto the novels. Even with more staff, it requires a level of coordination and dedication of time and resources that would necessarily cause some level of distraction from the more successful lines. And, it just doesn't seem like the potential payoff from that distraction would be worth it. As others have said, if the movie is a big success, I suspect that will be enough to justify the time and resources to devote to a novel line again. But right now, in this fiction market, with this level of saturation and other products to focus on, it just doesn't make enough sense to do it. [/QUOTE]
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