Lone Wolf - New Books and Old

RatedRWolf · **Posted:** Mon Jul 02, 2012 12:44 pm

I completely agree and that's why I'm not optimistic about it: CEs are much more expensive than they should (30$!), and many potential customers simply cannot afford the price, but could really choose to take advantage of a complete paperback edition. Nevertheless, a simple reprint of a 20 year old book (yes, there are some little changes, but how many? very very few, and the more you go on with the series, the less they are) is completely unuseful for the old fans, imho, and which new fan can they attract?

Not including the bonus adventures in the books, if maybe not a fiasco, would be at least a wasted opportunity.

msprange · **Joined:** Mon Aug 18, 2003 4:25 pm **Posts:** 12311

RatedRWolf wrote:

Italian paperbacks, which unfortunately stopped at number 4, had them, could we say there was no reason?

Well, the fact they stopped at Book 4 is an indication as to why...

RatedRWolf wrote:

CEs are much more expensive than they should (30$!),

I am afraid they are not - they are cheaper than they should be. We make very little on the CEs and, when you factor in time needed for editing, layout and art, nothing.

You will still have a chance to pick up the CEs when they come out, we are just not going to keep them in print forever. With paperbacks, we can do that, but something else has to give - in this case, book length.

At the end of the day, we either have to change what we are doing, or say there will be no more Lone Wolf books - and we don't want there to be no more Lone Wolf books...

RatedRWolf · **Posted:** Mon Jul 02, 2012 5:09 pm

msprange wrote:

RatedRWolf wrote:

Italian paperbacks, which unfortunately stopped at number 4, had them, could we say there was no reason?

Well, the fact they stopped at Book 4 is an indication as to why...

They clearly stopped because there was no reason to reprint the whole series without any insurance of seeing it completed with the last four books, and probably the lenght of the project has been another important factor.

I believe you when you say the CEs are cheaper than they should, and I'm sure you aren't making huge amounts of money on them, but we must calculate it with our wallets: 30$ for a (more or less) 20 years old reprinted book are far more than a 2012 standard purchaser can spend. I'm sad to see my collection stopped with book 12, but I'm not sure I'll buy paperbacks without bonus adventures, and it seems I'm not the only one. If at least there were some sort of convenient 13-20 Megadeal...

msprange · **Joined:** Mon Aug 18, 2003 4:25 pm **Posts:** 12311

RatedRWolf wrote:

They clearly stopped because there was no reason to reprint the whole series without any insurance of seeing it completed with the last four books, and probably the lenght of the project has been another important factor.[/quote]

Well, those are two possible reasons. There is another...

RatedRWolf wrote:

I believe you when you say the CEs are cheaper than they should, and I'm sure you aren't making huge amounts of money on them, but we must calculate it with our wallets:

Which is why we try to reach a balance - it is not as if we are sitting behind pots of money, illicit gains from hawking solo gamebooks...

Incidentally, I am not sure why you think you cannot collect books beyond Book 12 - they will all eventually be made available for megadeals only, but there will be a good time when they will be available for everyone. And if you are after one or more of the books that have already been withdrawn, get hold of me straight away (msprange@mongoosepublishing.com). We kept some back specifically for those of you who may have missed a volume or two...

WritingWolf · **Posted:** Mon Jul 02, 2012 8:14 pm

Hi Matt

As long as the CEs keep coming (which it sounds like they will) then I'm happy - just let us know in advance so we can get a copy

Just out of curiosity, how long is each print run?

Thanks

Ningauble · **Posted:** Tue Jul 03, 2012 2:11 am

RatedRWolf wrote:

Nevertheless, a simple reprint of a 20 year old book (yes, there are some little changes, but how many? very very few, and the more you go on with the series, the less they are) is completely unuseful for the old fans

No, it isn't. I only own the books in Swedish, and only the first 12 were published here. I'd love to have the entire series in paperback. I wouldn't mind to have some bonus material, but it is not a big deal for me if there is none.

Sabretooth · **Joined:** Tue Jul 03, 2012 7:23 am **Posts:** 2

I'm back after a lot of time just because i've been reported this answer...

msprange wrote:

The paperbacks will not have bonus adventures - there is no reason for the softbacks to have them.

so there is no reason for us to buy them..
minor adjustment on the old ones (apart from number 1) are not enough to buy a complete reprint..

with the hardcovers beeing expensive (IMHO and economic possibilities) and, as i read, full of errors, i'll keep my old series and be happy with it..

thanks for losing a great occasion on more sales...

Sabretooth · **Joined:** Tue Jul 03, 2012 7:23 am **Posts:** 2

msprange wrote:

RatedRWolf wrote:

Quote:

They clearly stopped because there was no reason to reprint the whole series without any insurance of seeing it completed with the last four books, and probably the lenght of the project has been another important factor.

Well, those are two possible reasons. There is another...

and many more.. "bad" translation and adaptation flattening all the correction and rewrite of the new edition (already talked about it with Joe himself a couple years ago when he visited biggest con here in Italy), lack of pubblicity, lack of any insurance about the timing of future reprints, lack of any concret news about 29-32, death of the first RPG and no pubblication of the second..
but at least they weren't so expanive as HC version would have been and had something more than the old edition as to make them interesting in some way...

Tabris · **Joined:** Thu Aug 02, 2007 11:48 pm **Posts:** 72

Wow - this whole thread has me quite worried. Back in 2007 when the Lone Wolf reprints/Megadeals were first announced Mongoose claimed that they "made enough money" on the initial Megadeal offer purchases alone to insure republication of the entire Lone Wolf line. Now we hear that they are barely breaking even and releases have trickled down to 2-3 per year, if that?

I really hope that we see the entire 32 book line republished, but this is pretty depressing news.

Random Code · **Joined:** Sat Aug 02, 2008 12:23 pm **Posts:** 371

Sabretooth wrote:

so there is no reason for us to buy them...

Maybe not you but I certainly will be.

WritingWolf · **Posted:** Tue Jul 03, 2012 9:42 pm

I can see myself buying them too Random Code! Have the collection 3 times then! Plus it helps limit the wear and tear on them all, and keeps the CEs "special" for longer too.

Bit worried about all the negativity on this thread, I mean Mongoose are still publishing the books, just not keeping huge stocks back (as a veteran of Dr Who I remember when the BBC would publish a story and then instantly "delete" it making it really hard to get unless you got in there first). As long as we get our pre-orders in, along with the Megadeal, what is there to worry about? It just means that in 4 years wewon't be able to go back and get the CEs - but I kinda assumed that already.

And the paperbacks will mean LW gets more publicity / fans which has gotta be good for everyone. Right?

msprange · **Joined:** Mon Aug 18, 2003 4:25 pm **Posts:** 12311

And the CEs will be more collectible.

Really is nothing to worry about, we just need to warn people that the CEs won't be around forever and if you want the complete set, get them while you can!

jolt · **Posted:** Thu Jul 05, 2012 6:37 pm

Tabris wrote:

Wow - this whole thread has me quite worried. Back in 2007 when the Lone Wolf reprints/Megadeals were first announced Mongoose claimed that they "made enough money" on the initial Megadeal offer purchases alone to insure republication of the entire Lone Wolf line. Now we hear that they are barely breaking even and releases have trickled down to 2-3 per year, if that?

I really hope that we see the entire 32 book line republished, but this is pretty depressing news.

I agree. In fact, I started worrying years ago. When I first heard about LW being released again years ago at GenCon I was pretty excited. I did the original Mega-Deal but months of (supposedly) printer errors kept me from getting even a single book for some time. Books 1-4 arrived all at once only two months before Book 5. Twelve books have come since. At first it wasn't too bad but still significantly slower than was originally promised (6-8 weeks per book).

What really irked me was that in Dec. 2010, in the State of the Mongoose, they reiterated that same release schedule promising additional LW support. As the current wait between books is now 20-26 weeks that statement seems quite ridiculous (it seemed ridiculous at the time to be honest).

I too would like to see the entire 32 books (as that's what I paid for) since, in the States, we never saw anything past Book 20; and those were heavily rewritten. But production continues to slow and none of Mongoose's platitudes have come to pass. Repeated promises of faster production and more upfront info have never developed and production continues to get slower.

Hell, it usually takes six weeks for me to get the book after its (supposed) release and I live in the same State as where the books ship from. This has been one of the most consumer unfriendly processes I have ever seen from a gaming company still in business.

Tabris · **Joined:** Thu Aug 02, 2007 11:48 pm **Posts:** 72

The funny part is that Mongoose's publishing arm in the US is (or at least used to be) in Dayton, Ohio, literally an hour away from where I live, and it appears that the last few books were shipped from the UK to my address?

I'm pretty concerned about this whole thing.

daddio2810 · **Joined:** Mon Sep 10, 2012 6:23 pm **Posts:** 1

Just read this post - absolutely gutted! I have the original paperback series and have been recently collecting the hard back editions for my son. This may be a stupid question but does this mean that I can no longer buy books 4, 5, 10, 15 and 16 in the hard back format. I will be so gutted if I cant. Is there anything mongoose (matt) can do to help. One very worried lifelong Lone Wolf fan.

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