I'm still not sure why anyone on this forum is still bumping about paperbacks. The paperbacks are surely the means to mass distribution to people who do not know LW, or vaguely remember it from their childhood. The current releases from Mongoose are for the fans, and certainly the means to both gauge winder interest and fund the 'big push'
The paperbacks represent, I have to imagine, a SIGNIFICANT investment of resources, bring with them all forms of pressure from large scale distributors like Amazon, and have to be perfect. They will be given - I imagine a large international distribution and therefore could still, if the climate is wrong, be a thing that is returned to Mongoose in crippling numbers and represent a significant financial loss.
I wonder what's been happening over four years that might make this an uncertain prospect? Recession? The fall of many high street book chains? Printed media versus digital distributoon channels? It sounds like the odds on what is a gamble anyone have increased. I have a friend that was goign to sell their home in 2008. They are now thinking of selling it in 2012. Were they just lazy or lying? No, they tried everything, poured money and time in to redoing the house again and again, and basically have had to live with the consequences of the current economic enviromnet.
I'm glad no firm announcement has been made on the paperbacks. Am I sad there's no positive one? Of course. But to wish that we'd hear something negative is ludicrous. An announcement that the paperbacks are dead is an announcement of Mongoose is giving up trying to mass market Lone Wolf, and giving it fresh life as it had back in the glory days of the 80s when gamebooks were huge. It's probably the death knell of the franchise, meaning there would not be widespread enough interest to push a film, a game, and further books.
While Mongoose has hope of establishing a paperback distribution, and while they are committed to doing it right for widespread scrutiny, I still have hope that the franchise will keep having new life through a new generation of fans, and even a new demographic of fans.
I was introduced to the series throguh a friend who had them, and read a few. But I only became a hardcore fan myself when I saw one of the books I recognised a few years later in my local papershop, bought it, and then managed to keep buying them in bookshops until I had the set. And then, my interest was rekindled years later when by chance I saw the first of the GM series in a general shop. These days, we might have different methods, but the mechanism of getting new fans is not much different. The hardcore fans might know where to look for news of new books and buy then directly, and we can certainly keep a franchise afloat for a while, but the real audience that can give long term support to a an expanding franchise has to be the wider, casual audience.
It's nice to see they are also considering an internal small print run for the hardcore fans, but I don't think that is ever what the paperbacks were about. If that's all that becomes, in the end, then while people on this board might be happy, I will be sad, because it means Lone Wolf hasn't managed to reach the potential it should.
In summary, I understand no news is good news. I'm happy with a 2012 commitment to push the paperbacks once more, and I hope the general buzz around the game, the boardgame, and the attention Lone Wolf still generates (I heard it namedropped in a gaming podcast recently by someone who recalls the old series fondly but never went backto it) becomes something concrete and swelling.
