10 replies to this topic

[Triton]

From Zero Minus Ten through The Man with the Red Tattoo, I have had to comb through the deepest and remotest shelves of the largest Barnes and Noble Bookseller bookstores to find each edition of the Raymond Benson Bond novels when they were first published. After several minutes of searching through the adult fiction shelves, I woud be lucky if I found one or two copies of the latest book in stock.

Once found, I would be greeted with a book with an extremely boring and drab looking cover. Judging the book by its cover it looks BORING and tedious.

Then I would notice the tens of copies of other thriller writers such as Tom Clancy, Robert Ludlum, or Clive Cussler. Reading through these books, it doesn't seem like any of the previously mentioned authors are any better at producing a thriller than Benson. In fact, I was actually quite shocked at how bad the writing styles are of some of the bestselling thriller writers are.

So I am left to wonder, why aren't the Bond novels better sellers? It cannot be explained by a lack of interest in the Bond character, you see Pierce Brosnan's image and the 007 logo prominently displayed almost everywhere for the latest edition of the EA game or companion or tie-in products for these games. I also see Pierce's image everywhere when the latest edition of the Bond films is released on DVD and VHS. They fly off the shelf and the consumer interest is high/

The only thing that I can think of is that Ian Fleming Publications and GP Putnam's Sons in the United States are unwilling to spend suffiicient money on marketing and promoting the Bond thrillers to generate any sort of public interest. It just seems like they toss a book into the competitive book market, and they sink like stones. It's unfair to us as Bond fans and its certainly unequitable to the fine job Raymond Benson has done to keep James Bond going in literary form. Benson didn't have a chance against the big guns like Clancy, Cussler, Ludlum, and Higgins. Unfortunately, die hard fans, like us, are not a large enough market to keep the printing runs going and this may be the reason why Ian Fleming Publications announced that Benson was no longer writing Bond novels.

Why can't they tighten their belts for a little while and license Pierce Brosnan's image and the 007 logo to make the cover that looks flashier, more Bond-esque, and exciting like a Bond film movie poster. Further, why do they refuse to have a marketing/promotion tie-in agreement with Eon and/or MGM/UA? I would think that such an arrangement would be mutually benefitial to both parties.

I am willing to concede that Raymond Benson is not Ian Fleming in writing ability, but of the current crop of thriller writers who matches Fleming's writing ability?

[zencat]

I wouldn't say Benson's Bond novels "failed." Being a collector, I well aware that Benson's novels sold out of their first editions very quickly. And, artistically, Benson's novels were very successful IMO.

I think Benson's books did as well as they could, giving the very small print runs and TOTAL lack of marketing. IFP and the publishers just never put in the effort, nor the money, to make the books national bestsellers. They treated the Benson books just the way they treated the later Gardner books.

[Triton]

But is there any explanation of why the small print runs and lack of marketing muscle?

[Loomis]

Originally posted by Triton

Why can't they tighten their belts for a little while and license Pierce Brosnan's image and the 007 logo to make the cover that looks flashier, more Bond-esque, and exciting like a Bond film movie poster. Further, why do they refuse to have a marketing/promotion tie-in agreement with Eon and/or MGM/UA?  I would think that such an arrangement would be mutually benefitial to both parties.

That's an interesting point. Would "The Man With the Red Tattoo" have sold considerably more copies with a photo of Brosnan on the cover? Undoubtedly, it would have done. Then again, TMWTRT is not a novelization, and many fans would argue that having Brosnan on the cover would be nothing but a cheap and tacky sales ploy that would have the effect of devaluing Benson's work.

Actually, that prompts a question for zencat: did the Benson novelizations sell in greater quantities than the Benson originals?

Originally posted by zencat

IFP and the publishers just never put in the effort, nor the money, to make the books national bestsellers. They treated the Benson books just the way they treated the later Gardner books.
would be mutually benefitial to both parties.

Why?

[Triton]

I think that many purists would crow about the cover art until they actually read the novel. If it offends you, then why not take off the dust jacket and throw it away? Or what if Putnam spent an extra nickel or so and printed two dust jackets per novel or have two dust jackets available? I mean a dust jacket is only intended to pique the interest in the reader to pick up the book in the first place and to protect the binding of the book from wear.

Would readers be disappointed, or outraged, that they got the literary heavy-drinking chain-smoking Bond in the novel instead of the movie series character if the cover beared Brosnan's image? Christopher Wood certainly wrote the literary James Bond character in the novelizations of his screenplays James Bond and the Spy Who Loved Me and James Bond and Moonraker while the covers are "covered" with promotional art and photos from the motion pictures. I hear no one on the forums complaining about this.

But I guest you could make the same argument about the EA games. Agent Under Fire , Nightfire, and Everything or Nothing are not based on any motion picture in the film series and yet they bear Pierce's image and the 007 logo. Further, I don't think that Pierce's voice is in any game except the forthcoming Everything or Nothing. Sorry, I never played the Bond video games.

I think die-hard purists have to realize that sometimes its necessary to have a "cheap and tacky sales ploy" to rescue a work from obscrurity or continue to keep a literary work printed. They must realize that book publishing is a for profit business. If there is no money to be made in Bond thrillers, there is not point in printing them or having them take up valuable space in a retail bookseller.

[Triton]

PS-- Just saw the latest covers for the Fleming re-prints posted by Zencat. Very exciting visually with the right touch of nostalgia.

I don't know why they don't make a similar effort for the John Gardner and Raymond Benson volumes. Any rumors of reprints coming?

[Tanger]

I'd say that the advertising/marketing for Benson's novels wasn't just poor but sometimes virtually (or at least seeming) non-existant. The only place I could get info on the most recent books was here and even then tracking down a copy of the book is a mission in itself.

[Loomis]

Originally posted by Triton

I think die-hard purists have to realize that sometimes its necessary to have a "cheap and tacky sales ploy" to rescue a work from obscrurity or continue to keep a literary work printed. They must realize that book publishing is a for profit business. If there is no money to be made in Bond thrillers, there is not point in printing them or having them take up valuable space in a retail bookseller.  

If the literary series (which may now be dead) could be a viable going concern by the simple expedient of putting a photo of Brosnan or whoever the current Bond actor happened to be on the cover of each new novel, then I'd be all for it, and I'm sure most fans would be, too.

Trouble is, that in itself would not, of course, be enough.

Still, what I feel might be a pretty cool idea has just occurred to me. I'd love to see all the novels - Fleming, Amis, Gardner and Benson - reissued with each book's cover art featuring a photograph or likeness of the actor who was the big screen Bond at the time it was published.

I'd have Connery on the covers of all the Flemings (even though DR. NO was released in 1962, year of "The Spy Who Loved Me", the tenth book), and Lazenby on the cover of "Colonel Sun" (1968, a year before ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE, but Connery had already left the role by the time Amis' novel was published).

Since Moore was Bond in 1981, I'd have him on the cover of "Licence Renewed", as well as all of the Gardners up to and including 1984's "Role of Honour". Dalton was announced as Bond in 1986, so I'd put him on the cover of that year's "Nobody Lives For Ever". I'd then give Dalton all the Gardner covers up to and including 1993's "Never Send Flowers", and put Brosnan on the covers of everything from "Sea Fire" (1994, the year he was announced as 007) to "The Man With the Red Tattoo".

[Triton]

I didn't mean for it to just stop with the likeness of Pierce Brosnan on the cover and the Eon owned 007 logo and trademark. I don't think paying a 007 actor for his likeness on cover art is going to ensure a book's success. Such as Sean's on a printing of Dr. No.

I suggested Pierce Brosnan on the cover because I was hoping that Ian Fleming Publications and GP Putnam's Sons, and the publiser in the UK and elsewhere, would actually do some real marketing and promotion of the Raymond Benson books and they hopefully could tie their efforts with Eon and MGM/UA. Where is the $1.00 off coupon for the Man with the Red Tatto paperback in the DVD for Die Another Day? We see coupons for Norelco electric razors? Things like that.

I keep seeing the Bond films on DVD and the Nightfire video and PC game pretty much everywhere I shop, and I ask myself why don't we see any James Bond books by Ian Fleming or any of the post-Fleming authors, especially Raymond Benson, in these same shops? I also see Star Trek, Star Wars, Magic: The Gathering, and Dugeons & Dragons tie-in books everywhere I go, why not Bond? How can one of the most popular literary characters of the 20th century be so conspicuously absent on retail shelves?

The idea of these marketing efforts may be offensive to some, or seem tacky, but I want the novels to succeed because I want Putnam, and other publishing houses, to print new Bond adventures. My fear is that Ian Fleming Publications will not announce a literary successor to Raymond Benson and will cancel future James Bond novels. I can just see a publishing company hire some mediocre writer to crank out a novelization of a screenplay in time for the release of the latest Bond adventure.

[Bond111]

Originally posted by Triton
My fear is that Ian Fleming Publications will not announce a literary successor to Raymond Benson and will cancel future James Bond novels.  I can just see a publishing company hire some mediocre writer to crank out a novelization of a screenplay in time for the release of the latest Bond adventure.

My exact fear too

It would be spectacular if all of the Bond books were in print. And it's true about the advertising. I never heard anything about Benson's books.

[BONDFINESSE 007]

well i think it is poor marketing because if i had not gone to my library i would never have been able to read all of bensons bond books. i could not find one in all the bookstores around where i live...thank god for the public library