36 replies to this topic

[glidrose]

So none of the Bensons'?

 

No. None of the Bensons.

[Dustin]

 

They certainly sold, just not as much as they used to in the sixties. 

 

Here’s a link to one of my all-time favourite CBN posts, where Jim points out Raymond Benson was outsold by a book on badgers. 

 

http://debrief.comma...ing-bond/page-4

 

Never cared for Benson.

 

 

 

Do not underestimate a badger's potential...

 

But in all fairness it must be mentioned that by the time Raymond Benson took over the James Bond continuations had largely become an annual occurrence with little significance beyond the bare fact - 'here's another one, buy it!' - and certainly without even the slightest hint of 'event character'. You just found them haphazardly at the newsagent - or you didn't. I was completely surprised by the 'news' another author had taken over from Gardner (which I learned about in 1998, a whole year after the fact) and almost had to have my bookseller order me ZERO MINUS TEN, had they not happened to have a forgotten copy somewhere in their store waiting for me.

 

With no real publicity to speak of, with no Internet - well, not as widespread as today - to connect fans worldwide, with hardly any coverage by mainstream media these books literally appeared right out of the blue. You didn't hear about them until you found them on a shop's shelve, and you certainly didn't hear much about them later. Under these circumstances it's hardly surprising they fared not better. Books about dowels might have outsold the later continuations.      

[glidrose]

Recap: Solo dropped out of the top 50 UK books in its third week, but it had rather better luck among hardcover fiction on The Bookseller's relevant bestseller list.

September 28, 2013: #3 http://www.thebookse...com/node/218442
October 5, 2013: #3 http://www.thebookse...com/node/219114
October 12, 2013: #6 http://www.thebookse...com/node/220062
October 19, 2013: #11 http://www.thebookse...com/node/220554
October 26, 2013 #18 http://www.thebookse...com/node/221048

November 2, 2013 #20 http://www.thebookse...com/node/221512

Edited by glidrose, 06 November 2013 - 11:27 PM.

[glidrose]

Out of the top 20 hardcover books in the UK as of Sat, 09/11/2013.

[Dustin]

I'm actually surprised it managed to hold itself so long on that list.

[glidrose]

According to Esther Bintliff at the Financial Times... "Boyd’s Solo sold 25,000 hardbacks in the UK in its first four weeks, according to data from Nielsen BookScan. Although this made it the worst-selling of the three new Bond novels since 2008 – Faulks’s Devil May Care sold a whopping 100,000 copies in the same period, while Jeffery Deaver’s Carte Blanche sold 37,000 – Solo still significantly outsold Boyd’s most recent novel written in his own voice, Waiting for Sunrise, of which 13,000 copies were bought in the first four weeks. It’s too early to know how Solo will do in the longer term but, if Boyd writing as Fleming can sell more books than Boyd writing as Boyd, who can blame publishers for commissioning such a product?"

http://www.ft.com/cm...l#ixzz2pqwruVGZ

[Dustin]

I would really like to learn how SOLO did on the eBook market. And how its e-sales relate to the print figures. I suspect the advent of high-end e-readers will have a significant effect on these releases, especially since new 'series' entries in the thriller genre, like Reacher for example, are not necessarily directed at collectors.