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Right, erm...yep, I'm mad. Worked up. Miffed. Steamin', and everything in-between. And the reason, books. Or rather, the lack thereof...

Wait a minute....

That's better. Right then...*deep breath*

I don't know what's going off at Games Workshop. It seems like they really can't be bothered to sell Black Library novels. I first noticed the problem when I paid a visit to the GW site one morning to order myself a copy of Silent Hunters by Eduardo Albert. I'd not read much by him by that point, but the novella, Lords of the Storm, had peaked my interest, and I was interested in seeing what he could do with the 'Space Sharks' .

When I went to order a copy I discovered it was "no longer available online". I thought that was rather odd since it had only been out for two weeks. It wasn't a Limited Edition, so I was surprised to find it'd sold out so swiftly. I phoned Black Library up to see what the beef was, and I was told that "well....it was a very popular book, see?"

One of the things I really dislike about how BL do business is the way they keep release dates for each book secret. Even if a book is due out that weekend, they won't tell you. This makes no business sense whatsoever because releasing that kind of info stokes interest and gets people excited. Some people might need to save the money for a book, or make plans to ensure you can be in when it arrives. Releasing it on the quiet can catch people at a time when they can't afford it because they'd spent their money on something else instead, only to find out the book they really wanted is suddenly available!

The next book I REALLY wanted was Godblight by Guy Haley. I tried asking BL when it was going to be released, but they wouldn't tell me. One day I received a newsletter about Godblight being out, so I rushed on to the site after it'd been out for just a few days. This time it said "temporarily unavailable". Apparently that meant they'd be printing some more hardbacks. They never did, though.

I was ridiculously determined to get my hands on the next book!

That book was Urdesh: The Serpent And The Saint. This time I hung over the site every Saturday morning at 9:55am. I kept refreshing the page every 15 seconds when it got to one minute from 10am. I'd got my credit card details laid out before me. I was utterly determined to nail this one! Suddenly, it was there! I immediately went to put it in my basket....

"No longer available online"

I sat staring at the screen, desperately trying to understand what was happening. Nothing made any sense. I'd got to the book within seconds of it becoming available, and it was ALREADY sold out!? That couldn't be possible, surely. Someone somewhere was having a laugh at my expense, I was sure of it. I kept staring at the screen, totally confused. I phoned BL up the following Monday morning, explained how ridiculously hard it was to buy a book from BL, and they just fed me the same "well, it's a very popular book, see?" I was dangerously close to losing my ability to make any sense when I spoke, I was that frustrated, so I got off the phone before I humiliated myself even more.

Then I had the exact same experience trying to get a copy of Traitor Rock. Godblight was available on ebay, but the LE was going for anything upto £600, and the standard hardback from £50 upwards, not including £20-£30 delivery from Australia. But I DID bag a copy of Silent Hunters off ebay for £18. Traitor Rock I got from some obscure website that sold a rather fetching range of wooden ovens. I'm still not sure if that was some kind of joke.

Ovens? Made of...Wood?

Anyway, my problem is the godawful business sense of the people selling the BL stock. They're clearly falling woefully short of meeting the demand, and increasing the supply to meet that demand seems to be something they're averse to for some odd reason. If I was an author, and BL were falling short of printing enough copies to meet the demand, I'd be absolutely furious with them. I'd want to sell as many copies as I could, but having an employer who doesn't seem to want to print enough copies needed to meet the demand, I'd seriously start thinking about getting out of any contract I was in with them.

The latest book, Chris Wraight's The Helwinter Gate, I've had the same sorry problem as all the others -- "no longer available online" from the moment I went to buy it. It's as if GW really can't be bothered to sell as many books as they can. You never find a new book by Wilbur Smith is "no longer available online" do you? So why are GW falling so drastically short of meeting a demand they KNOW is there?

I've ranted on quite a bit. I do apologise. If you've read this far then I thank you for bearing with me. If it makes any difference, I have high-functioning autism that can make it hard for me to calm down sometimes, and I'm always paranoid about what people think of me, which is why I usually only communicate online with people. I don't handle confrontations very well. I'm not nasty or anything, I just get more upset than I should do when or if anyone gets funny with me.

So has anyone else noticed this problem with BL?

This is one of the reasons I switched to reading everything on my Kindle. Apart from the obvious storage issues of owning hundreds of books it also means I can instantly buy and read almost anything I want. If you're getting this worked up about the BL situation the best solution is probably to do the same.

It is stupid not to print enough but I suspect producing fewer physical copies might be a reaction to more people buying digitally. Did you try other websites as well as BL? The problem may be that BL books don't really sell in the volumes on their own site than, say, Amazon.

Try a shop, they might have some.

Slipspace wrote:
This is one of the reasons I switched to reading everything on my Kindle. Apart from the obvious storage issues of owning hundreds of books it also means I can instantly buy and read almost anything I want. If you're getting this worked up about the BL situation the best solution is probably to do the same.

It is stupid not to print enough but I suspect producing fewer physical copies might be a reaction to more people buying digitally. Did you try other websites as well as BL? The problem may be that BL books don't really sell in the volumes on their own site than, say, Amazon.

The problem I have with ebooks is twofold: the first problem is....I can't quite put my finger on it, but, I just cannot get into a book when I'm holding an electronic device, no matter how hard I try. There's something about holding an honest to God paper-paged book in your hands, the smell of the musty page of an oldish book, or the aroma of a new book, as each turn of the page wafts the scent across your face. It's almost a spiritual feeling. I know that might sound odd to a lot of people, but it might have something to do with my high-functioning autism, although I have heard other people say similar things about their love of books.

I even love the FEEL of holding a book in my hands. Books are my life's passion, and I literally have my own library. It takes up three almost entire walls in my living room, and two in my bedroom. I've got thousands of books, almost all of them science-fiction and fantasy, with a smattering of military non fiction, historical and modern.

And the other problem I have is if your tablet went on the blink you'd be sunk. I have bought a small number of books for my Kindle Fire HD (or actually my mum bought them for my birthday), and the best way I can explain it is that reading a book on a tablet feels....soulless. Utterly bereft of any kind of enjoyment. Actual books are far more tactile, and they even look good when they cover your walls (or at least they do to me).

I've got a funny feeling that BL are purposefully reducing the availability of their paper books, and if that's true then that would be devastating to me. If I was forced to use tablets it would completely sever my ability to connect properly with the story. It would probably mean I'd have to say goodbye to Games Workshop for good.

I'd always have plenty of other publishers willing to keep up the fight against the ever encroaching march of soulless technology, and authors like Neal Asher; Cixin Liu; Adrian Tchaikovsky; Martha Wells; James S. A. Corey; Peter Watts; Arkady Martine; Marina J Lostetter; Chris Beckett; Vernor Vinge; Dan Simmons; Joe Haldeman; Larry Niven; Megan E. O'Keefe to keep me busy, but I'd rather BL didn't abandon us literary purists/traditionalists quite yet.

I live in hope.

It's definitely not just you, even outside the tactile sensation there have been studies that found that physical books are easier to remember (and comprehend, if I recall correctly).

Also, don't forget - your Kindle can be perfectly functional but you'll still lose books from it because Amazon's DRM screws up or they decided to remove the books remotely without warning or recompense.

You can try buy the e-book version, then print it out on paper and read it.

The universe is trying to tell you to skip reading BL books. Why are you fighting it?

Seriously, there's any # of great books printed every year, readilly available in all genres, by publishers that want your $.
So if BL is making it impossible to buy thier stuff? Screw them & go expand your reading tastes.
Of course if you happen across an unread BL book at an acceptable $, pick it up

I've been using ebooks for ages as my bookshelves are full. but yeah I've noticed that they seem to be having book supply issues. hopefully this is mostly just a covid thing.

 Muhr wrote:
...Dan Simmons; ...

Now we are talking books. Hyperion is my favorite sci fi saga.

Was interested in some of the audio drama cds but can't get them anymore. Titans bane and the two Harlequin audios sound like a real hoot.

Playing devils advocate, but I wonder if they’ve been having trouble getting enough books printed with factories getting shut down because of covid. I know tcgs like yugioh have had massive delays due to a lack of card stock so maybe it’s something similar?

Over the last year and a half GW's sales have more than doubled whilst the world went into a pandemic. Basically the whole situation was completely unplanned for and its why so many things have fallen out of stock so fast. GW's predictive attempts at managing how much to order don't work when the market doubles pretty much overnight. Especially when you then hit them with a huge world trade problem. Shipping is hard right now and its having a knock on effect for factories producing things which need raw materials and increasing demand from firms wanting more products.



So on that front I can totally sympathies with GW/BL in that their attempts to manage inventory are likely hit with loads of problems right now.



AT the same time I do find that BL tends to print in smaller than ideal volumes. Though my personal problem is more with the art books which tend to have tiny ordering windows and vanish only to perhaps one day be reprinted.

One big bonus is that because GW keeps everything pretty much in-house; it means if they do a reprint its pretty much the same or better quality than it was the first time around. There's no missing content; no strange downgrade of quality etc... They can even (sometimes) add content.




As for ebooks a few thoughts
1) The BL website doesn't use any DRM - so any books you buy from there and download are 100% yours and you can read them wherever you want however you want.
The ones bought through Amazon Kindle will have Kindle general protections on them.

2) Try an e-reader. Not a tablet, but an actual e-reader. They do not have "new book smell"; but they do have e-ink which is honestly as good as reading from paper.
The new/current models mostly have built in lights too whcih give you a nice soft reading light which honestly makes reading even more effortless in any lighting - no more back contorting for the light angle or peering at the pages in the dim light of the evening (or disturbing partners in bed when you're reading and they are not).

I love books too but I also love my Kindle (I've had two, the 3rd gen one with the big keyboard that was the first proper popular amazon one and one of the more recent paperwites and that was mostly just for the light). For reading stories I find e-readers and e-books fantastic. It's great being able to just grab any story I want from hundreds; carry them effortlessly with me and download the next in a series as I read through them without pause.

Sure any book that relies heavily on photos/images isn't any good on a kindle e-reader really; they are ok but its only in black and white. So I find they free up space wise to get more art/reference type books in physical form.

SamusDrake wrote:
Was interested in some of the audio drama cds but can't get them anymore. Titans bane and the two Harlequin audios sound like a real hoot.

I don't know specifically about those novels, or if the ones I have been seeing are audio dramas, but I have noticed a lot of 40k novels on Audible over the last 18 months or so.

Rumbleguts wrote:

SamusDrake wrote:
Was interested in some of the audio drama cds but can't get them anymore. Titans bane and the two Harlequin audios sound like a real hoot.

I don't know specifically about those novels, or if the ones I have been seeing are audio dramas, but I have noticed a lot of 40k novels on Audible over the last 18 months or so.

Yeah, the BL itself has a digital mp3 option but I like to listen to them in my car. Thanks for looking, though.

I'm usually not one to defend GW, but in this case the OP should be updating self on new tech/knowledge, not able to buy a paper/hardback book in time, print one yourself and bind it into a book, we all have our own quirks, you're responsible to satisfy your own and not put the blame on new age.

Wanting to buy audiodrama in CD but unavailable, buy on mp3 and burn it on a CD; my semi old pc doesn't even have a CD drive, so some of this is yourself attaching to old tech, not able or not wanting to learn new tech.

I had exactly the same reservations as the OP about a Kindle vs regular books, but honestly give it a go and you very likely won't go back. My other half got me a Kindle last year and since then I've just been ploughing through 40k and other fiction. If you're can't get physical copies from BL, then just give it a go.

HumbleBundle does BL bundles all the time. Since I got my Kindle I think I've grabbed 3 or 4 and got about 40 odd books. It might not be new stuff but it's usually got some OOP stuff.

You say they're making bad business decisions then complain you can't buy their stock because it sold out too quickly...

The entire global supply network is choking right now. Try being a PC gamer!

 Big Mac wrote:


Wanting to buy audiodrama in CD but unavailable, buy on mp3 and burn it on a CD; my semi old pc doesn't even have a CD drive, so some of this is yourself attaching to old tech, not able or not wanting to learn new tech.

Okay, Dad.

*cries in liber xenologis*

 Argive wrote:
*cries in liber xenologis*

That will be me in a few years with the Sabbot Worlds Crusade books that I passed on getting (not once but twice!)

And me now with the Eldar artbooks.

Honestly, it isn't just the BL book situation you describe that has gotten my goat with GW.

Most other sensible companies give you at least 3 months heads up, if not 6 months to a year before something will be coming out.

GW, on the other hand thinks a week of preorders (having announced the item a few days prior) is more than enough. That's bull.

I originally came to DakkaDakka because there was NO look ahead to what was coming out when, unlike my other hobby, D&D which had catalogs 6 months to a year out. Even now, D&D still announces their product around 3 months ahead of schedule.

 Stormonu wrote:
Honestly, it isn't just the BL book situation you describe that has gotten my goat with GW.

Most other sensible companies give you at least 3 months heads up, if not 6 months to a year before something will be coming out.

GW, on the other hand thinks a week of preorders (having announced the item a few days prior) is more than enough. That's bull.

I originally came to DakkaDakka because there was NO look ahead to what was coming out when, unlike my other hobby, D&D which had catalogs 6 months to a year out. Even now, D&D still announces their product around 3 months ahead of schedule.

With D&D though even if you did only learn of the next book the week before;
A) You're in no danger of it selling out, let alone it then being out of stock for extended periods of time.
B) You likely don't even need it until months later.

When it comes to hardbacks I think we can probably blame scalpers and the whales who'll buy from them. Siege of Terra's LEs really sent the scalpers into overdrive mode. I'm guessing at some point they theorised that, if there's enough people willing to pay £300 for a £40 LE, surely they're willing to pay £50-£100 for a one-print run hardback at £18? Since they figured that out, hardbacks look to sell out quicker than BL LEs used to do before Siege of Terra.

No more The Warmaster LEs spending over a year gathering dust.

DarkerBlue wrote:
You say they're making bad business decisions then complain you can't buy their stock because it sold out too quickly...

The entire global supply network is choking right now. Try being a PC gamer!

Well if a book is released in the kind of numbers BL know will leave many customers without, I'd say that was poor business sense, for sure. Plus, if I had a choice between a beautiful self-built library, or a single electronic device, It'd be the former. For every person who is turned away, that's just another missed opportunity for GW.

Like I said earlier, I can't help how I feel about ebooks. It's nothing to do with the technology, but something that causes me great difficulty at connecting with the story.

Black Library must be perfectly aware that they're not printing enough books. To meet the demand, common sense would be to increase supply and thereby making more money all round. If GW are in the process of winding down their printed copy numbers, I think that's daft. They know there are god knows how many customers out there who are in a hurry at throwing money at them, and yet they continue to fail to meet demand.

The point is they can't increase the numbers printed. The entire global supply chain across almost every industry is struggling right now due to Covid. This isn't just a case of someone at BL getting on the phone and asking their printers to double the number of printed books. Large-scale production doesn't work like that. These books will have been ordered months and months ago and allocated a time slot at the printers. Those slots are extremely precious and GW are not in a position to just ask their printer to make more because that has a knock-on effect on the other jobs the printer has.

Someone at BL has to balance the numbers required, the costs and the lead times and come up with a reasonable compromise between those factors. Even if we think they could just print more, the time lag between the decision to change their policy and the customers seeing the change could be up to a year or more. We also don't know how much money BL are really missing out on here. They're only losing money from customers who only buy physical books, rather than those who prefer it but will buy digitally if they can't get a physical copy. I suspect that's a very small percentage of their customers.

 Overread wrote:
Over the last year and a half GW's sales have more than doubled whilst the world went into a pandemic. Basically the whole situation was completely unplanned for and its why so many things have fallen out of stock so fast. GW's predictive attempts at managing how much to order don't work when the market doubles pretty much overnight. Especially when you then hit them with a huge world trade problem. Shipping is hard right now and its having a knock on effect for factories producing things which need raw materials and increasing demand from firms wanting more products.



So on that front I can totally sympathies with GW/BL in that their attempts to manage inventory are likely hit with loads of problems right now.

Honestly, this is 90% of the issue. In the best of times, we know GW's ability to predict sales was pretty poor. I know it's the popular thing to blame it on a conspiracy or something just because a few posters learned about fomo in their marketing 101 class, but really, I don't think they ever really learned how to use proper predictive modeling for this kind of thing. In a lot of ways, they still haven't outgrown that "company being run out of a garage" feeling.

But now you have a global pandemic where production has gone down both due to material shortages and factory closures and demand went UP. So the company that was already not great at certain parts of their inventory management, now has to deal with this as well. Recipe for disaster.

I've got the ones I need

But yes, old books are a pain. Try used book stores online and ebay

Try your local library. Ask then to do an Inter Library Loan if they don't have it themselves.

 Lobukia wrote:
I've got the ones I need

But yes, old books are a pain. Try used book stores online and ebay

If my audible was physcial books it would similiar