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Hello Matthew.
I don’t pop up here often (I’m just a reader and fan, not a member of Powys), but I just thought I would quickly chime in and say what a real charmer you are in the three posts I’ve read. Really.
I’ve no idea if you’ve been on this board before under another name or are totally new, but you may or may not know that Powys Media isn’t a full-time publishing outfit. Things get fitted in as and when. It may not be ideal, but there you go.
Bearing in mind no one else – apart from maybe Fanderson with their two [b]Space: 1999[/b] novels – is doing or has done [b]1999[/b] or [b]Prisoner[/b] fiction, I don’t see that you’ve much option but to be patient. It’s not like anyone else currently is chomping at the bit to take up the publishing rights, eh?
Incidentally, I’m pleased to say that I myself [u]do[/u] in fact have a copy of [b]Miss Freedom[/b]. Sorry about that.
Simon.
[b]matthewjbutcher wrote:[/b]
[quote]You guys make me sick.[/quote]You have had the same effect on me after reading your first 3 posts.
There appears to be another Troll in our midst folks… :ohmy:
I hate rude, selfish, ignorant indiviiduals like you Matthew. You just appear out of nowhere and start insulting people. Why don’t you do us all a favour… and log out. Permanently.
That’s one way to answer someone. I tried posting this earlier. It’s been superseded by Mateo’s update, but it’s another approach to responding to someone.
“Matthew, as I understand it, Miss Freedom wasn’t supposed to be limited to 100 copies indefinitely. I’m pretty sure the first Prisoner novel from Powys, The Prisoner’s Dilemma, had a larger print run. There are other Prisoner novels announced years ago that have yet to be published at all. I don’t know what factors have messed things up, but it’s possible that the AMC Prisoner remake a couple years back and Powys’s switch from conventional publishing to print on demand through lulu.com may have complicated things. But the lulu.com switch could make Miss Freedom much easier to get eventually, if Powys still has the rights to The Prisoner.
It is an odd situation, certainly – media tie-in licences rarely go to people doing publishing as a sideline to their education and day jobs. But no one else with more resources was interested in doing the job. So it’s not a perfect solution, but it’s more than we had in the 1980s and 1990s.”
Judging by Mateo’s post, I was wrong about the causes of the delay, but here’s the thing: a major corporation has licenced a couple of properties to a very small publisher that can’t do things the way we might expect a typical publisher to do them. And if you haven’t followed the Powys saga for the last decade, it’s frustrating to learn what you’ve missed. Hell, I’ve been following Powys since their first Space: 1999 novel and I’ve been ticked off by some of the things that have happened over the years, including the Miss Freedom situation. I don’t see venting and trolling as necessarily the same thing. Venting won’t always get a helpful response, but it’s understandable.
My take on this is that I’d rather get one or two (or even three) books per year that were good than get a book a week that the majority of which are total crap. I am aware of the problems that Mateo spoke about in his post and I’m actually surprised that he has kept up the publishing business at all. He has had a lot on his plate over the last few years. I know that Powys are working hard to have some Space 1999 books ready for the upcoming convention so I guess that the Prisoner novels will come after that.
Everyone wants a new book the minute they finish the one they are reading but the world doesn’t work that way and we all have to be patient. It would be so much better if authors could write their books a quickly as we can read them but I don’t think that’s going to happen any time soon…For the last few months I’ve been closely monitoring Powys website, and various forum threads on the Prisoner Books. Being a fan of the Prisoner, I am very ega to get my hands on the “The Prisoner Dilemma” and “Miss Freedom”. I also work in a bookshop in Britain, and know various ways of finding books worldwide, both new and second hand. Searching for new copies of “The Prisoner Dilemma” is very hard! Amazon.com has run out of there stock and doesn’t look like they’re going to get any back. There are various second hand copies to be had however.
Miss Freedom, is even harder to get hold of and I can’t find any copies, in any condition, to buy. However, when you said that only 100 copies were ever printed, to be sold at conventions, it made sense. The fans that have copies obviously don’t want to sell them.
As I read from so many other thread pages, it’s seems that the majority of people at Powys simply don’t have the time to continually produce the books you publish. Might I suggest you consider becoming a print on demand publisher? It would certainly allow you to satisfy demand, and you wouldn’t have to worry trying to sell a stock. However, would there be a problem with ITV licensing?
Recently you’ve attempted to sell some of your titles on Lulu.com, and might I say that I think that is a great idea if you did it with all your titles. Not only does it work on a print on demand basis, but allows the books to be brought on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. Again, would there be a problem with ITV licensing in doing that?
Have you ever thought about expanding into the British book market? Currently the two big UK wholesalers are Gardner’s and Bertram’s.
I am merely making some suggestions and hope that I am not imposing.
Jcamts
[b]Jcamts wrote:[/b]
[quote]As I read from so many other thread pages, it’s seems that the majority of people at Powys simply don’t have the time to continually produce the books you publish. Might I suggest you consider becoming a print on demand publisher? It would certainly allow you to satisfy demand, and you wouldn’t have to worry trying to sell a stock. However, would there be a problem with ITV licensing?Recently you’ve attempted to sell some of your titles on Lulu.com, and might I say that I think that is a great idea if you did it with all your titles. Not only does it work on a print on demand basis, but allows the books to be brought on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. Again, would there be a problem with ITV licensing in doing that?
I am merely making some suggestions and hope that I am not imposing.
Jcamts[/quote]some good questions, which I’ll attempt to answer. But I am just Number 35, and I’ll leave the definitive response to someone in more authority.
My understanding from what Mateo (Powys) has posted over the months is that the goal is for *all* of the Powys paperback books to be available via print on demand from Lulu.
Powys transitioned from the bulk pre-purchase of stock items to the Lulu Print on Demand mode starting with the January 2010 release of Shepard Moon. And all subsequent paperback books have been PoD since then (I don’t believe there are any issues with ITV in selling PoD, just with eBooks, but that’s a different story).
The goal of Powys is to eventually reformat the out-of-print books into the print on demand mode as well. The trick, of course, is finding the time to work on all the new books (which everyone eagerly want), with squeezing in the additional time it takes to reformat the older books into the Lulu PoD standards.
I believe that Mateo posted earlier that they intend to have Miss Freedom available from Lulu by year end, schedule willing.
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