# Blood of Nagash - Cancelled



## Lord of the Night

Some unfortunate news that I have just had from Josh Reynolds himself over on the Bolthole. Bear in mind even he doesn't know the reason why, but the Blood of Nagash trilogy consisting of _Neferata_ and _Master of Death_, and the third novel _Blood Dragon_, has been cancelled with _Blood Dragon_ now no longer a future BL publication. The trilogy will never be finished now.

http://www.thebolthole.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=1472&start=220

Disappointed in that. I was looking forward to reading about Abhorash. I don't know the reason why, but Josh said he assumes sales of _Master of Death_ were lacklustre; which I hope is not the reason as I do not like the idea of BL ending series prematurely just because they don't reach a certain sales figure.


LotN


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## Tawa

That would be a pretty crap trick to pull if it were true.

But I wonder how many people like me bought Neferata in the black softcover and were beyond pissed that they canned that style mid-series to go with the current wraparound covers?


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## mal310

The whole Time of Legends series seems to be foundering somewhat, which is disappointing. If I understand it this is just the latest in a whole list of changes/postponements/cancellations. 

Previously there has been the disappearance of Gav Thorpe’s Vampire Trilogy, the reduction in the War of the Beard from six books to four (is that correct?) and now this! Am I missing anything?

I'd like the series to maybe do something about the fall of the Dwarf Empire or something to do with the Chaos Dwarfs or Lizardmen.


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## Malus Darkblade

BL is a business at the end of the day not a charity.

Based on their decision however, it must mean that certain authors I/others find lackluster are in fact selling a lot of books.

We truly are a minority then. 

But the triumvirate will endure.


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## Khorne's Fist

If it's merely down to sales, why not just publish it in digital format? No printing overheads, so any money it makes is profit. If it's finished it would make more sense than leaving it in a virtual filing cabinet gathering dust.


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## Malus Darkblade

Khorne's Fist said:


> If it's merely down to sales, why not just publish it in digital format? No printing overheads, so any money it makes is profit.


Why do you think they charge $7-16 for a digital file several KB's in size? It's not simply due to the value of the content itself and to compete with print versions. And it's not pure profit for them.

There are bandwidth costs related to consumer downloads and file storage (the server BL rents to host their content. I forgot the name of the company), ebook formatting from unformatted text documents (hiring people to take blocks of text from Microsoft Documents and adding hyperlinks i.e. clicking on Chapter I taking you there on a ereader), etc.


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## Khorne's Fist

Malus Darkblade said:


> Why do you think they charge $7-16 for a digital file several KB's in size? It's not simply due to the value of the content itself and to compete with print versions. And it's not pure profit for them.
> 
> There are bandwidth costs related to consumer downloads and file storage (the server BL rents to host their content. I forgot the name of the company), ebook formatting from unformatted text documents (hiring people to take blocks of text from Microsoft Documents and adding hyperlinks i.e. clicking on Chapter I taking you there on a ereader), etc.


It's still a massively cheaper option than producing hard copies. Even if the sales weren't great they'd at least recoup the costs you mention, and a series gets finished. Best of both worlds.


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## MontytheMighty

Khorne's Fist said:


> It's still a massively cheaper option than producing hard copies. Even if the sales weren't great they'd at least recoup the costs you mention, and a series gets finished. Best of both worlds.


It might boil down to opportunity cost. Spend money on e-publishing a book by a certain authour on a certain subject for a modest profit...or spend the same money on another project with a much larger profit margin.

That would mean Reynold's trilogy is very low on the list of profitability...so low they're not even going to bother with an e-book


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## Chaplain-Grimaldus

Little bit gutterd to hear this. I really enjoyed master of death and was looking forwards to seeing things from the last of the 3 points of view. 

Abhorash is my favourite character of the lot too!

Hope it gets done in the end.


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## ckcrawford

Could it have something to do with the Army itself not getting that many sales? I was actually going through Lexicanum to look up the history of the Bloodlines... and wow, not sure if the Warhammer and Warhammer 40k are completely different, but the Warhammer at least is in the stone age. Really hard to find good information.

I actually think its kind of sad, it was one of the few novels I was really looking forward to. I feel Gamesworkshop really failed to highlight an army here.


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## Stephen74

ckcrawford said:


> Could it have something to do with the Army itself not getting that many sales? I was actually going through Lexicanum to look up the history of the Bloodlines... and wow, not sure if the Warhammer and Warhammer 40k are completely different, but the Warhammer at least is in the stone age. Really hard to find good information.
> 
> .


 Interesting point. 
Clearly there has been a lot of effort gone in to the back story of 40k and it works. There doesn't appear to be anything like that for the fantasy side which, in comparison to other fantasy works out there, is pretty horrific. Fantasy books definitely sell. GW/BL must be doing something very wrong if they can't make their stuff sell.


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## ckcrawford

Its kind of sad because it has great potential of being the most interesting story in the Warhammer World. I noticed around my area, Warhammer in general has suffered. I asked the question to some and it appears to be just a midwest problem. However, I remember no other significant campaign after Lustria. They had the Chaos Incursion with Archaeon... but they didn't advertise and give enough incentive for it to happen. With Lustria, they gave prizes, and it really made people reorganize their armies and start purchasing lots of stuff for them.


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## Dead.Blue.Clown

Stephen74 said:


> Interesting point.
> Clearly there has been a lot of effort gone in to the back story of 40k and it works. There doesn't appear to be anything like that for the fantasy side which, in comparison to other fantasy works out there, is pretty horrific. Fantasy books definitely sell. GW/BL must be doing something very wrong if they can't make their stuff sell.


Yes and no.

Fantasy and sci-fi in general doesn't sell very well (at least, doesn't make much money and doesn't sell very many copies, relatively speaking), but the top recognised books in those genres do. The famous ones we've all heard of, etc. 

40K novels vastly outsell most other sci-fi (and indeed most other licensed fiction), whereas Fantasy's numbers are much closer to what a standard fantasy genre book would sell.


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## ckcrawford

Dead.Blue.Clown said:


> Yes and no.
> 
> Fantasy and sci-fi in general doesn't sell very well (at least, doesn't make much money and doesn't sell very many copies, relatively speaking), but the top recognised books in those genres do. The famous ones we've all heard of, etc.
> 
> 40K novels vastly outsell most other sci-fi (and indeed most other licensed fiction), whereas Fantasy's numbers are much closer to what a standard fantasy genre book would sell.


Thats actually good to hear. I really admire what BL has done for Warhammer Fantasy. I've really enjoyed most of their work and I hope it has a fan base away from the game.


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## Stephen74

Dead.Blue.Clown said:


> Yes and no.
> 
> Fantasy and sci-fi in general doesn't sell very well (at least, doesn't make much money and doesn't sell very many copies, relatively speaking), but the top recognised books in those genres do. The famous ones we've all heard of, etc.
> 
> 40K novels vastly outsell most other sci-fi (and indeed most other licensed fiction), whereas Fantasy's numbers are much closer to what a standard fantasy genre book would sell.


That's my point though. 
40k has this amazing universe and great back story to it, and is doing very well.
Warhammer doesn't have a strong world or back ground to it, and it isn't doing well. 

IMO, warhammer should be on a level with something like Dragonlance, but somewhere along the way it's just gone wrong. There is nothing that pulls the warhammer world together in the same way that the heresy pulls the 40k universe together. 

If there was no heresy, I doubt I would have any connection with BL work any more. Someone bought me the Blood Angles, Space Wolves and Ultrasmurfs Omnibuses several years ago. To date, I've never managed to get past page 5 of the blood angels and have not even picked up the others.


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## Dead.Blue.Clown

Stephen74 said:


> That's my point though.
> 40k has this amazing universe and great back story to it, and is doing very well.
> Warhammer doesn't have a strong world or back ground to it, and it isn't doing well.
> 
> IMO, warhammer should be on a level with something like Dragonlance, but somewhere along the way it's just gone wrong. There is nothing that pulls the warhammer world together in the same way that the heresy pulls the 40k universe together.
> 
> If there was no heresy, I doubt I would have any connection with BL work any more. Someone bought me the Blood Angles, Space Wolves and Ultrasmurfs Omnibuses several years ago. To date, I've never managed to get past page 5 of the blood angels and have not even picked up the others.


Again, yes and no. I wasn't disputing the appeal or non-appeal of Warhammer Fantasy, just pointing out where you were wrong in your figures. You said:

_"Fantasy books definitely sell. GW/BL must be doing something very wrong if they can't make their stuff sell."_

But that's wide of the mark. Warhammer Fantasy books sell about as much as most fantasy genre books, which is to say, not a huge amount compared to 40K. So it's got nothing to do with "GW doing something wrong", or your implication that other fantasy genre books sell but Warhammer Fantasy doesn't. It's not about defending WHF novels, here. Just pointing out WHF does actually sell about what most fantasy novels do. That's the part you got wrong.


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## ckcrawford

Dead.Blue.Clown said:


> Again, yes and no. I wasn't disputing the appeal or non-appeal of Warhammer Fantasy, just pointing out where you were wrong in your figures. You said:
> 
> _"Fantasy books definitely sell. GW/BL must be doing something very wrong if they can't make their stuff sell."_
> 
> But that's wide of the mark. Warhammer Fantasy books sell about as much as most fantasy genre books, which is to say, not a huge amount compared to 40K. So it's got nothing to do with "GW doing something wrong", or your implication that other fantasy genre books sell but Warhammer Fantasy doesn't. It's not about defending WHF novels, here. Just pointing out WHF does actually sell about what most fantasy novels do. That's the part you got wrong.


I agree, most of the fan base around the game don't dwell too much behind their lore. They may occasionally use their codex as reading material during a good ####.


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## Stephen74

Dead.Blue.Clown said:


> Again, yes and no. I wasn't disputing the appeal or non-appeal of Warhammer Fantasy, just pointing out where you were wrong in your figures. You said:
> 
> _"Fantasy books definitely sell. GW/BL must be doing something very wrong if they can't make their stuff sell."_
> 
> But that's wide of the mark. Warhammer Fantasy books sell about as much as most fantasy genre books, which is to say, not a huge amount compared to 40K. So it's got nothing to do with "GW doing something wrong", or your implication that other fantasy genre books sell but Warhammer Fantasy doesn't. It's not about defending WHF novels, here. Just pointing out WHF does actually sell about what most fantasy novels do. That's the part you got wrong.


OK I see what you mean now. Obviously not every fantasy book sells well, but there are very successful authors and franchises out there. Given what they achieved with 40k, I don't see why they couldn't have done the same with Warhammer. I feel they are not interested. That they havn't bothered to put the effort in to warhammer as they have 40k. Either that or they've done it and just got it wrong. 

Of course that's just an impression. I don't know sales figures obviously, but the potential I perceive is on a level comparable to Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, etc... and they are not in the league.


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## bobss

Sounds like a scheduling conflict to me, between this and the recent Nagash End Times hardback (which appears to tie into a significant push by GW on the home front, so naturally it would assume priority).

BL are a pretty efficient business. They simply don't pass up the opportunity to throw up an e-story, dredge up an old title, change editions mid-series, provide multiple editions and formats, cater to exclusives etc.

There's _no way_ this is cancelled for good. It bucks the trend too hard.


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## Vaz

It's cancelled, from the horses mouth.


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## The Scion of Chemos

Lord of the Night said:


> Some unfortunate news that I have just had from Josh Reynolds himself over on the Bolthole. Bear in mind even he doesn't know the reason why, but the Blood of Nagash trilogy consisting of _Neferata_ and _Master of Death_, and the third novel _Blood Dragon_, has been cancelled with _Blood Dragon_ now no longer a future BL publication. The trilogy will never be finished now.
> 
> http://www.thebolthole.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=1472&start=220
> 
> Disappointed in that. I was looking forward to reading about Abhorash. I don't know the reason why, but Josh said he assumes sales of _Master of Death_ were lacklustre; which I hope is not the reason as I do not like the idea of BL ending series prematurely just because they don't reach a certain sales figure.
> 
> 
> LotN


Don't know if it is true, but I just spoke with BL concerning some of their ebooks that aren't in print, that I would like to see in print, and while I was talking to them I asked about Blood Dragon.

" As for Blood Dragon this is still in production and we do not have a firm release date for it yet."
Is what I was told. 

Hopefully that is true, and it's not just BL screwing with me, but hey, we can hope, right?


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