TEL Print Survey! · 12:51am Dec 6th, 2019
Hi everyone!
We’re finally getting things moving again with the physical version of The Enchanted Library, a.k.a. RariTwi Ghostbusters, and I can actually provide more information this time!
Namely that there’s not only going to be one version of TEL, but potentially TWO different editions—roughly, a standard edition and a limited deluxe version.
...Which is why I’m re-doing the poll to gather more specific data and figure out how many of y’all are still interested!
So before we go to the poll, a little info.
SPECIAL EDITION VERSION
Is being spearheaded by Avonder, who’s been in charge of several other book runs. The keyword here being book runs, as in the will be a limited quantity of this version of EL printed. You can see images of the books they’ve done in the past if you click on their name, but for reference they’ve been in charge of book runs for titles like The Hard Reset trilogy, Stardust, Background Pony, The Maretian, and others.
For this edition of TEL, there will be brand-new chapter artwork, as opposed to the ones currently on the Fimfiction version. That’s 36+ new images, plus some additional extras for key scenes. The book will also be hardback and have special finishings (depending on the results of the poll).
Because of the high quality of the materials plus all the new artwork, the book will be around $120 max assuming a run of 100 books (might be less depending on the results of some things in the poll, such as artwork, how many people want it, etc etc).
Additionally, this edition will be one volume. That’s all 350,000+ words of TEL in a single book for you to read, or wield, or cherish, or cry over, or snuggle, or whatever you will.
Again, this is a book run, which means that it’ll for all intents and purposes be a Limited Edition Collector’s Edition!
STANDARD VERSION
Is being spearheaded by Ponyfeather Publishing, who’s published several books already, including The Mono-Logues (my short-story collection).
Unlike the Special Edition, PFP books are available direct from Lulu which means it’s print-to-order i.e. you can buy one or two or five, tomorrow (okay not tomorrow we have to get it ready first) or the next month or year or whenever.
This edition will be three volumes, divided into TEL’s three acts, and the entire set will be approximately $25 for paperback or $60 for hardback. Each volume will also feature brand-new cover art by idrawraritwi, whereas the interior will have all the original chapter artworks from TEL on Fimfiction (by the amazing ArcticWaters). Otherwise, if you have a copy of The Mono-Logues, it will be just like that!
And that’s it for the general info, so now we move on to THE POLL so you can fill it in!
Right now, RBDash47 and I are doing a massive copy-editing pass of the fic, but once that’s done (hopefully soon!), things should start moving along fast.
Thank you all as always for your support!
- mono
Yeah I'm interested.
Avonder?
I wish he'd give an update on the 5 Score book he's doing. Been damn near 3 months without an update.
But, yeah. I'll fill out the poll. Deluxe, of course!
~Skeeter The Lurker
Woot!
Excellent to hear! Would the special run feature the classic cover art? I’m quite fond of it; so I’d love an edition with it.
Also, is there any way to sign up as an interested party for the special edition?
5165036
Take the poll!
5165037
Already done! Though, there wasn’t a point where I was asked to enter a name so I wasn’t sure.
Yay!
5165036
Hi! Okay so unfortunately the only physical EL book with the original cover art was the one I raffled off at BronyCon BUT one of the covers on the standard edition set will be sort of an updated version/reference of the original art!
And the actual signup/backing for the special edition will come later, this is just to see how many people are interested!
5165048
Is there any particular reason behind the change in art? Or was it intended to be updated?
I hope by 'limited edition' you mean limited time frame rather than limited quantity. Because I certainly want that edition and I don't want to miss out on it because everyone got dibs on them all while I was at work.
5165097
If it's anything like Avonder's previous runs, it'll be unlimited quantity but you'll have a limited time to sign up (and if way more people sign up than is expected, then it'll actually end up cheaper/we get more art).
WOHA，BREAKING NEWS.
I'd like to buy ...does physical version allow cross-ocean delivery? It's kind of a distance.
5165120
Avonder's based in Russia, and the full price generally involves shipping to anywhere in the world. Lulu's American-based so shipping is kinda hit-and-miss and can be pretty pricey depending on where you are.
5165147
I see, thanks very much! Avonder is fine.
Well, it's also kinda a distance to afford.Wait is that not also you?
All the book.
I'm happy for hardcovers. that special edition would be more than my leather bound, gilded FoE. I don't think i can justify that expense and will have to go lulu route. Will be very happy to put TEL in my bookshelf next to Celestia code and FoE.
I'd love to.
*cries in doesn't have an income yet*
*basks in the Rarilight*
An important factor for those of us outside the US is shipping cost. I wanted to place an order for five pony books from Lulu during Black Friday. However, the shipping ended up costing over 100 dollars
so I never placed my order. Has international shipping really become that expensive – or did they just remove their cheapest and slowest option to be able to guarantee arrival before Christmas? Meanwhile, Avonder's prices usually include international shipping. That means the special edition will probably be about the same price as the standard hardcover edition or even slightly cheaper for us non-US fans.
5165058
This was always the plan! I talked about it in the blog posts at the time~
5165180
Haha omg no but isn't he great! That's lifunkman, who's done a lot of my cover art on stories here and also did Monologues!
5165280
I have faith that the new art will be paying the appropriate homage to Rarity’s curls then!
5165120
5165147
5165236
Like Undome said, international shipping is baked into the cost of the special edition.
For the standard edition, Lulu is headquartered in the US but has "print facilities all over the world" -- they don't seem to publish specifics on which countries they have facilities in, but the idea is when you place an order, they'll route it through whatever printer is closest to you (that supports the given product, i.e. not every facility may support "letter-size paperback with white paper", "trade-size dust-jacket hardback with cream paper", etc). I know they have printers in the US and Australia; I have to assume they have at least some in Europe; elsewhere, I don't know. They will definitely ship globally regardless.
If you want to get an idea of shipping costs for the standard edition to your specific location, you should be able to ballpark it by running through a test order (don't have to actually order it! just go far enough through the checkout to get to the shipping options) for Mono-Logues, since TEL's volumes will be the exact same product type in Lulu's system. In the US (i.e. a country with printer facilities), it's only a few bucks for the basic mail option.
5165299
That's how I hoped it would work.
For my previous order of pony books a few years ago I tried to switch to one of the European stores (by clicking the flag on the top right). When I looked at the shopping cart it displayed an error message telling me that the books would still be shipped from the US. I took it to mean that the books had only been made available in the US store. But, what you're saying is that it might instead have been due to the format and/or materials used? Sounds like I have some experimentation to do.
Edit: I added the five books I wanted to my cart and switched to the UK store. Two of the books said "Only ships from North America". The Mono-Logues was one of them.
Edit 2: And it's only the hardbacks. I can get a copy of The Mono-Logues printed in Europe if I pick the paperback. Wow, they really managed to make it both complicated and vague. Now I'll just have to wait for the next discount code.
5165373
I had a big long message typed out about how I tried fake orders to the US, Canada, Spain, and Australia, and couldn't get a warning about "US origin only" to come up for Mono-Logues, and anyway Lulu doesn't give me control over which countries' stores the books are listed in, it's all down to what local printers can support, and all the PFP books are identical products except for the art printed on the dust jackets and the text printed on the pages.
But then I remembered that's not true; the only other option I can pick when creating a book is the hardback's cloth and spine lettering color, and it turns out that for anything but the default selection, it changes the shipping origin to "US only", which I'd never noticed before. Mono-Logues is currently set to a non-default option (gray cloth with white text). This would explain the intermittancy of the issue, where only some titles are affected. I'm frustrated that it means I can no longer in good conscience pick a suitable color on a per-title basis, because I'd rather people were able to get them cheaply, but I'll change all PFP books to use the default cloth and spine text color so that they'll all be able to be printed "locally".
I'm sorry to you and anyone else ordering internationally that this has affected; I had no idea. Thank you for the back and forth and forcing me to really closely examine the nuances of how Lulu is printing and shipping.
A-ha! So Avonder is who I need to contact when I finish the second Bulletproof Heart and want it put into book format. Good to know.
5165404
Thank you for fixing the issue and also for letting me know that I had made the wrong assumption. I'll spread the word – I know at least one friend who also wanted to order a bunch of pony books from Lulu.
5165439
I'm going to blog about it as well, once I update all the PFP titles that are using non-default cover options, both to let international folks interested in PFP titles know and to make sure other people offering dust-jacket hardbacks know to watch out for this.
Full version is fine; looking forward to it.
Oh my gosh, I can't wait to get the whole series of TEL!
Went for the PFP Hardback (regardless of whether this is going to be hardback or hardcover+dust jacket). I've seen some of the Avonder books, and while they're very nice from a technical point of view and cost isn't really an issue, I just don't like them. That single volume will also be huge, undoubtedly looking good on shelves, but this is about Winning Pony in length, and I remember it being difficult to read due to the weight (I think it was split into multiple volumes on subsequent releases).
5165773
The other way around. The first printing of Winning Pony was two volumes; the second and third were one volume. I believe the two reasons for the change were lower cost and being less work for the organisers.
I agree that the one volume version is a bit too heavy to read comfortably. However, to me these books are first and foremost keepsakes so I tend to go with form over function. (And knowing myself I'll probably end up getting both versions of TEL.)
5165299
I even can't get into Lulu's page cuz of some force. Thank you anyway.
I’m definitely interested
5165773
It will be dust-jacket hardcovers, not casewrap hardcovers.
I'm definitely interested but don't come by FimFiction all that regularly these days. Its pure chance that I saw this post less than a week after you posted it.
It would be great if you could offer some way for people to sign up for email notifications of updates on your progress. At the very least could you please reply to my post here once these actually go on sale so FimFic will kick out an e-mail alert?
Will the deluxe version ship to southern-hemisphere countries?
I want as much awesome in my paws as exists and will give you all of my money
5166661
As far as I know, there's no restriction on Avonder's shipping.
5166546
Maintaining an email notification list is more overhead than any of us want to put into this, but Mono and I will do our best to remember to ping you here when the actual preorders for the special edition go live. (And if you were interested in the standard edition, once that's live, it's available indefinitely, so you can't miss it.)
I filled in the poll (chose single book since 'Winning Pony' size is not too big) but is there a sign-up sheet? Maybe Avonder has a sign-up sheet... So far no signup sheet, but hopefully Discord will alert me if there's an announcement from Nonexistant printing.