New Castle Rock Story Co-Written With Richard Chizmar

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Bev Vincent

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Apr 11, 2006
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My interview with the authors appears tomorrow, but today, if you visit News from the Dead Zone, you can walk down memory lane with me to revisit a little town called Castle Rock.

The interview is now available at CD Online.

[Edit by moderator: Have added the link to make it easier to find.]
 
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fushingfeef

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Brian James Freeman here, General Manager of Cemetery Dance Publications and Publisher of Lonely Road Books. Sorry, I didn't get a chance to stop in sooner, it's been a crazy day! :)

* If you didn't get a chance to read Bev's column yet, his "little history" of Castle Rock is amazing:

Stephen King: News from the Dead Zone #195 - Cemetery Dance Online

Bev's interview with King and Chizmar tomorrow (Wednesday) will answer all kinds of questions about how this book came to be written.

* The Lonely Road Books special editions of GWENDY'S BUTTON BOOK will first be offered to the collectors who ordered the most recently sold Lonely Road Books title, which was THE WILLIAM PETER BLATTY SCRIPT SET. A limit of one copy per customer will be strictly enforced. The remaining copies will be offered via a lottery system.

** Thoughts on how to sell a signed Limited Edition book (if you're the publisher)

HOW to offer a new Stephen King signed Limited Edition for sale is actually a rather stressful decision. Here are the three most common options:

1) One way is to offer each new book to the collectors who purchased the previous book your press announced or published. This allows your supporters to lock in the same number/letter and keep their set "complete" if they've been purchasing all of your books.

The downside to this approach when it comes to a new book by an author such as Stephen King is, of course, he has many collectors who are interested in his collectible editions. To those collectors, this policy makes them feel left out, which is totally understandable. You can't be expected to buy every book from every small press just in case they someday have a Stephen King Limited Edition!

On the other hand, if you were a collector who had previously supported a press by buying all of their books, and then you were told you had to compete with everyone else in the world to get the next book by that press because it's by an extremely popular author, how would that make you feel?

1A) The corollary to this approach is, you CAN offer a "lottery" drawing for the right to purchase any remaining copies. This allows some new collectors or long-time fans to order a copy at the retail price instead of depending on eBay, etc. It's definitely a far from perfect method and there aren't a lot of copies to go around, but it's at least a chance to get a copy.

2) You can go with the "Land Rush" approach of selling a new title. You tell everyone the time and place (website) to be at, and then everyone tries to (virtually) cram into the shopping cart at the same time since the books are sold first-come, first-served. This places a lot of stress on the collectors, of course, and also your server. It's a great way to bring down your website even with a lot of preparation. (Been there, done that!) This approach also allows people to have their friends and family place orders for them even though it's supposed to be "one" book per person. And again, your long-time supporters are left in the dust, possibly missing out on a key title to their collection from your press.

3) Or... you can tell no one in advance, just announce the book out of the blue one day, and then people who were on the road or not randomly watching your website that day miss out. Long-time fans of the author miss out and are angry, and your long-time collectors miss out and are angry, and your server probably crashes as word spread and collectors panic and try to get their order in.

So... There's no perfect system for this sort of offering, but I totally understand if anyone isn't happy with the approach I selected. I just wanted to give you my thought process in case that information was helpful. :)

Brian

Very cool of you to take the time to stop by here and clarify, BJF! :thumbs_up:
 

Doc Creed

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I will be getting one (eventually), but my wife can never find out. Our checking account will be empty and she will probably figure it out on her own. :(.

It will cost a pretty penny.
Haha...I will get the e-book or wait and try my luck with a library copy. I still haven't read End Of Watch or the nonfiction book from King's alma mater. Sometimes that can be a good strategy to ration books during a publishing famine, lol.
 

Bev Vincent

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Apr 11, 2006
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I just followed the link from this site to your interview with King and Chizmar, Bev. Nice of Chizmar to give you a shout out. I agree with him about Derry being darker and more evil than Castle Rock. Nice job.

Thanks -- I did some fact checking for him while he was working on the story, which is what gave rise to my essay about Castle Rock yesterday.
 

Rrty

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Jun 4, 2007
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The interview was very enlightening and entertaining. I found it interesting -- to me, anyway -- that the answer to the question about whether the story was written because of the new series was somewhat ambiguous. I don't think that was the intent, it's just that I, at least, seemed to intuit two interpretations -- that maybe the story idea came before the new series was sold and it was written at the time the concept for the series came up or it was written to jumpstart the creation of the series; both things could be true. In other words, maybe King came up with the series and wrote this as part of the pitch. Then again, maybe that's wrong, maybe Abrams (or someone in his company) made the pitch to King. That's actually another question -- did King decide to do this series and then pitched Abrams? The reason I ask is it made me think that, since King is at a different stage in his life, and if he did actually pitch the series, then maybe he'll revisit other stuff. Perhaps we will get some sort of sequel to It, as an example. It almost seems possible to me now. Or maybe we'll revisit the Lot. Or maybe more authors will help King finish some tales. By the way, if I understand the situation, this won't be available at bookstores, or will there be an edition I can acquire by going into a B&N in May?

Anyhow, I'm glad for Chizmar. I can tell you I can empathize with his position -- I too would have been fearful if asked to collaborate with a big author. I actually would have become depressed because I just wouldn't want to hear that the material was rejected after the submission was considered. But obviously the outside world knew he'd be able to do this. I was reading a review of A Long December, and honestly, it sounds like a book right up my alley -- mainstream, commercial-minded stories that are fun. A book that was meant to entertain because it was meant to sell. A ready-made bible for an anthology series. I hope his success continues. I look forward to the novella.
 

doesitmatter?

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Aug 21, 2006
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Hmmm, 'no plans at another collaboration'. I hope he and Straub have already written T3 then.....

King and Straub fans have long assumed there would be three TALISMAN books (not four, not five, but three). King's exact words "I don't have any plans to collaborate again" are very alarming for anyone who wanted a third TALISMAN book. Can Marsha possibly comment on this in some way? Would be awfully disappointing if they don't write a third book together.
 

Doc Creed

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Nov 18, 2015
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King and Straub fans have long assumed there would be three TALISMAN books (not four, not five, but three). King's exact words "I don't have any plans to collaborate again" are very alarming for anyone who wanted a third TALISMAN book. Can Marsha possibly comment on this in some way? Would be awfully disappointing if they don't write a third book together.
Hopefully Marsha can enlighten us; I'm curious. All the news I've seen was from Lilja's Library when Peter Straub said they'd probably start working on it around February of this year. King has mentioned it at least once and said they knew what the story was going to involve but just needed time to write it. It appears that they both are chomping at the bit to write it but haven't carved out time, yet.
 
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I liked 'A Long December'.

Im liking A Long December too :) I can understand why SK likes Chizmar. Chizmar writes those atmospheric small town stories which remind me of SK's The Body and The Colorado Kid. I've only read the first nine stories. My favorite story so far is Ditch Treasures. The only problems I'm having with the stories are the endings. Just about the time I'm really getting into the story and wondering what will happen next, the dang story ends! :rofl: