From: fi@grebyn.com (Fiona Webster)
Subject: Stephen King fans: rumor re. Dark Tower series
Organization: Grebyn Timesharing
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 03:11:54 GMT

The following was posted to alt.horror, and I'm cross-posting it
here because I know there are SK fans who get r.a.books but not
alt.horror, and would want to know about this.

Jeremy Holstein writes:
>This one hot off the rumor mill.  Donald M. Grant and Stephen King
>have confirmed, due to lack of sales on the paperback editions, that
>the Dark Tower series will NOT be continued.  Apparently while the
>limited editions of the Dark Tower sold fairly well, sales of the
>paperback were abysmal.  And, as everyone knows, you don't make much
>money off of limited editions.
>  Personally I think this is a terrible mistake on King's part.  He is
>alienating those fans of his that LIKED the Dark Tower series (myself
>included).  I would certainly like to see the ending which he's had in
>mind for so long.   Secondly, when it comes to Stephen King, money
>should not be a factor.  The man is rich.  If Donald M. Grant makes
>money off the series (which he does...  At least more than most of his limited
>editions...), he should continue publishing them in that fashion until
>done.  
>  The problem with the paperback sales it seemed to me was market
>saturation.  Too many copies printed.  The different covers didn't
>help either.  That just encouraged dealers to order more and have more
>copies stuck around on the shelves.  What we need is lower paper-back
>print runs for this series.  Give the large print runs to his main
>stream books, while only printing enough to satisfy fan demand out
>there.  You only need to print 10000 or so books to clear a profit
>(and really that is being very generous.  I know of some authors whose
>print runs of 3000 or so still net a profit), and there's got to be
>more than 10,000 fans of the series out there....
>  Reactions?  Comments?  What did most people out there think of this
>series?

Thanks for that info, Jeremy, even though it is potentially bad news
indeed.  I agree with just about everything you said: that it's a
mistake if it literally means no more Dark Tower books, that the
paperbacks were poorly handled, that Donald Grant could still make money
off the limiteds, and even if push came to shove, that King could
afford to make the series break even for Grant.

Phil Scarr writes:
>Gee, you mean SK isn't in it for the artistic value of his work?
>Heavens.  SK is a mass-market hack.  He pulled crap like this before
>with the Bachman book Thinner.  When sales were abysmil for the first
>few months, he came out and laid claim to the work and sales picked up.
>His work is geared for mass consumption and he is used to staggering
>press-runs so when he has a flop on his hands it doesn't surprise me
>that he drops it without regard for its possible merrit.

I can see where you might get this impression, Phil, but I think you're
wrong about why SK "laid claim" to _Thinner_ (it was because his cover
got blown).  But more importantly, you don't appear to know how
*different* the Dark Tower series is.  It's a very personal thing for
King, rivaled only by The Plant series in terms of how close he holds
his cards to his chest about it.  I think we have to watch and wait to
see what happens, and not draw any fast conclusions about this rumor.
It could mean that SK has lost his "feel" for the Dark Tower series.
It could mean that he wants to pull it back into a more personal,
"limited" realm of his publishing world.  It could mean lots of things.
SK has grown and changed a lot since he first read Robert Browning's
poem "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" and had his flash of
inspiration for the series.  We can't read his mind about where he
is with all of those thoughts now, some 15-odd years later.

							--Fiona Webster