Wow - September already!

It's been a while since I last blogged, but in my defense I've been busying gofling and... well, just golfing. But now temperatures are starting to drop here in Canada where I live, and the end of the golf season looms. Time to turn my focus back to more cerebral pastimes. Like my novels.

But first, I'll mention that I did a little Star Wars related interview for the EU Cantina - you can find the podcast HERE. Andrew Lupi over at the EU Cantina said it's the second most downloaded podcast they've had, and the most downloaded interview ever. We chat about KOTOR, the Bane novels and... other things.

Okay, now on to the topic of this blog.

As many of you probably know, in addition to my Darth Bane novels I've also written a couple books set in the Mass Effect universe, the setting for the recently released BioWare video game. (Yes, I'm the lead writer for the game. Yes, that's basically how I got the contract to write the Mass Effect novels, just like KOTOR got me into the Star Wars stable. No, I don't feel bad for abusing my position.)

My latest Mass Effect novel was just released this summer, and being the number-crunching geek that I am I was curious to see how the sales compared to the juggernaut that is Star Wars. Of course, if you've read my previous blog you'll know that a writer doesn't really have access to sales figures until about 9 months have passed, so the only thing I had to go on was the bestseller lists on Amazon, the New York Times and the like.

Both Bane novels reached #11 on the New York Times bestseller lists, and several Star Wars novels - including the recently released novelization of The Force Unleashed video game - have hit #1. So how did Mass Effect: Ascension do? Honestly, I don't know. I was hoping it would sneak onto the NY Times bestseller list, but in the end it didn't quite make it.

Now, the Times paperback list (Ascension was a paperback only release) shows the top 35 titles, and Ascension wasn't there. Which means it could have been anywhere from #36 to #999999. Not very helpful.

So I went to check out Amazon. Things here were a little more interesting. Ascension was in the top 1000 books for several weeks, and the top 10 in sci-fi/fantasy, and the top 3 in Space Opera. It even held the #1 spot for a few hours. So that was encouraging... but again, exact numbers were hard to find. I guess I'll just have to wait 9 months until I get the sales results.

HOWEVER... I did get a royalty statement last month showing the first nine months of sales of my FIRST Mass Effect book, Mass Effect: Revelation. Finally, I had something to compare: 9 months of Revelation versus 9 months of Darth Bane: Path of Destruction.

It wasn't a perfect comparison, of course. Bane was released in both hardcover and paperback, and it had the all-important "SW" on the cover. Mass Effect, on the other hand, was paperback only, and for the first 6 months of sales it was based on a setting for a game that hadn't come out yet. Still, I was happy to have any numbers to compare at this point.

Not surprisingly, Bane came out on top. (He is a Dark Lord of the Sith, after all.) But the gap wasn't as extreme as I thought. In the first nine months, Path of Destruction sold roughly double the copies of Mass Effect: Revelation. Considering Star Wars has 30+ years of history behind it, that's not too shabby.

But it did get me thinking. Obviously there are plenty of people who read my Star Wars books who don't read my Mass Effect novels. And based on e-mails I get at my website, there are people who read my Mass Effect books who don't read my Star Wars stuff. I understand that... but it isn't easy for a writer to accept.

It makes you wonder if readers like *you*, or if they just like the license you're writing for. I've always speculated as to how many fans would follow me from licensed novels to my own original work. I still don't know - not exactly - but it seems like somewhere between 25 and 50 percent is a safe estimate. Unfortunately, I have no way of knowing how that compares to the industry average.

I hope this blog doesn't come across as bitter or resentful. Obviously I'd like EVERYONE who reads one of my books to rush out and buy ALL my books; but realistically that's not going to happen. Readers only have so much time and money, and sometimes they are only interested in very specific stories. I get that - hell, I'm like that myself. And I'm very, very, very happy with the reaction to and sales of both my Star Wars works and my Mass Effect novels. (And yes, I know many of you are *dying* for the next Bane novel... but still no official word on that front. We all just have to stay patient.)

I guess all I can hope is that Star Wars or Mass Effect exclusive readers will enjoy my writing enough to seek out other my other novels. And over time - assuming I keep delivering well-crafted stories - my audience will continue to grow.

That's all any writer can ever hope for, right?

Embrace the dark side.

Drew