Quag Keep (Quag Keep, volume 1) by Andre Norton

[james_davis_nicoll]

Quag Keep (Quag Keep, volume 1) by Andre Norton

Comments

[james_davis_nicoll]

That is one terrible cover.

[theresawright]

It was a terrible book. Only Norton I ever tried to read that I couldn't finish. It felt like she was interested in the concept, wrote the book in the course of a week, and then lost interest.

[(Anonymous)]

I remember being interested in it, picking it up, and absolutely not clicking with the writing. And I was a huge Norton fan. I never did read more than a few pages of Quag Keep, and it wasn't for want of trying.

Teka Lynn

[(Anonymous)]

Readers might expect that this was published by TSR. Not so.

So Norton actually got paid then?

[james_davis_nicoll]

I don't recall TSR being esp notorious for stiffing novelists. Kicking them off the sled if they got too popular, yes.

[(Anonymous)]

Wait, they fired writers who sold too well?!

….does this policy by chance have any relationship to why they went broke?

[james_davis_nicoll]

As I recall, the logic at late TSR is that they wanted brand loyalty. A popular author could move to a different publisher, taking their fans with them, so if a specific writer got too popular, TSR would drop them in favour of someone more obscure. Since all of their books seemed to have almost 100 percent sell through, there did not appear to be a downside of this.

[(Anonymous)]

I get the sense that "seemed to" is carrying an awful lot of weight there...

[goljerp]

Since all of their books seemed to have almost 100 percent sell through, there did not appear to be a downside of this.
Do I recall correctly that "seemed to" is the important caveat here?

[james_davis_nicoll]

Eventually, there was a million dollar plus return of unsold books.

[(Anonymous)]

An acquaintance wrote for TST. He held them in utter contempt, put little effort into his product earned far more money per hour than in his well-paid profession.

Those familiar with his work said it was at best slightly above the average TSR product at the time (mid-80s, I think).

William Hyde