Tuesday, April 11, 2023

Are we in a new sword-and-sorcery renaissance? Not yet. At least commercially.

Some corners of the internet are speculating whether we’re in a third sword-and-sorcery wave. This assumes a first, unnamed wave in which S&S was invented (roughly 1929-36—thanks REH), and a second in which it rose to commercial prominence (roughly 1965-75).

Following a collapse in the early 1980s S&S lay moribund for decades, with a few authors soldiering on and a couple outlets toiling in corners of the internet. This was the general state of the genre until the last few years. 

Today there is a new interest in this old, weird, gritty, sword-slinging alternative to epic fantasy. A non-exhaustive, top of mind list of publications and publishers includes:

  • Tales from the Magician’s Skull
  • New Edge
  • Whetstone
  • Savage Realms
  • DMR Books
  • Swords and Sorceries
  • Heroic Fantasy Quarterly
  • Rogues in the House
  • The Cromcast
  • Old Moon Quarterly
  • Baen
  • Swords and Sorcery Magazine

Recently we’ve had a few successfully funded kickstarters: New Edge magazine, which landed Michael Moorcock for issue no. 1, and now Swords in the Shadows, which features authors like Joe Lansdale, Stephen Graham Jones, and Brian Keene.

Conan is the closest thing we have to a sure thing in S&S and new Conan material is out. Titan Books published a new Conan novel, Blood of the Serpent, with more titles to come. Rogue Blades Foundation has just published Hither Came Conan.

In short, there is quite a bit of contemporary S&S to sink your teeth into, sample, and enjoy. At all levels, from amateur and free, to traditionally published mass-market paperbacks and hardcovers.

But what is actually going on, commercially?

Despite all this output, much of which I have backed and all of which I am grateful for, we are nowhere near a commercial renaissance. While great enthusiasm exists in many quarters, and some good authors and artists serve this space, the simple fact remains: there isn’t enough readers. 

Publishing is a winner-take-all enterprise, existing on what marketing guru Seth Godin and others have described as the long tail theory. One on side, a few huge winners, making millions due to their mass appeal. Think Stephen King, GRRM, J.K. Rowling, Brandon Sanderson. As the tail stretches rightward, we find more writers able to make a living writing, some comfortably, but not as many as you’d think. And then a LONG tail of authors selling hundreds or perhaps tens of copies of books, laboring in obscurity. The same theory applies to publishers. 

This is not necessarily a bad thing, as the long tail is also to serve the needs of niche consumers with obscure interests in a manner that The Big Five (now four) cannot.

The problem is that S&S is way out on the end of that tail, a highly specialized subgenre that appeals to a small subset of readers. How small?

I feel like there could be as few as 1000 hard core S&S fans keeping this enterprise afloat. Some evidence to support that claim:

  • Swords in the Shadows: About 600 backers (as of April 11), pledged $16,400 to launch the project.
  • Tales from the Magician’s Skull: 640 backers pledged $68,975 to help bring this project to life.
  • New Edge: 479 backers pledged CA$ 22,846 to help bring this project to life.
  • Whetstone: 755 followers on Facebook
  • Contemporary S&S: 743 followers on Facebook
  • The Cromcast: 1,000 followers on Facebook
  • Rogues in the House: 1.3K followers on Facebook

Pulp Sword and Sorcery is an outlier with 5,200 members on Facebook. But are they just nostalgia-seekers? Nothing wrong with nostalgia, I dwell in it daily. But the numbers don’t support more than 5,000 buying new product.

DMR Books has 2,800 followers and is a publisher that offers its readers old and new material. Perhaps this is our most accurate number.

Admittedly I’m an old fart with so many blind spots I should have my license revoked. I’m not on Instagram and I don’t have much of a handle on Twitter. There are comics to consider, and S&S inspired video games. Both of these have fanbases that might be tapped for the prose fiction S&S I’m speaking about here.

But I’m skeptical, and based on my limited data set these are not big numbers.

A lot closer to home, as of Feb. 1 of this year, Flame and Crimson sold 842 copies. Frankly, better than I had hoped when Pulp Hero Press published the book in Jan. 2020. But, if you add up what I made, and divide by hours worked, its pennies on the hour. 

It is still much too early to say anything definitive. Baen has just published a new book by Larry Correia, Son of the Black Sword, which could be a hit. I have read and enjoyed Correia’s Monster Hunter International. Later this year we’ll see two Hanuvar books by Howard Andrew Jones, whose stuff I enjoy, also from Baen. 

We need just one series to catch a little fire, garner some good press, and attract new blood to this thing we enjoy. That might be enough to build some momentum and lift additional boats.

S&S is undoubtedly going through a spiritual renaissance. People are talking about it again, enjoying the old stuff, and celebrating the new. Exploring what it’s all about, the aesthetic itch it scratches. I will be participating in an informal S&S panel at Howard Days and will do my small part to keep spreading the word. I've read a few really good stories by the likes of Schuyler Hernstrom, John Fultz, and others. This is all a good thing, regardless of whether we see commercial sales the likes the Lancer Conan Saga enjoyed.

But if S&S is ever going to approach what we saw circa 1962-82, we need the type of commercial successes that allow talented writers and artists to do their best work. We’re not there yet and the jury remains out if we will. 

14 comments:

  1. One data point I think is worth considering from the world of comics: Barbaric is one of the best-selling indie books going now, is getting a spin-off series and a tie-in novel.

    Source: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/queen-of-swords-first-look-barbaric-spinoff-1235331780/amp/

    ReplyDelete
  2. Barbaric is great.

    We may be not so much in a commercial Renaissance but maybe on a cusp of one. Here's hoping.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Brilliant piece, Brian! I have to point out that the REAL reason the Conan paperbacks sold millions of copies in the 60s (2nd wave) was Frank Frazetta. His legendary cover art alone made people buy those books--many of them JUST for the covers. That's a "flashpoint" in history that isn't likely to happen again--Frazetta's work is well established and ubiquitous these days--whereas back in the 60s it seemed to have come out of nowhere and emblazoned itself on the collective consciousness. I'm not saying that S&S can never enter into mainstream success again without Frazetta, but his presence on the 60s paperbacks (which were still selling madly all through the 70s and reprinted countless times). One thing we CAN learn from this is that S&S is a very visual medium, and the more great artists we have doing great covers, the more books will sell. Also, S&S may sell more books if it's not LABELED as S&S. That term as a marketing vehicle has seen it's day. So there are plenty of writers creating S&S related content without be called "S&S"--and labelling yourself as "S&S" isn't going to sell many books (as your article indicates). Howard Andrew Jones is arguably the "king" of S&S right now--but it's not because he's writing S&S--it's because he's muthafuggin' Howard Andrew Jones. Knowumsayin'? In a nutshell: The term "S&S" has no real marketing cache, but is still useful for indie publishers who want to serve a particular niche. Any "mainstrem" success that S&S style books/stories find will probably be OUTSIDE the label of "S&S." Again--great article!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Not sure why it posted my above comment as "Anonymous"--so I'm fixing that here:

    --John R. Fultz

    (Thanks!)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Also: I just realized that I forgot to finish one of my sentences (and this damn thing wont' let me edit my response---Aaargh!):

    "I'm not saying that S&S can never enter into mainstream success again without Frazetta, but his presence on the 60s paperbacks (which were still selling madly all through the 70s and reprinted countless times) definitely catapulted them into million-selling status."

    Okay...I think I'm done now. :)

    --JRF

    ReplyDelete
  6. “Son of the Black Sword” sounded interesting to me until I learned it was the first book of a trilogy. Part of what draws me to S&S is the terse, short fiction - getting away from epic fantasy bloat. I hope it’s good but I’m hard pressed to want to invest in that much story anymore

    ReplyDelete
  7. It's complicated because the entire entertainment world is so much more fragmented compared to how it used to be, so what constitutes a "boom period" isn't likely to be the same as how people used to measure it. Instead of measuring in the millions like we used to, you might very well have to settle for low thousands. People just have their little bubbles they live in. It does seem like there's more interest in S&S lately (Baen openly coming out for the genre is notable to me because something like that just wasn't happening for a long time), so I think it's fair to say things are percolating, but even if there are some breakout successes, those successes will almost certainly be much smaller in scale compared to what they were in the 60s or even 90s.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Alex: Yes, I'll admit comics and graphic novels are a blind spot for me that I probably should consider, giving my love of SSOC back in the day. That magazine was my gateway into Howard and S&S.

    John: Frazetta was huge, no doubt, and we have yet to see his equal. Some would push back on your claim a bit though, pointing out that John Jakes had some Frazetta covers, KEW, etc. and they didn't sell as well as the Lancer Conans. The latter IMO had the whole package... best S&S illustrator ever, best S&S writer, then and still today. Hard to beat. Loved your story in A Book of Blades BTW!

    Anonymous: Agreed... I will likely give the Correia novel a shot, but short stories and standalone short or at least moderate length novels are part of the appeal for me.

    Andy: Great point. What we have today is a lot of little publishers (independent presses, kickstarters, web publications, etc.) whereas publishing was more consolidated in the 60s. Fewer outlets but bigger hits because the audience was concentrated. This is the "long tail" phenomenon at work.

    ReplyDelete
  9. The sad proof is in the data. The numbers are anemic and there is no evidence (from these sources anyway) that the popularity of S&S is overwhelming. Let's hope the resurgence of Conan in the comics, the Red Sonja movie and the rumors of a Conan and Kull TV series will give it a boost. With all the gamers out there playing violent games, it's hard to figure that a hero with a broadsword hacking off heads wouldn't spur a wider interest. S&S offers the magic ingredients of violence, sex and heroic deeds. Go figure...

    ReplyDelete
  10. Some great points, guys. The bar for commercial "success" has absolutely been lowered--just like it has with the music industry. Today if you want to form a band, you don't get a record company to rip you off--you start your own label or sign with an indie, and you make money by touring and selling merch. Successful rock bands in the 70s were millionaires...today they're hundred-aires, and doing it because they freakin' LOVE IT.

    That's also where S&S is. We're doin' it cause we love it.

    All media has become more "niche" in today's oversaturated entertainment markets. But never forget that every hugely popular movement/trend started out as a smaller group of people who were really passionate about what they were doing. Anything that draws people together has the potential to "break out" and draw in millions. But nobody should sit around waiting for S&S to get "popular" again--just read it, write it, and enjoy it. And there's a certain satisfaction to being a unique corner of the market, a subculture existing in defiance to the uberculture...if Epic Fantasy is Classical, then S&S is punk rock. Punks don't get rich, but they do get laid. :)

    Cheers!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Wow, I’m surprised by those numbers, they’re much lower than I would have guessed. It makes me realize how important it is to support these projects financially, even if I’m not super excited about all of them. The more support we give to those involved, the more content we will get in the future!

    Placing my orders now for Hither Came Conan and The Siege of the Black Citadel. I missed Swords in the Shadows, but hopefully it will be more generally available in the future…

    ReplyDelete
  12. Anonymous: Swords in the Shadows was listed for pre-order on Amazon but got removed after the Kickstarter ended. My guess is it'll be back up after it's published.

    ReplyDelete
  13. I'd pray to Crom -if he'd only listen to prayers- that for the sake of us old timers that we'll finally get our sword & sorcery revival.
    One thing that I personally find to be encouraging; I've spent my entire adult life on the hunt for all things S&S. Up until the introduction of Grimdark, had I rarely found anything that has really been in my wheelhouse to reading. It's only been in the last couple years that I discovered I'm not all but alone as a S&S fan. I'm constantly amazed that so many writers, rock musicians, and movie-makers, share my enthusiasm for S&S. I never thought there would ever be enough of us to have a S&S fandom.
    One important thing is we need to get out of our own way. So many of us can be gatekeepers and even haters of anything new. No doubt Robert E. Howard is our godfather, but it's not being disrespectful to enjoy an REH pastiche. In fact, if we don't start showing some support, or dear say, embracing them, REH will be forgotten by the next generation.
    Also, S&S will have to modernize its format to that of what fantasy fans read today. No change is stagnation and death. Evolution is survival.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Anonymous: Love this comment. I too lived through a fantasy wasteland for most of the 80s and 90s, not finding my way back until Grimdark (not all of it, but I like ASOIAF, and Abercrombie). I'm very happy to see the new S&S resurgence. With you on evolution, which after all gave us Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser and Elric.

    ReplyDelete