One Run at Halo: Update

A little over a week ago I mentioned that the Halo GN was going to be a one and done printing in hardcover. I wasn't sure this would be much of an issue since Marvel would likely go to a quick paperback version and copies of the hardcover should still be available for a few weeks. Well, I just tried to place a reorder and there are zero in stock at Diamond, Ingram or Baker & Taylor, the last two indicating that they are waiting on a publisher reprint. Of course, unless Marvel reverses itself, there won't be a publisher reprint. How silly of the two biggest book wholesalers in the US to assume that Marvel would do what any rational book publisher would do and go to a second printing to meet demand for this book. One could make the case that demand has been met, but that seems a pretty silly argument to make less than 3 weeks after release and with B&T and Ingram indicating they've ordered several thousand more copies each. Others may argue that retailers should have been able to predict outstanding demand for a book like this, but we ordered well above what our budget and sales history would indicate is reasonable and are now down to just a few copies, to my eyes both a positive and negative development.

For the moment it seems that's it, no mas, another opportunity wasted. We'll have to wait and see what happens but I for one am blown away that Marvel would consider not going back to press on a book like this, especially with an ongoing series in the works. All I know is that I hope there's about 8,000 more copies sitting around somewhere because B&T and Ingram seem to think they can sell at least that many more and I know that about 1500 copies have been sold to the direct market since my last Halo post. Maybe Marvel disagrees, but to me that seems to indicate quite a bit more demand is out there for this particular version of Halo and I'd be surprised if Bungie didn't agree.