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Black Library is a Games Workshop Limited (GW) company. It exclusively publishes fiction set in and about the fictional universes of GW’s renowned miniature board games: Warhammer Fantasy and its sci-fi cousin Warhammer 40,000. These miniature games are very popular among teenagers and young adults, especially in the United Kingdom and the United States.
Despite its narrow focus, Black Library has grown from humble beginnings in 1997 to become a very prolific publisher. As of 2013, he publishes 5-10 new and original original novels, short story anthologies, or audio dramas monthly. His catalog includes many successful novels, many of which topped the New York Times bestseller lists for weeks.
As this publisher grew successfully, its catalog of publications became more and more extensive. Below is a guide to the main formats that Black Library offers. It also provides a brief discussion of some of the alternative formats, including the Horus Heresy audio dramas and upcoming graphic novels.
In short, all of the newer formats strongly indicate an explicit and decisive effort on the part of Black Library to move into a more exclusive premium segment with its products.
1. The massive pocket format
No doubt Black Library based its success on cheap novels in an inexpensive paperback format. Since the company’s founding 15 years ago, these well-thumbed $10 volumes detailing the exploits of medieval Knights or the trials of far-future Space Marines have become an ever-present mainstay among fans of the Warhammer universes. and Warhammer 40,000.
There are literally several hundred complete novels, as well as a wide variety of short story anthologies available in this format. Today, the public image of the Black Library is closely tied to these books.
2. Hardcover novels
More recently, Black Library added to its catalog a selection of short novels in a premium hardcover format. These stories are typically between 120 and 130 pages, bound in a glossy hardcover format with no dust jacket. Occasionally, they come with interior art or a map in the center of the book.
Originally, this smaller and relatively more expensive format was used to publish stories directly related to specific product releases, such as the Dark Vengeance Novella published to accompany the boxed set of miniatures of the same name. This set the novel apart from normal novels, which deal with the fictional setting on a broader level, but not with any specific product released for the game.
Since then, the format has been used more liberally.
3. The Black Library’s premium hardcovers
A big step for Black Library in upgrading its products (and its company image) from cheap cheap novels to a more high-end publishing venture was the introduction of the premium, or collectors, hardcover version of its novels in mid-2012. .
These novels resemble hardcover books published by major fiction publishers. They are larger in length and width than paperbacks and novellas, bound in a hardboard cover, wrapped in a dust jacket showing cover art.
These new hardcover novels for collectors were first introduced in the Horus Heresy series of novels, Black Library’s best-selling and New York Times best-selling novels. This multi-author exploration of the fictional history of Games Workshop’s dystopian sci-fi gaming universe has been available since 2006.
In 2012, Black Library began re-releasing older titles in the Horus Heresy series for Warhammer 40,000, such as James Swallow’s novel Horus Heresy The Flight of Eisenstein, in this premium format. It also now publishes all new novels in this series first in the premium format, with the paperback version usually delayed by several months.
It should be noted that these premium hardcovers, unlike their paperback counterparts, are not available through retailers or e-commerce sites like Amazon.
Summary
Overall, Black Library’s array of new products tells the story of a new emphasis on branding, marketing and selling the fictional works that accompany the Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 universes as premium products.
However, since the “budget formats”, which were and still are the basis of their success, are still in print and in production, this trend only brings variety to the customer. And judging by the apparent success of the new formats, many of them are craving their Warhammer and Warhammer 40K fiction in a premium format.