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I got a chance to talk to Robert Wiener at ComicCon last week about a few things. Including how many resellers have Artist Editions of The Wind Through the Keyhole at over double the issue price while there are still copies in stock AT issue price straight from DMG. Robert said that at the current sales pace he would likely be out of copies by the end of the year so I wanted to put a PSA out for everyone that if you still want to get a copy of TWTTKH for $75 instead of the $150-$200 that everyone else is selling copies for, you should do it sooner rather than later.
I've been informed that our long time newsletter service, madmimi, is closing up shop at the end of August. This means I have to find a new newsletter provider ASAP. I've already signed up for some demo accounts at other companies to try them out. They all have the ability to import everyone's email addresses so I THINK that aside from some minor visual changes you guys won't notice a difference but I also know changes don't always go seamlessly the first time around....IF YOU DON'T GET A NEWSLETTER SEPTEMBER 1ST please check your spam folders and reach out to me to make sure you're still subscribed.
I'm thrilled to be able to share that the San Diego Comic-Con will be hosting a Stephen King panel this year and I've been invited to be one of the panelists! The Needful Things: Collecting Stephen King pannel will be Sunday July 28th 1pm-2pm in room 29AB. With me are Hans-Ake Lilja, David Williamson, and Robert Wiener from DMG! Full Comic Con schedule posted here . If you're headed to Comic-Con this year I'd love to see you at the panel and say hello to you in person!
Jerome Smith, the owner of thedarktower.org passed away a few days ago. Please take a minute to think of all he did for the community and likely for you individually, if not directly then via his amazing site.
If you forgot about it, King's new novel You Like it Darker is available on Amazon, kindle and audiobook here.
An Artist Edition of The Shawshank Bible has just been announced for pre-order. (again not an April Fools joke, this is for real). You can read all the details on the forums.
The limited edition Shawshank Bible (that was available only by lottery entry) has been shipping out to lucky owners over the last couple of weeks. This special project had a TON of customizations and I've had a few emails asking if I would be doing an info page on it.This falls squarely into the new Other Editions section and with the help of a few owners sending photos, and the help of Jake at The Dufresne Collaborative (the publisher) I have a very detailed info page up as well as a dedicated remarque page up with all 40 of the Mark Edward Geyer remarques done for this edition. It's really a pleasure when I can have some dedicated time with the publisher of an edition and let's me provide more in-depth detail than I can otherwise, so thank you for that Jake and thank you to everyone that sent in photos!
I have something really neat to share with you. Fellow collector Daniel Carey recently went thru both the Philtrum Press and Viking editions of The Eyes of the Dragon and detailed out every... single... change.... in the text between these two editions! I'm talking over 800 differences between the two. So many that he also put together a shorter summary version for those that just want to see the main highlights. I've converted these to documents to PDF and have links to them on the information pages of the Philtrum Press and 1st edition info pages of the books. Head on over for some fascinating reading!
A few weeks ago I discovered an excellent but little known YouTube channel SKFirstEditions run by fellow collectors Mark and Noah. Among other topics, they have a fantastic video series on identifying US & UK 1st editions as well as a series on limited editions. It's got a little something for everyone but especially for you newer collectors. I'd highly recommend you take a few minutes to check it out. In fact I was so impressed with what Mark and Noah are doing that I reached out and I'm pleased to announce that over the next few weeks/months we're going to partner with SKFirstEditions to embed relevant videos from them directly onto the information pages of the site! We'll need a little time to settle on the right format and get the pages populated but I expect a number of 1st edition pages to have the new content by the next newsletter, stay tuned!
As I mentioned previously we've had to switch over to a new cover material for the Dark Tower cases. The new material is in and the first titles are being worked on now. I'm expecting to see the first of the new cases within a couple weeks. Once the first one arrives, I'll get a post up on the forums with some side-by-side pics of the new vs old cases so you guys can see the difference. I haven't seen a fully finished, stamped case yet, but from the material samples I've seen so far it's going to be pretty close.
Veryfinebooks put up a nice collectors guide that some of you newer collectors out the may find helpful.
Kris from the SK Rare Editions Facebook group reached out to let me know a little bit about the group. It's a very active group of almost 3,000 collectors and is run specifically with rare SK items in mind. A lot of buying/selling and sharing of photos going on along with regular contests. If you're on FB do yourself a favor and check them out.
If you're looking for a little eye candy, VeryFineBooks has the ultimate SK collection up for sale for a cool 1.25 million. I have mentioned this before but now there are a number of photos up, so if you've very wanted to see two of the most pristine 1st edition Salem's Lots you're ever going to see, or possibly the only two page remarqued Gunslinger you're going to see, head on over and take a look. As Bob Barker used to say - "All this can be yours, if the price is right" :) |
