Philip Hart wrote: > I'm not making my point very clearly. Once again - aren't the big buyers > aware that this is book 3 of a trilogy or book 5 really or book 17 > perhaps? Won't they be much more concerned with sales of books 1&2 and > SKZB's track record? And isn't any residual concern with the packaging > connected to the behaviour of individual purchasers, who I imagine will > definitely buy the book upon seeing "Brust" on the cover if they read 1&2 > but not otherwise. Certainly this cover wouldn't have moved me to buy the > third book of a trilogy at random - the only cover art that might have > done so was that of Heinlein's _Friday_ back when I was 13. It may seem like your theory would be the case, but if it were, we would never see trilogies in print, much less a series. Unless they reprinted books 1&2 along with 3. In the case of Brust's books, the idea rarely applies. One could pick up any of the Vlad books and read it, without ever having read the others, and not get lost. Granted, if a Brust-Fan-to-be picked up _Lord of Castle Black_, they might not have all of the information they *could* have if they'd have read _Viscount_, but thanks to the invention of the "literary summary" now found in many multi-volume works (for which, I think, Paarfi deserves sycophantic applause for the handling of *his* summary in _LoCB_:), it's often not required to have read the prior volume. Yes, the author's track record is of some consequence, certainly. But I think you will find that, overall, people will pick up a book because something on the outside caught their eye (author, title, cover art, whatever), read the blurbs and the back, flip through it and, if they like it, buy it. If it's #3 in a series (and the buyer even notices that fact. Heh), I suspect they'd look for #1 and go from there. Chris (Who didn't even get into a large, chain-store rant about buying tons of books and ... ahem. Isn't he polite?) "He is a lover of his country who rebukes and does not excuse its sins." - Frederick Douglass