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Post by allthingshorror on Dec 8, 2009 13:14:17 GMT
It has come to light that Clarence Paget recieved half of all royalties with van Thal from Pan 1 up to Pan 30. Which pretty much confirms that the two were co-editing the series.
As a note of intrest, the total number of copies of Pan 1 sold to date are 629,536 copies. The print run for #30, which I thought would have been a minimum of 20-40 thousand copies, was in fact six thousand. I'm still doing the maths for the rest of the books.
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Post by killercrab on Dec 8, 2009 16:01:39 GMT
The print run for #30, which I thought would have been a minimum of 20-40 thousand copies, was in fact six thousand.
Forget Pan#1 - they should be reprinting this!
KC
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Post by andydecker on Dec 8, 2009 18:02:36 GMT
Todays editors would offer their firstborn to satan for a third of those sales  |
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Dec 8, 2009 18:44:26 GMT
Asimov once said that friends who asked for a book as a gift had to be quietly told that he was an author
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Post by mattofthespurs on Dec 9, 2009 18:39:36 GMT
It has come to light that Clarence Paget recieved half of all royalties with van Thal from Pan 1 up to Pan 30. Which pretty much confirms that the two were co-editing the series. As a note of intrest, the total number of copies of Pan 1 sold to date are 629,536 copies. The print run for #30, which I thought would have been a minimum of 20-40 thousand copies, was in fact six thousand. I'm still doing the maths for the rest of the books. Bloody hell! 6000! No wonder the book goes for reasonable money. I can still remember the shop where I bought mine from. I haunted that shop for years after looking for 31 before I gave up (the ghost?). It stills sits on my shelf. No chance of me selling now. |
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Post by jamesdoig on Dec 10, 2009 0:18:16 GMT
That's really fascinating work on edition runs and editors - hopefully you'll publish it all somewhere.
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Post by allthingshorror on Dec 16, 2009 21:46:01 GMT
Phew - managed to uncover the executor to van Thal's estate today (after two and a half years of bloody searching!!), so will hopefully be able to get some more information, photos etc to glean some more light on old Bertie.
Now who's up for some number crunching? Here are the sales figures for every single Pan Book...
book yr sales
1 1959 629,536
2 1960 529,782
3 1962 479,508
4 1963 402,792
5 1964 414,525
6 1965 390,793
7 1966 390,987
8 1967 356,794
9 1968 296,246
10 1969 282,554
11 1970 228,341
12 1971 247,354
13 1972 184,124
14 1973 187,239
15 1974 181,673
16 1975 141,252
17 1976 68,416
18 1977 63,049
19 1978 47,608
20 1979 58,810
21 1980 46,796
22 1981 44,825
23 1982 30,748
24 1983 28,770
25 1984 25,435
26 1985 20,601
27 1986 20,302
28 1987 14,456
29 1988 11,037
30 1989 6,829
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Post by jamesdoig on Dec 17, 2009 4:38:50 GMT
Hmm, I'm beginning to see a pattern...
Strange that the figures dropped by more than half between '75 and '76 - which was right in the middle of the popular horror boom. Maybe the readership didn't think it was cutting edge enough, or the series was perceived as such.
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Dec 17, 2009 10:05:09 GMT
Call me a desperate to earn a buck writer but we need no 29 and 30 reprinted asap Johnny
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Post by andydecker on Dec 17, 2009 11:42:38 GMT
I love numbers  The drop between 1977 and 1978 is quite big. Of course the real question here is how big was the initial print run? Is there still a storage somewhere where thousands of unsold Pan 17 are mouldering? Still, 17 is an interesting watershed. Well, this were the years when Smith, King and Co gathered momentum, so I guess the harsh drop can be attributed to changing taste. In the bigger picture at the end of the decade the Video market came into being. Rent a video or read a book? No wonder the decline went on. What is the deal with Pan 20? Why did it sell 10000 units more? A fluke? Some clevery hidden gore or porn? |
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Post by jamesdoig on Dec 17, 2009 21:09:32 GMT
Yep, numbers are fun - in fact, it'd be great to have similar figures for the Fontana series and the Ghost Books.
I guess the other obvious thing that's missing are printings for each edition and actual print runs - the first book in the Horror series must have been reprinted dozens of times.
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Post by erebus on Dec 29, 2009 21:12:08 GMT
Excellent post this.
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Post by allthingshorror on Dec 30, 2009 18:21:22 GMT
Finally had my first phone call with a relative of van Thal's and it only turned out to be his bleeding step daughter! She now lives in America, but I had an amazing half hour chat with her (Bertie's nickname for her was 'The Gonk') and she's sending me what little she has left which might include his passport if she can find it!!!!!  I'm patting myself on the shoulders here boys (and girls). But researching is an expensive hobby (when you have next to no cash) and it can be an absolute bitch at times, but it's all worth it. HAPPY NEW YEAR! |
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Post by robertmammone on Feb 10, 2010 11:01:33 GMT
Interesting, the figures for books 10-16 have been replaced with skype phone numbers! Phew - managed to uncover the executor to van Thal's estate today (after two and a half years of bloody searching!!), so will hopefully be able to get some more information, photos etc to glean some more light on old Bertie. Now who's up for some number crunching? Here are the sales figures for every single Pan Book... book yr sales 1 1959 629,536 2 1960 529,782 3 1962 479,508 4 1963 402,792 5 1964 414,525 6 1965 390,793 7 1966 390,987 8 1967 356,794 9 1968 296,246 10 1969 282,554 11 1970 228,341 12 1971 247,354 13 1972 184,124 14 1973 187,239 15 1974 181,673 16 1975 141,252 17 1976 68,416 18 1977 63,049 19 1978 47,608 20 1979 58,810 21 1980 46,796 22 1981 44,825 23 1982 30,748 24 1983 28,770 25 1984 25,435 26 1985 20,601 27 1986 20,302 28 1987 14,456 29 1988 11,037 30 1989 6,829 |
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Post by allthingshorror on Mar 21, 2010 19:10:27 GMT
Don't know if I mentioned this elsewhere - but it's now all official - I am one of the executors of van Thal's literary estate. It's an amazing honour and I'll be working closely with the original publishers of van Thal's other horror books (or other publishers who now own the rights etc) to see about getting the books reprinted or getting the rights back so we can get them printed elsewhere. Could be something that the small presses would go fo.
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