yup....publisher's gotta milk it right down the last drop, eh?

"It has this lecture that came out years ago...but, because it's slightly different ere, you HAVE to get it."

Honestly, I think the slipcased editions are a joke.

insurrbution wrote:
yup....publisher's gotta milk it right down the last drop, eh?

"It has this lecture that came out years ago...but, because it's slightly different ere, you HAVE to get it."

Honestly, I think the slipcased editions are a joke.

I think they are a joke at anything more than about 40% off the retail price. That's my main gripe. £75 is silly money for something where the content is old or identical to a £20 RRP hardback (with nothing new in the majority of the editions) and the materials are just normal book materials that are only marginally better than the standard edition. At half the price they look a lot more reasonable, but the premium price always feels a bit absurd.

Looks like it updated to 'out of stock'. Jealous of this price.. UK only. Nice find!

It's avaliable again at that website. Unfortunately they won't be shipping it to Italy in these days so I can't order, but if you guys are in the UK I suggest you to take this chance.

I don't think I'll find it at such a great price.

Yeah, agreed. Apologies all - the "this exists before, but because it's somehow different, it's now a collector's item" is frustrating. (the only 'usual' style slipcased editions I have are the three Great Tales (to celebrate the publication of a new ("new") Middle-earth Tolkien book, and The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun.

Yeah the price is too high considering what you get. If it were that price for the actual deluxe edition style from the early to mid '90s (the leather ones), then I'd be more on board.

But as it stands, about 90% of the time a slipcased edition and the standard deluxe are identical, content-wise: it's just the presentation/format that's different.

This "content" argument seems to be persistently put forward on here as if things used to be otherwise. I realise people want unique content but when has any deluxe ever had content that was totally unique to that edition &/or never trickled down to standard releases? A few illustrations maybe, but in terms of printed content I'm struggling to think of any example. Anyone care to name something?

Heck, these slipcased editions (I refuse to call them "deluxe" as there's nothing deluxe about them) aren't even gilt-edged, and they typically only use one colour of ink for the text. An example of two types would be some editions of The Fellowship of the Ring/The Lord of the Rings (as one book) and in places in Everyman's Library hardback editions.

An additional preface or afterward, unique and dedicated to each edition, would have been a nice touch, as well. In the past, these could have been from anyone such as Christopher Tolkien himself, a Tolkien expert (Hammond + Scull, Flieger or Anderson to name a few, and depending on title) or even David Brawn, the person who oversees HarperCollins' Tolkien publication and who would be able to provide further insight on those editions.

Why would the deluxe include a preface, and the standard not? This is literally never going to happen. The "deluxe", standard Hb, and Pb of all of these releases are basically the same edition. That's why... the content is the same.

Khamûl wrote:
Why would the deluxe include a preface, and the standard not? This is literally never going to happen. The "deluxe", standard Hb, and Pb of all of these releases are basically the same edition. That's why... the content is the same.

I totally get your point about them essentially being the same but I do agree with insurrbution that a preface or something unique to them would have been a nice touch. If I personally had been in charge of producing a deluxe range of titles I would have liked to include some form of foreword and then an afterword with maybe some of the historically important or flattering reviews, or even something that explained the evolution of the text we had just read. That way the body of the original text could remain the same even down to pagination. It would not have taken much to do that and would make the deluxe truly unique.

To make it appeal more, and to offer more, than a regular edition? Also if you read my post, having a "Note on the Slipcased Edition" for example appear in the standard release would make zero sense.

I'm just saying that they could do more - or offer better quality - for this format to be called "deluxe." As stated above, they don't even have gilt page edges. Houghton Mifflin's 50th anniversary deluxe of The Lord of the Rings does, while HarperCollins doesn't. Why they stopped with the leather - or even faux leather/leatherette - is beyond me. But hurray for paper and foil, right? ;) One would expect a paperback release to be essentially a reprint of its hardback, but deluxe makes it sound like it has extra stuff. Think of a 'half-way' point between the slipcased and limited editions of The Children of Hurin and The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun

To further show what I mean, look at The Hobbit Gift Set from 2017: it has a book about the book in its box! These deluxe editions could easily have an extra segment or two added to them, going into the details as to why it's a special release.

Keep in mind that the publishers have a lot of data and feedback, and have to satisfy the Estate. All of these factors combine to produce what we end up seeing sold.

Does changing the materials in the slipcase change how many copies are sold? Does the additional cost of materials change what price they can realize? Does the effort of writing new forewords or additional booklets change the equation?

They know the answers to all of these questions. We don't. Also, we (the hyper specialist collectors) are not their target market - or at least, we are a tiny sliver of their market if I had to guess. They occasionally offer up to us really nice leather editions, but otherwise we just don't factor much into the equation.

As for pricing of the current deluxes - Amazon has very strict terms as I understand it. The price the publisher sets must be the same to Amazon and all other outlets (including the publisher's own site), and Amazon gets a huge discount off that price. So if the publisher wants to get £30 from Amazon, they pretty much have to set the RRP to £75. Ten years ago (or twenty) they had a lot more flexibility and the discounts offered to retailers were much smaller.