Quality Chess Blog

Most of chess publishing is long hard work for very little money. A few thousand copies is what a chess book sells and there are many who want a slice of the cake. Retailers need to make a living, so there goes half the money. Outside the chess specialists, there is a requirement for middlemen, who take a third of what is left. Then there are transport, storage, printing, handling, editing, graphics, internet, rent, equipment, employees and not least, authors!

It is not a surprise that it took more than half a decade for us to make a small profit…

If you feel any sympathy for us at all, buy your Quality Chess books through a chess specialist shop. They not only provide you with the service of going to tournaments as well as having a store, they are also the backbone of our industry. Without them, there would be no chess books at all…

One thing we are doing in order to support the chess specialists is to publish hardback versions of our books and only sell them through the specialist network. These high quality books cost approximately €5 more than their inferior paperback cousins. They stay open when you put them on the table and provide a much nicer experience all-round.

The most recent example of this is Boris Gelfand’s Positional Decision Making in Chess, which at this moment in time is only available on Forward Chess and in high quality hardback. Usually this should reduce sales a bit; as many will be waiting for the cheaper version of the book (coming out early 2016 most likely), but it seems not in this case.

We are looking at a reprint within a week or so, which is an excellent change for me to ask if you have noticed any mistakes we should correct for the next version? We have found about 8 very minor things, but as no book is ever perfect (or close to it), I am sure there are more. We will be very interested in hearing your thoughts.

Meanwhile, Boris is doing a good job of promoting the book: http://www.uschess.org/content/view/13166/141/

We are continuing our special offer – if you buy three books or more and live inside the European Union (as defined by UPS) we will send you an extra book free. Recently the default option on the free book has been Reggio Emilia 2007/2008 but we will change that now to GRANDMASTER BATTLE MANUAL.

But if you already have Grandmaster Battle Manual or would prefer a different free book, then send us an email with your order, asking to have it replaced with one of the following titles:

GRANDMASTER VERSUS AMATEUR
REGGIO EMILIA 2007/2008
TACTIMANIA
TRUE LIES IN CHESS
CHAMPIONS OF THE NEW MILLENNIUM
SAN LUIS 2005
ATTACKING THE SPANISH
GRANDMASTER VS AMATEUR
CUTTING EDGE 1: THE OPEN SICILIAN
CUTTING EDGE 2: SICILIAN NAJDORF 6.Be3

So, finally I am getting around to write a publishing schedule. Sorry it took so long, though I am not too ashamed to have been producing books rather than talk about them… (Follow the links to see excerpts for the five top books)

There is a few things we have alluded to on the blog over the last few months that are in the list. I will just quickly run through them.

Read more…

For the past few months we have had a special offer – if you buy three books or more and live inside the European Union (as defined by UPS) we will send you an extra book free. Recently the default option on the free book has been Grandmaster vs. Amateur but we will change that now to REGGIO EMILIA 2007/2008.

But if you already have Reggio Emilia or would prefer a different free book, then send us an email with your order, asking to have it replaced with one of the following titles:

TACTIMANIA
TRUE LIES IN CHESS
CHAMPIONS OF THE NEW MILLENNIUM
SAN LUIS 2005
ATTACKING THE SPANISH
GRANDMASTER VS AMATEUR
CUTTING EDGE 1: THE OPEN SICILIAN
CUTTING EDGE 2: SICILIAN NAJDORF 6.Be3

Our next publication date is June 17th. One of the three new books is the hardcover 10th anniversary edition of Learn from the Legends by Mihail Marin. Should you buy this book? If you don’t have it already, then that’s an easy question to answer – yes, definitely. ‘Legends’ is generally regarded by reviewers as Mihail’s best book so far – and that is ahead of tough competition.

But suppose you already own the previous edition of Legends – is it worth also buying this new one? On that one, I will let you make up your own mind, and I will just offer a few brief facts. The new edition is a hardcover, while the previous editions were in paperback. The new book is 480 pages, compared to the previous edition’s 336. The extra pages are due to more diagrams, a better layout, and a brand new chapter on Magnus Carlsen.

Normally in a blog post I would offer a snippet from the book, but Legends is not a snippety sort of book – it deserves to be read and enjoyed at length. But there is an excerpt to read.

We hope we have a solid publication date for Positional Decision Making in Chess, Python Strategy and Learn from the Legends – 10th Year Anniversary Edition. June 17th.

The books will now be available for sale. Also, PDMiC will be available on Forward Chess from June the 10th.

As said earlier, holidays and general busyness with the printer is the main reason for the delay.

Excerpts should be up now.

A new publishing schedule will be up in 1-2 weeks.

We were away for the weekend, playing in the 4NCL. Back in the office today. Colin is sorting out all the websales and so that came Friday-Monday. So the delay is minimal.

Worse is that our printer in Estonia has fallen behind schedule. The publication date for Python Strategy, Learn from the Legends 10 Year Celebratory Edition and Positional Decision Making in Chess will therefore be pushed a bit, till the 17th of June. We are very sorry; it is outside of our control.

We are not behind with the other books we are working (at least no more than previously so!) and will follow up with quite a few additional publications over the summer. There are some books we have already announced, as well as 1-2 surprises.

It was our intention to publish Python Strategy together with Grandmaster Repertoire 1A – The Catalan on the 29th of April. Unfortunately we did not manage to finish it in time and we have had to leave it for the next publication date, which is the 27th of May. It is an advantage for the smaller chess retailers when we publish 2-3 books together, there are some possible savings on postage and admin and just time saved, which means that we do not want to publish a new book every two weeks.

On the other hand it does not make sense to hold back on a brand new opening book like GM1A on behalf of a book in the classics series.

To the publication plans for the near future looks like this: