He works so damn hard - that’s more like 18 books’ worth of published words by most other writers’ standards Jane Johnson, Harper Collins UK Today, that trilogy already stretches to five books, with Martin currently working on the much-anticipated sixth, The Winds of Winter. HarperCollins bought Martin’s story initially as a trilogy, focusing on the families of the Starks, the Lannisters and Daenerys, and the Others beyond the Wall. Of course, no one could ever have expected them to sell more than 70m in more than 40 languages.”
And it wasn’t long before we exceeded all of our original expectations, and soon the series books were all hitting the bestseller lists. “But even so, word-of-mouth recommendation was soon spreading like wildfire around fans. Rather less so now: thank you, George,” adds Johnson. In 1996, epic fantasy would only be found “tucked away in the far, dark corners of high-street bookshops under the label ‘Sci-fi’, or in specialist SF shops like Forbidden Planet”, and supermarkets “wouldn’t touch fantasy with a bargepole,” she says. It’s always hard launching a new series, even by an author, like George, who has been on the scene for a while.”
Initial sales were only moderately encouraging. “And it didn’t immediately look as if we’d achieve that. “We costed our offer on modest sales in our territories – expecting, or should I say, hoping for, something like 5,000 hardbacks and 50,000 paperbacks: at the time ambitious numbers for genre fiction,” she says.
A new iillustration from Game of Thrones: the 20th anniversary illustrated edition, published on 18 October.
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