Undercover Brothers Print Runs

[tomswift2002]

I was just in Coles today, and I was looking at the print runs in the copies of the UB books that they had, and I must say I was very surprised at what I saw:

1 - 16th printing
2 - 12th printing
3 - 13th printing

(Coles didn't have any copies of #'s 4-18)

19 - 3rd printing
20 - 3rd printing
21 - 3rd printing
22 - 3rd printing
23 - 3rd printing
24 - 3rd printing
25 - 1st printing
26 - 3rd printing
27 - 1st printing

Wanted - 4th printing
Kidnapped At The Casino - 3rd printing
Haunted - 3rd printing

Now then, while it appears as though the series is a success, I got some numbers from the Nancy Drew Girl Detective series for comparison:

NDGD
1 - 34th printing
2 - 33rd printing
28 - 4th printing
33 - 4th printing


So, while it appears that a lot of books have been sold in both series, you have to realize that the majority of books sold in both series have been from the first 4 to 6 books, while it apppears that the later books are mostly being picked up by fans of the UB series or the Hardy boys in general, and appear to be not selling as well as the early books in the series.  Also, it was surprising to see, that for the most recent trilogy (#'s 25-27) of the UB series, book 1 is still stuck at the 1st printing, while the second book is up to its 3rd printing.

[Bigfootman]

Surprize, Surprize, the GDs which are way better then the awfull UBs are also doing better.

[003Robin457]

The trilogys have less since they havn't been out as long. The first few are years old.

[tomswift2002]

Well, I wouldn't say that, considering that from what I saw, book 1 of the Double Danger trilogy is barely selling, while book 2 has most likely sold 3 times as many copies.

But also, Foul Play and Feeding Frenzy have been in release for close to 2 years, and they've only hit their 3rd printing...

[SDLagent]

Looks like the trilogies have helped sales.

[003Robin457]

Also the first few books are deemed essential and many readers get the first few before they skip around.

[tomswift2002]

You also have to remember that with both the Digest line and the Casefiles line, once the series got going, a lot of times books never went through more than one or two printings, since by the end of the series it was basically the fans of the Hardy Boys who were collecting the books while the average book buyer wasn't picking up the books for themselves or their kids.  So, with the Undercover Brothers, considering that numbers 19-24 have only reached their third printings, it might indicate that the only people buying the "new" books now are the fans or collector's of the series.