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Found a weird fact about the first edition of 'Dune' while prepping for our club
I was reading up on Frank Herbert for our meeting next week and saw that the first hardcover print run was only 2,500 copies. I found that in a footnote in a library book about sci-fi publishing. It just seems crazy for a book that's so huge now. Did anyone else run into a surprising detail about a book's history?
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diana_kim662mo ago
Wow, that's wild! Did the footnote say why the print run was so small?
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the_susan2mo ago
Right? The footnote was super vague, just said "limited distribution due to production constraints." In my experience, that usually means the publisher ran out of money or the author had a falling out with them. I once bought a poetry book from a tiny press that only had 200 copies printed, and it was the same deal. They never give you the real story in the notes.
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the_christopher2mo ago
Disagree, sometimes it's just a niche book that wouldn't sell widely anyway. They keep it vague to avoid sounding like a flop.
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