This is unconfirmed, but there is a very strong possibility that there will not be any Animorphs Relaunch releases in the near future. With the release of #8 in little over a week, there has been no official renewal of any further releases for the rest of the year, or the next.
Amazon and several retailers list #8 as the only upcoming book, with nothing planned ahead. Scholastic has been quiet on the subject, and has not publicly released the rights or covers for any future books, which are usually available months before even being listed. The only response I did receive was from a customer service representative saying:
“I researched our system and it shows that we do not have information about other Animorphs books being released. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this has caused.”
As I mentioned at the start of the relaunch, Scholastic has been using these reprints as way to gauge the interest in the series to start a potential Animorphs 2.0. So for the fans who were looking forward to that, a cancellation or hiatus of the Relaunch series is obviously not very promising.
So the question comes: Where do we go from here? What can fans do to show their continued support? The first is, obviously, to buy the books! ($$$)
Scholastic will not financially support something that is not good for business! If you have been skipping on these releases to only buy the books that are missing in your collection, then you may not get the chance to do that anymore, as the releases of those future books depends highly upon the sales figures of the ones that are currently out now. Buying the books is the most direct way of letting Scholastic know that you are interested in more!
If you have already bought the books, then the next step is to let Scholastic know we are still interested. Customer Care, Twitter, and Facebook are all a good place to start. Email campaigns wouldn’t be a bad idea either, if someone was willing to co-ordinate it. (Skip petitions though — they are a waste of time.) If anyone knows of any direct channels or representatives to send all this to, then please let me know and I’ll post it up on this blog to help spread the word.
The ball is in your court, fans.
Yeah, I’d guess that the relaunch is cancelled too. The thing is, if they’re not currently working on its continuation, there’s virtually NO chance of them picking it up later on down the line, because it would take quite some time for them to restart the process.
It’s a pity, because I love having proofed eBook versions of them (the fan-made ones from pre-relaunch days were nothing short of AWFUL). Looks like I’ll have to pick up the books I’m missing second-hand.
Comment by Robert — August 23, 2012 @ 7:08 pm
Aw. I own all of the original books and was buying the new releases…
Comment by Asrialys — August 23, 2012 @ 8:36 pm
I hope they won’t actually be assholes enough to do this! It’s help sales if they sent the books outside USA – I want to buy them, but can’t on the Internet…
Comment by ladysugarquill — August 23, 2012 @ 9:13 pm
I made a fb page. At least it can work to show numbers of fans interested.
https://www.facebook.com/SaveAnimorphsReRelease
Comment by ladysugarquill — August 23, 2012 @ 9:44 pm
Just did all three things to try to get Scholastic’s attention about the series. I think they are not using their resources to advertise the series. I mean, with SO much social media now… It should be easy for them to do.
Comment by Kheetor84 — August 23, 2012 @ 10:04 pm
I think the marketing has certainly been mishandled, but the God-awful relaunch book covers were the nail in the coffin. As anyone will tell you about marketing to children, a compelling package is everything.
Comment by Robert — August 24, 2012 @ 7:21 am
They just haven’t been marketing the books. At all. I can find them in Barnes and Noble, but they’re tucked away where no one who isn’t already looking for them will ever see them.
I’ve tried to remedy this by moving a couple to more prominent spots elsewhere in the bookstore, but I doubt it’s very effective. They need some displays or something.
Comment by Frenchroast — August 24, 2012 @ 8:43 am
I thought this might happen. I live in England and I’ve been buying all of the rereleases, but I’ve had to buy them from Amazon because they don’t exist anywhere else. Ever since the rereleases first started, I’ve been going into all the major bookshops in my town and looking for them, and I’ve seen nothing. Not a peep. I even asked an employee whether they’d been stocking them and I’d just missed them and he had no idea what I was talking about, they never even had them in stock.
What happened? There has been absolutely no publicity for these things, at all. There have been no adverts for them in other books, no adverts on tv, I’ve never seen any adverts online, or anything at all linking people to the original site. There are no copies in major bookshops, there are no posters, flyers, absolutely nothing, not a peep. In fact the only people who have been doing any publicity for the books are the fans, and the fan made websites, mostly this one. I even bought the first one as a birthday present for a 10 year old I know, and he loved it. He’ll be in trouble if he wants to get his hands on the rest of them, though.
What the hell Scholastic? They haven’t done anything at all. The fans have, Scholastic made a crappy flash based website then retired and sat on their arse. No wonder it’s failing.
Comment by TheRaevyn — August 26, 2012 @ 1:17 am
No advertising? No international release? It almost sounds like … A CONSPIRACY!
(Cue X-Files theme)
Comment by Noah — August 26, 2012 @ 7:34 pm
What others have been saying: Scholastic hasn’t been advertising this enough. I’ll be sure to promote this on Twitter tomorrow just as much as I have been the Kickstarters for Animusic 3 and Hey Ocean’s world tour.
Comment by Jordan — August 28, 2012 @ 3:32 am
To be honest I never got the point of the relaunch, especially as it pertained to a potential “Animorphs 2.0”
Any existing fans already have all the books. There is no real motivation to buy them a second time.
Any newcoming fans have no reason to wait a month or two for a new book, when they can easily order used copies of the old version off of Amazon for a fraction of the cost. Imagine the past, when Animorphs first came out. If you had the ability to find out what happened next almost immediately, for extremely low cost, wouldn’t you have taken it?
Aside from new covers and largely pointless updates to modern references, what exactly was the function of this relaunch?
I do not think it is fair to gauge the potential success of an “Animorphs 2.0” on the basis of sales of re-releases of books most fans already own.
I’d wager that upwards of 90% of old school Animorphs fans never bought the new versions, but almost all of them would be into an “Animorphs 2.0”, whatever that even means.
Comment by Farlan — September 2, 2012 @ 2:46 am
Everyone should “like” the facebook page that is mentioned in comment #4. And write on the Scholastic facebook page.
Comment by Jess — September 2, 2012 @ 7:28 am
Disappointed. The updated covers and references are good, and I’d pay to see an Animorphs 2.0. Let’s start a revolution!
Comment by Jericho — September 2, 2012 @ 8:01 am
[…] latest (and possibly last) relaunch book is out this month, in paperback and ebook. Please view our previous post to know the […]
Pingback by Hirac Delest » Animorphs #8 (Relaunch Edition) Released! — September 2, 2012 @ 8:12 am
Scholastic just totally gave up on this. It’s like they didn’t want the relaunch to succeed.
Comment by Jordan — September 5, 2012 @ 8:19 pm
A bloody shame if they can it after the 8th book. That’s just when stuff starts getting good. Scholastic just never bothered to promote it.
Comment by Nothlit — September 8, 2012 @ 11:17 pm
Oh man, I’m totally heartbroken… I’m buying all the books I’m missing in my collection (which is a lot, considering most of mine are in French; I’ve purchased every one so far except #4), and then I wanted to eventually get even the ones I already have for a perfect relaunch collection… I bought a second copy of #1 to give to a friend, figuring the relaunch was the perfect excuse to introduce her to the series… I knew that it wasn’t likely that all the books would get re-released, b-but… ;____;
I’ll definitely do all three! And I just “liked” the FB page linked in comment #4! I’m disappointed by the lack of marketing as well, but hopefully we can show Scholastic that keeping up the relaunch is worth their time! :C
Comment by Lily — October 2, 2012 @ 1:14 am
[…] a response to our previous post regarding the relaunch cancellation, we recently got a surprising email by Dan Letchworth, the copy editor who worked on all eight of […]
Pingback by Hirac Delest » Scholastic’s Dan Letchworth talks Animorphs Relaunch! (RE: Cancellation and #8: The Alien) — October 6, 2012 @ 1:24 pm
[…] like 10+ years to release all 54 books, excluding the spin-offs), but if the Animorphs relaunch is canceled after #8… I will dig a ditch in the ground and curl up in it and wait for death. the very […]
Pingback by R.I.P. Animorphs? « ★ l i l y the w r i t e r. — October 17, 2012 @ 9:50 pm