For many fans of Warhammer fiction, the swanky Limited Editions, Special Editions and Mega Editions that Black Library produces are must-have items, but actually getting hold of them before they’re all snapped up by other fans (or scalpers) can feel stressful and difficult. They are, after all, limited in number, with demand usually (if not always) exceeding supply, and so most of them tend to sell out very quickly. In this article I’m going to offer up some suggestions for what to do if you want to get your hands on one of these books, and how you can give yourself the best possible chance of success. I’m aiming this mostly at anyone who’s looking to get hold of their first LE, but even if you’re a long-term BL fan there might be something useful here for you to take away.
NOTE: I wrote this article before Games Workshop introduced a queuing system on their website, which has altered a lot of the on-sale process. Much of the advice in this article is still relevant, just bear in mind the realities of using a queuing system on busy on-sale days.
I’m not going to get into the pros and cons of BL’s sales strategy for these books, or the realities of the secondary market – the situation is what it is, so for the purpose of this article let’s concentrate on working with what’s available right now. I’ll also add a quick caveat here, that there’s no way of guaranteeing that you’ll be able to get hold of one of these books. If demand exceeds supply then they’re always going to sell out quickly, but if you follow these suggestions then, in my opinion at least, you’ll have a good chance of being successful. Most of what I’m going to talk about boils down to one key point – be as prepared as you can – so while I make no promises, it’s not going to hurt to give this a go, and nothing here is difficult to do.
A quick note on BL terminology: I’m going to stick to using Limited Edition (or LE) throughout this article, rather than mentioning LEs, SEs and MEs every time. If you’re confused by what the difference is, I’ve added a section at the end to talk about the different editions in more detail so do check that out as well.
BL’s Limited Edition novels – like this swanky edition of The Solar War – are often genuinely beautiful items, but can be tricky to get hold of
General preparation
Probably the most common complaint I hear from Black Library fans about LEs is that they didn’t know when a given book was going to go on sale, and so they missed their chance. On the one hand, I understand – BL does not do a good job of communicating release dates, and hasn’t done for a while. On the other hand, if you’re sufficiently keen on Warhammer fiction that you’re willing to spend considerable amounts of money on posh versions of books that are (or will be) available in other, cheaper formats, then it’s worth putting in the effort to make sure you keep a close eye on whatever release information is available. So here’s suggestion number one…
Keep on top of release dates
It would be nice if there was one place to go to find all the information you needed about release dates, that you could be confident would be kept up to date. That’s sadly not the case, but here are some suggestions of places to check regularly:
- The Black Library Coming Soon page on Warhammer Community: it’s not updated as often as it should be, and it only gives the release month rather than actual date, but it’s a start.
- Warhammer Community Sunday Preview articles: every Sunday at about 6pm (GMT) the WarCom team publishes a preview of what’s going up for pre-order the following Saturday. BL books are included in these previews, so there’s usually at least 6 day’s notice for pre-orders.
- Black Library Pre-Order Tracker on Track of Words: in an attempt to provide a single source of information about BL pre-orders, I have a spreadsheet that I update as often as I can based on all the info I can find online. It’s embedded in this article so you can check it whenever you need to, and I usually tweet about it whenever I make a major update.
It’s a pain having to keep checking multiple places on a regular basis, but if you want to make sure you get hold of LEs then it’s in your best interest to do so! As well as those sources, it’s also worth thinking about word of mouth as a way of keeping up with BL news. Various BL-related groups exist on Facebook (although your mileage will depend on your tolerance for fandoms on Facebook), where you can ask questions and keep each other up to date with news etc. – or if you have a bunch of mates who enjoy Warhammer then you can do the same in a closer circle.
However you keep on top of release dates, the final point to make here is an obvious one, but it’s worth making nonetheless. If you think you might forget about a book going on sale (and let’s face it, Warhammer isn’t always a priority in amongst everything else going on) then make sure you set reminders! This is where groups of mates come in handy, as someone within your group is likely to remember.
In the run-up to a pre-order
Once you know when a book is going on pre-order, there’s not a huge amount you can do until it actually goes up for sale. There are a few bits and pieces though, so here are the next few suggestions…
Prepare your Games Workshop account
After the on-sale for The Solar War crashed the Black Library website in 2019, physical BL books started to be sold via the (presumably more stable) Games Workshop site, and since the lockdown in 2020 they have only been sold through that site. Digital content is still available via blacklibrary.com but physical books are all sold on games-workshop.com under the specific BL section. In terms of getting hold of LEs, this is actually a good thing as the GW site is largely pretty easy to use and gives you multiple payment options.
Here are some suggestions for how to get the most out of it, all based around making sure your purchase path will be as quick and easy as possible any time you make an order:
- Account details: make sure you have an active and fully up to date account on the GW site – i.e. the details are all correct for your default delivery address.
- Payment defaults: you can also set a default payment method – either PayPal (which you can set up in advance) or a default card. Make sure these details are all correct.
- Vouchers: a smart friend of mine pointed out that you can add voucher credit onto your account, and assuming you have enough to cover your purchase, using voucher credit means you won’t even need to log into PayPal or verify your payment card! So if you’re really keen to make the process as quick as possible, buy yourself some vouchers in advance and add them to your account as credit – this really does speed things up, as it basically avoids the need to do any payment processing.
The night before
I wouldn’t say that this step is essential, but it’s useful to make sure you’re fully prepared. Due to the magic of time zones, if you’re in somewhere like Europe or the US then on a Friday night you can switch the delivery location on the GW site to New Zealand and get a sneak preview of everything that’s going up for pre-order the next day. In the UK you usually need to wait until about 11pm to be able to see the NZ pre-orders – I’ll leave it up to you to figure out the time difference where you are.
Unless you actually live in NZ you obviously can’t buy anything at this point (especially as NZ prices, compared to the UK at least, are quite high), but it’s handy to just double check that everything you expected to be available is showing up. BL has been known to occasionally sneak unexpected releases into the schedule too, so there’s no harm in checking just in case. If you’re on the fence about whether to buy a LE, you can also have a good look at all the product images to see how strong your willpower is!
At this point you might also want to make a note of the full product URL for anything you want to buy (i.e. https://www.games-workshop.com/en-NZ/Deathwatch-Omnibus-pb-2017) – more on this in a bit.
On the day
When the pre-order day arrives, it’s not just a case of logging in whenever and hoping the book you want will still be available – they often sell out fast, sometimes even as quickly as five or ten minutes! Here are some suggestions for how to make sure you’re ready and as prepared as possible…
Check your on-sale time
In the UK, pre-orders go live (in theory) at 10am on Saturday mornings. Depending on where you live, that time might be slightly different – in the US for example, I believe pre-orders go live at midday Central Time (i.e. 6 hours after the UK). Whatever the pre-order time is, however, there’s one important thing to be aware of:
Products go live on the GW site up to five minutes early!
So if you’re in the UK, make sure you’re ready before 9.55am – don’t wait until 10am to start looking on the site. I’ve seen the gap between the official on-sale time and the actual on-sale time vary, but five minutes is pretty standard (and this isn’t just GW’s website being weird – it happens when gig tickets go live, for example).
Think about what you’re ordering
If all you’re ordering is a single LE then you can probably skip this step, but if you’re thinking about getting other items as well then here are some things to think about:
- Put other items in your basket first: you don’t want to be worrying about adding more stuff to the basket once your LE is on sale and ready to go. Fill up your basket first, then add the LE as the final step and go straight to checkout.
- When do you need things delivered? Pre-orders won’t be dispatched until the following weekend, so if you’re ordering other items then think about timings – are you happy to wait a week and a bit to get them? If not, maybe consider putting in two separate orders.
- Print on Demand: if you’re ordering POD items (like Horus Heresy reprints, for example), the whole order will only be dispatched once the POD stuff is ready – which is usually several weeks away. In this situation, chances are you’re better off making separate orders.
Make it quick
Once all your decisions are made, and the pre-order time is approaching, the last steps are all about making sure you can get your order confirmed as quickly as possible. To that end, here are a few final bits of last-minute preparation, and some final suggestions:
- Log in early: sign into your account fifteen or twenty minutes before the pre-order time, so that you’re not having to worry about remembering your password under pressure.
- Final checks: take one last look through your account details to check everything is correct – address, default payment method etc.
- Grab the NZ link: remember that product link we looked at earlier, when you checked the NZ listings? If you change the bit that says /en-NZ/ to say /en-GB/ then you’ll have the correct link for the book you’re after. It won’t be live yet, but once the clock ticks over to 9.55 (or equivalent) it’ll come to life!
- Use the main site too: I almost always find that the direct link is the quickest way to get to the product page, but there’s no harm having a backup plan too. Don’t assume that the book you’re after will show up on the home page, though:
- Head to the Black Library tab, then select Pre-orders from the New & Exclusive section in the left-hand menu.
- Refresh: if you’ve got a will of iron then wait until the clock approaches 9.55 (or equivalent) and hit F5 to refresh the link and/or main website. If you’re like the rest of us, you’ll be hitting that F5 button from about 9.30 (but it won’t do any good until 9.55)!
NOTE: if BL has been mean and put two LEs on sale at the same time, you’ll want two sets of links/homepages ready so that you don’t have to worry about wasting time searching for the second book.
- Add to basket: once the LE is showing up on the website, add it into your basket and go straight to the checkout as soon as you can. I’m not sure exactly how the GW site works, but I’ve heard stories of people having something in their basket only to find it unavailable by the time they get to checkout (and I’ve seen this for sure on other e-commerce sites), so make sure you don’t dally!
This is where all your preparation pays off – you don’t need to worry about remembering your username and password, double checking your delivery address or manually entering your card details (especially if you’re using voucher credit), you can just speed through the final part of the booking path and get your order confirmed ASAP. No stressing, just a quick final step and you can breathe easy.
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So there you go – like I said earlier, there’s nothing here that can absolutely guarantee you’ll be able to get hold of the LEs you want…but if you make sure you’re as prepared as possible then you’re giving yourself the best chance of succeeding.
Before I sign off, let’s just take a look at one more related topic, which I mentioned earlier…
What’s the difference between LEs, SEs and MEs?
I’ve used LE in this article to refer to all of the formats that I would otherwise (slightly facetiously) call ‘posh hardbacks’ – Limited Editions, Special Editions and Mega Editions. Black Library doesn’t do a great job of explaining the differences between them, but there are some important distinctions, so here’s a quick rundown of the various formats from ‘standard’ editions and onwards (based on my observations over the years).
Standard Edition
Most BL books these days are first published in hardback and ebook (and sometimes audiobook), with paperback editions coming several months later. Some, however – like the Dawn of Fire series, or the Necromunda range – don’t get hardback editions, and go straight to paperback.
Special Edition
A ‘posh hardback’ edition, released at the same time as the first standard (usually hardback) release. Some include extra content like author forewords/afterwords or additional short stories, but not all. Likewise some have sprayed page edges, internal artwork etc, but others are essentially the regular hardback just with a different, posher cover.
Limited Edition
A ‘posh hardback’ that’s released before the standard edition, usually three months before but sometimes longer. These are more likely to have additional content and the nicest design elements, but can sometimes be a little more expensive than even the SEs.
Mega Edition
Think of these as scaled-up Limited Editions, with nice hardback editions packaged up within boxed sets also containing a variety of extra items. These have included blank notebooks, mini Index Astartes, custom dice, counters and other gaming aids, transfer sheets, bookmarks, flags pin badges and so on. As with LEs, these are released before the standard editions, usually with a full six month gap.
There’s still a bit of variation even within these categories, especially when it comes to price (I’ve not included prices because they’re not really standardised) but also in terms of page length/word count. Generally speaking though, those categories should give you a rough idea of what to expect.
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I hope this article has been useful – please do let me know if you’ve got any questions or comments, or if there’s anything that I haven’t explained very well. Likewise, if you’ve got tips and tricks that you use when you’re trying to get hold of Black Library LEs (and you’re willing to share them – a friend of mine would have preferred I hadn’t written this article!) then get in touch and let me know. You can leave a comment below, or find me over on Twitter.
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