”The True First Edition”
Different Types of Self-Published Eragons
”You can also date editions of Eragon based off the spacing of the title. Later editions have tighter kerning.” - Christopher
“Over the course of the publishing and printing of the different versions of Eragon, we were continually correcting typos and improving the content. We tweaked the cover to do kerning on the text.” - Kenneth Paolini
Ordering in small batches allowed for design changes to the cover and text. The earliest version had a blue eye with a wide kerning on the cover text. The kerning was later made tighter with the eye still being a different shade of blue. There are officially 5 different versions, V00 to V04, not all the changes are known, nor are the batch numbers used in each version. This information cannot be found due to Lightning Sources' legacy ordering system not being accessible anymore.
The official number of books sold is 10,000; the exact number is unknown. Book sales started slowly and increased every month. V00 are incredibly scarce, V01/V02 are uncommon, V03/V04 are common.
Cover: Wide Kerning Blue Eye
(V00_0966621336) Published on November 1st 2001
V00
The defining feature in this edition is that it has Orcs instead of Urgals.
“The number of existing original V00 printing that had Orcs instead of Urgals are very few. We don’t remember exactly how many were sold through Amazon and other booksellers. From the good books that we had from that first batch, we sent books to family and friends. If we had to estimate, there may be only 10-20 of those copies still out there somewhere. We have a couple ourselves.”- Kenneth Paolini
Cover: Wide Kerning Blue Eye
(V01_0966621336) Published on January 14th 2002
V01
Version V01 had minor cover changes. There were some text tweaks (Orcs to Urgals)(possibly other text changes, but unknown)
This version was submitted to the Library of Congress for copyright, LoC have two batch number 3299s.
Cover: Wide Kerning Blue Eye
(V02_0966621336) Published on February 10th 2002
V02
V02 has the same cover as V01. Has text and typo changes (unknown). This is the last version to feature a wide kerning on the cover text and the ordinal blue eye colouring.
Cover: Tight Kerning Deep Blue Eye
(V03_0966621336) Published on April 2nd 2002
V03
Major cover changes, tighter kerning and different eye colour. Pagination changes take the page count from 472 pages to 468 pages. Also, various text edits (unknown)
“Christopher wanted to see more contrast on the cover art, along with a deeper blue on Saphira’s eye. I did that for the later couple versions of the book. The deeper blue and higher contrast on Saphira’s eye cover was done for version V03… All subsequent print runs had this darker blue in Saphira’s eye.” Kenneth Paolini
Officially, the eye colour was changed in V03, but due to Lightning Sources' printing quality, UV damage to the covers after 20+ years and overhead lighting when viewing a book, it is difficult to see colour changes; some books look almost violet while others are a vibrant blue.
Cover: Tight Kerning Deep Blue Eye
(V04_0966621336) Published on Semptember 30th 2002
V04
V04 has the same cover as V03. This version has various text edits (unknown)
This was the last version of the Self-Published Edition of Eragon; publication and distribution stopped on February 14, 2003.
