”The True First Edition”
Paolini International
Paolini International published the first-ever edition of Eragon, this wasn't the company's first book, but in fact their fourth. They previously published a homeschooling activity book, a reprint of a 1940s book, and a memoir of Kenneth and Talita Paolini, Christopher’s parents. These books had very limited print runs and are hard to find today. Paolini International is owned by the Paolini family.
"Paolini International" was a family affair in self-publishing. Kenneth had a background in physical media and PrePress, he used Adobe PageMaker to format the books on their home computer. The whole family helped with proofreading. The Paolinis didn't own any brick and mortar facilities. They used a print-on-demand company to print the books (in a similar manner to how Amazon KDP works today), and did all of the marketing themselves. Eragon took off, and by late 2002 the Paolinis began getting offers for it from traditional publishers. With no real connections to the industry, they turned to a self-publishing online forum to find an agent to help them negotiate the competing offers.
"I grew up in a log cabin with a 55 gallon steel drum for a stove. We had to use chewing gum to plug the holes between the logs when it rained. And after that we upgraded to an almost 90 year old farmhouse with asbestos shingles on the siding." - Chris
“Near the end of 2001, my dad formatted the book in Adobe PageMaker for publication. He determined how wide the text block would be, how much space would occupy the top and bottom of the pages, what the chapter titles should look like, how the cover should be designed, and much, much more.” - Christopher Paolini
“Helped by his family, Christopher self-published Eragon in February 2002. They sold nearly 10,000 copies through diligent self-promotion (including sales from the family car and Paolini visiting schools to address students his own age, in medieval costume).” - SFFWORLD
Self-Publishing
Christopher had been working on Eragon since around 1998. The Library of Congress received the first registration for the book in May 2001, a 233 page manuscript.
“The reason for the May 2001 submission to the Library of Congress was to register the work for copyright purposes and protection of the intellectual property that the book represented…From the time the manuscript was submitted in May 2001 to the first print proof run, we were actively editing, proofreading, and making it better. ” - Kenneth Paolini
The Paolinis used Lightning Source Inc (LSI) to publish Eragon. LSI was a print-on-demand book printing service. Lightning Source became a part of the Ingram Content Group in 2010. The first batches were printed at the beginning of November 2001, just before Christopher's eighteenth birthday. Because LCI was print on demand, the Paolinis could order in small batches, usually 100, which kept costs low; customers could also order directly from LCI through bookstores and Amazon, and LCI was able to print orders as low as just one book. The Amazon listing was managed by the Paolinis, but fulfilment was done by LCI. It's estimated that Eragon started selling on Amazon in early 2002.
Here you can see Christopher, on the floor surrounded by Eragons and Lightning Source boxes.
The Paolinis would have trouble with LCI’s quality, often having to destroy entire batches due to manufacturing issues.
“We had to burn one of the first batches of books we got from Lightning Source that was printed in the beginning of November 2001. We had another batch of 100 books with quality control issues at the beginning of December 2001… Lightning Source had us do various things with these books. For instance, for the first December order of books that had quality control problems, we needed to return ten books for their technical people to look into why the issues were happening. They wanted nine books back that had the covers not placed correctly onto the book. For the books that had light text issues, they wanted seventy nine book covers ripped off the interiors and return the book covers for credit… Print on demand books were still very new and the technology, equipment, and software were being constantly worked on and improved. There were growing pains, but Lightning Source were a good fit for our situation. Books were printed as needed when ordered. Having to order 1,000, 5,000, 10,000 or more books at a time were not what we could do at that time… None of the above misprinted orders had books go on sale. None were retained.” - Kenneth Paolini
To get books reprinted or refunded, the Paolinis had to prove they had destroyed them, that's how we have these disturbing yet slightly beautiful photos.
Other book defects and misprints
The Creation of Saphira’s Eye
This is a great article on paolini.net about the process of drawing the famous Saphira eye.
Related articles on paolini.net
