Del Rey, LucasBooks Extend Star Wars Contract
45 Books through 2013
September 15, 2008
Random House’s Del Rey Books division has announced a five-year extension to its publishing contract with LucasBooks to publish 35 novels and 10 nonfiction Star Wars books from 2009 to 2013.
Its slate of 2009 releases includes the first three volumes of Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi, which takes place after the Legacy of the Force series. The nine-book, multi-author series will be the first all-hardcover multi-book Star Wars series and will be published over three years. The first volume, Outcast, by noted RPG writer Aaron Allston, will be released April 2009.
2010 will see the release of several notable nonfiction books, including The Making of The Empire Strikes Back, to coincide with the film’s 30th anniversary, as well as more volumes in the Star Wars Essential Guides series.
The new contract looks to extend what has been a lucrative agreement between Del Rey and LucasBooks. Over 1.5 million copies of their books were printed in 2007, and 2008 saw two of their titles, Revelation and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, make it to #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. Del Rey also published a series of novels based on the Clone Wars animated movie earlier this year, as well as the novelization of the LucasFilm’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and The Making of Indiana Jones.
