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Demand for Kristoff's Empire of the Damned temporarily disables Waterstones website
Pre-order demand for the Waterstones exclusive edition of Jay Kristoff’s Empire of the Damned – to be published in February 2024 – temporarily disabled the Waterstones website when going live last week.
In an Instagram post, re-posted by Kristoff’s UK publisher HarperVoyager, Kristoff wrote: "I say it a lot, but not enough – I truly have the best readers in the world. Thank you for showing up for me time and time again, droogs. It means the world."
The Waterstones exclusive edition of Empire of the Damned features sprayed edges and is signed by the author. The first in the series, The Empire of the Vampire, was shortlisted for the British Book Award for Fiction Book of the Year Award 2022. In an interview with The Bookseller, Kristoff said of his readers: "It’s a cliché but I couldn’t do this without them”.
A Waterstones spokesperson commented: "It is always lovely to see true excitement for a book and we knew that the announcement of the Empire of the Damned Waterstones exclusive signed edition would be highly anticipated. Our website is very stable and regularly manages large amounts of traffic without any issues, but the concentrated enthusiasm among Jay Kristoff’s fans... managed to temporarily affect operation."
The exclusive edition went on sale at 10am on Thursday 10th August with a Twitter user reporting issues accessing the site at just 10:01am. The Waterstones spokesperson added: "Functionality was swiftly restored, and we are very pleased with the significant number of pre-orders placed and have increased our stock order to match the ongoing demand". The exclusive edition was originally advertised on Kristoff’s Twitter account as having "strictly limited quantity".
Fleur Clarke, publishing strategy director for HarperFiction, commented: "We are delighted to see this series creating another special edition feeding frenzy on the Waterstones website. Empire of the Vampire was an instant Sunday Times bestseller, and we’re grateful to Waterstones booksellers for how passionately they’ve championed the series. Jay Kristoff and his fans are truly one of a kind."
Empire of the Damned continues the story of Gabriel de Leon, the half-mortal, half-vampire protagonist, as he continues his quest to find a way to restore the light of the sun accompanied by Dior, the Holy Grail.
