Dresden Files - Publishing History

Publishing History

Jim Butcher decided to become a professional author at the age of nineteen. Subsequently he wrote three novels within the fantasy genre and one which he has classified as paranormal—books which the author has described as being "terrible". In 1996 he enrolled in a writing class where he was encouraged to write a novel similar to the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series by Laurell K. Hamilton, rather than the more traditional high fantasy that had been his focus in the past, as Butcher had previously stated that he enjoyed the Anita Blake series. Despite initial resistance, he wrote the first book that semester, closely following the instructions of his teacher, author Deborah Chester.

When I finally got tired of arguing with her and decided to write a novel as if I was some kind of formulaic, genre writing drone, just to prove to her how awful it would be, I wrote the first book of the Dresden Files.

— Jim Butcher in "A Conversation With Jim Butcher", 2004

The result was Semiautomagic, later to be retitled as Storm Front. His writing teacher declared it to be publishable, and Butcher started hunting around to do just that.

Butcher failed to secure a publisher for two to three years. During this period he completed the second novel, Fool Moon, and had made significant progress on the third, Grave Peril. Deciding to focus on agents and editors who had already published similar novels, Butcher targeted Ricia Mainhardt, the agent representing Laurell Hamilton, and submitted a copy of his manuscript. It was not accepted. Finally, Jim Butcher met Laurell Hamilton at a convention, and was invited to lunch along with her agent (Mainhardt) and a second agent, Jennifer Jackson. Ricia Mainhardt agreed to represent him, and six months later The Dresden Files was sold to ROC, an imprint of Penguin Books.

The first volume, Storm Front, was released in 2000 in paperback; the next two novels in the series, Fool Moon and Grave Peril, were released shortly thereafter, in January and September 2001, also in paperback. Subsequent novels in the series have been published annually since then, with the most recent novel, Cold Days, published November 2012. Omnibus editions have been released by the Science Fiction Book Club, with each of the four volumes reprinting two or three of the novels in the sequence.

The series' first six novels were originally only published as paperbacks, but in 2007 ROC changed its strategy and began to publish hardcover reprints of books one to six. Volume six, Blood Rites, was released in July 2007. From book seven onwards, each new book was directly published as hardcover and paperback both.

Orbit Books purchased the series for UK publication, and released the first novel, Storm Front in September 2005—five years after the initial US release. They then proceeded to publish two books per month. In November 2007, Orbit Books announced that they had purchased the rights to Changes, the twelfth novel, as well as the thirteenth Dresden novel, Ghost Story.

All 14 volumes of The Dresden Files, along with the companion short story anthology Side Jobs, have been released as audio books. All except Ghost Story have been narrated by James Marsters. Per a release on Jim Butcher's website on June 27, 2011, he reported that, "due to scheduling conflicts", James Marsters would be unable to voice Ghost Story; instead, the narration was performed by John Glover. The cover art for the series was created by Chris McGrath. James Marsters returned to read the Cold Days audio book.