@TheEdVerse for the sake of flavour & whimsy may we have a look into the Suzail Times Bestseller List of chapbooks 1e greybox times? I get a vibe from your and other novelists from back then that the top genre is bodice rippers. Any close competition?
— 🌈Jaye🦄Em🌹Edgecliff🏳️🌈 (@jayeedgecliff) February 8, 2019
A1) Sure. ;} I’ll split this reply so as not to overwhelm Twitter’s limits…
So the Old Gray Box is circa 1357 DR, and at that time Suzail has an avid reading public of all classes, not just wealthy nobility and “wannabe nobles”…#Realmslore 2) …among the wealthiest rising merchants. It also has a healthy chapbook and broadsheet publishing scene, not to mention bustling playhouses (the nobility tend to “hire in” players to perform in their residences, rather than…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) February 9, 2019
3) …attending public performances).
Perennial leading bestsellers are, in descending order:
1. Bodice Rippers, especially if they’re thinly-disguised “tell all” adaptations of gossipy “I slept with Lord X or Lady Y or both”…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) February 9, 2019
4) …revelations.
2. Memoirs of adventuresome lives, either full of derring-do or swindling skullduggery, or travels through vividly-described “exotic locales afar,” or both.
3. Rags-to-riches family saga fiction about plucky…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) February 9, 2019
5) …rural heroes or heroines who by their wits and boldness ascend into the ranks of the wealthy and/or nobility, overcoming dastardly villains to do so.
4. Family histories of Cormyrean nobility, gentry, rising merchant…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) February 9, 2019
6) …families, or long-in-service-to-the-Crown folk, sales directly reflecting how entertainingly-written they are, and how salacious/revealing.
5. Useful “how to” chapbooks on making your own wine or clothes, or bestiaries of…#Realmslore A7) …monsters and varmints/pests and how to deal with them.#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) February 9, 2019