# Is "The Atlas Six" by Olivie Blake a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake (self-published, 2020) is identified by: The true first is the author's self-published print-on-demand paperback, ISBN 9781679910999 / 167991099X, issued 30 January 2020 under Amazon's "Independently published" imprint at 383 pages, with illustrations by Little Chmura; the self-published Kindle ebook followed on 31 January 2020. Self-published US precedes; the census claim is correct.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- The true first is the author's self-published print-on-demand paperback, ISBN 9781679910999 / 167991099X, issued 30 January 2020 under Amazon's "Independently published" imprint at 383 pages, with illustrations by Little Chmura; the self-published Kindle ebook followed on 31 January 2020
- Because the book was print-on-demand — the author states her self-published titles are distributed by Amazon and printed on demand, with no inventory held — there is NO conventional first printing to identify: every copy was manufactured individually as ordered, the interior file could be revised silently between orders, and copies carry an Amazon/KDP manufacturing stamp on the final leaf recording the print date and facility instead of a printer's key
- Identification therefore rests on the ISBN 9781679910999, the "Independently published" imprint statement on the copyright page, the 383-page setting, and the original self-published cover
- There is no number line and no dust jacket, so no jacket points exist; any listing claiming a "first printing" number line for this book is wrong
- Publisher imprint reads self-published
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Olivie Blake |
| Publisher | self-published |
| Year | 2020 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | The true first is the author's self-published print-on-demand paperback, ISBN 9781679910999 / 167991099X, issued 30 January 2020 under… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
The true first is the author's self-published print-on-demand paperback, ISBN 9781679910999 / 167991099X, issued 30 January 2020 under Amazon's "Independently published" imprint at 383 pages, with illustrations by Little Chmura; the self-published Kindle ebook followed on 31 January 2020. Because the book was print-on-demand — the author states her self-published titles are distributed by Amazon and printed on demand, with no inventory held — there is NO conventional first printing to identify: every copy was manufactured individually as ordered, the interior file could be revised silently between orders, and copies carry an Amazon/KDP manufacturing stamp on the final leaf recording the print date and facility instead of a printer's key. Identification therefore rests on the ISBN 9781679910999, the "Independently published" imprint statement on the copyright page, the 383-page setting, and the original self-published cover. There is no number line and no dust jacket, so no jacket points exist; any listing claiming a "first printing" number line for this book is wrong.

## Is this the true first?
Self-published US precedes; the census claim is correct. The self-published POD paperback (30 January 2020) is the earliest issue. Tor Books' ebook reissue followed on 28 September 2021, and Tor's hardcover on 1 March 2022 (ISBN 9781250854513, 376 pp) is a REVISED and re-edited text with new illustrations by Little Chmura — the author's own FAQ states "The revised version with new illustrations by Little Chmura will release March 1, 2022" — so the Tor hardcover is a first thus of a revised text, not the first edition. The first UK issue is Tor UK / Pan Macmillan, ISBN 9781529095234, 2022. Both the self-published 2020 issue and the 2022 Tor hardcover are collected, for different reasons: the former as the true first, the latter as the first hardcover and first appearance of the revised text.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club issue. The trap runs the opposite way from a normal reprint tell: the Tor hardcover and the Tor Trade paperback (9781250854544, 6 September 2022) are the copies most often encountered, while the plain self-published POD paperback is the one that is actually the first. And because POD copies were manufactured to order across a long window, a late-printed self-published copy is bibliographically indistinguishable from an early one except by the KDP date stamp on the last leaf.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Atlas Six* by Olivie Blake a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-atlas-six
CC BY 4.0. Part of the Canonical First-Edition Points of Issue dataset (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/api/first-edition-titles.json). Last reviewed 2026-07-04.