11 Scribes · All titles · Scribner Era (1998-present)

Billy Summers Common

2021 · Scribner (Simon & Schuster), New York

First-edition cover of Billy Summers — First-edition jacket (first edition (verified vs jacket)) · source

What it’s about

Billy Summers is a hitman with a code: he only kills bad people. A decorated Iraq War sniper turned contract killer, he is ready to retire after one last job for a huge payday, posing as an aspiring novelist in a small city while he waits for his target to arrive. As Billy settles into his cover identity and actually begins to write, the line between his fake life and his real one starts to blur, and the seemingly simple assignment proves more dangerous than promised.

Significance A 2021 Stephen King solo novel (sole authorship, not a Bachman title) — a hard-boiled crime/thriller departure from horror; a Best Seller and Edgar Award nominee, with a feature film adaptation in development from J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot.

Is this the true first?Yes. The Scribner trade hardcover (August 3, 2021) is the true US first edition, first printing. There is no preceding small-press limited and it is not a paperback original — the deluxe/remarqued variants (e.g. the Glenn Chadbourne "Cover Series No. 82" artist-signed remarque, ltd 100, Nov 2021) are after-market enhancements of the same Scribner first printing, not a true publishing first.
The trade hardcover IS the true first. Modern Scribner-era King titles release simultaneously as the standard trade hardcover with no Donald M. Grant / Philtrum / Land of Enchantment style small-press precedence. Confirm with BOTH the "First Edition" statement and the full number line (Scribner-era requires both). No earlier UK printing matters: King is American and the Scribner US edition is the true first (the UK Hodder & Stoughton edition is a separate, near-simultaneous first with a different jacket).

I own a copy of this title

My notes — condition, state, price intact, is it a book-club copy?

First-printing points at a glance

First-printing statementCopyright page states "First Edition" AND must carry the full number line. Per Scribner-era convention BOTH must be present on a true first printing. (Direct verbatim photo of the words "First Edition" on this title's copyright page was not isolated in a single source; the requirement is standard Scribner-era practice and the number line below is the decisive confirmed point — treat the "First Edition" wording as expected/standard, number line as the verified discriminator.)

Number line"1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2" — a first printing shows the full line ending in (and including) the "1". A later printing drops low numbers from the left (e.g. a second printing's lowest number is "2", a fifth would start at "5"). Confirmed by stephenkingcollector.com and corroborated by dealer/first-edition listings.

Gutter / printer codeN/A (Scribner does not use Doubleday gutter codes; this is a 2021 Scribner title).

First printing — copies~1,000,000 copies (announced US first trade printing, Scribner hardcover, Aug 3 2021) confirmed

First jacket price$30.00 (Upper front flap of the dust jacket (standard Scribner placement). A price-clipped jacket (corner cut from the front flap) hides this and lowers value.)

Board (panel) colorBright red paper-covered boards (front and rear panels).

Spine / center bindingBlack cloth spine/backstrip (quarter-bound), with shiny gilt lettering on the spine.

Binding styleQuarter-bound (two-tone): black cloth backstrip over bright red paper-covered boards; sewn binding; octavo, ~515-517 pages of text (official listing 528 pp). Gilt-stamped spine lettering.

Topstain / endpapersNo distinctive topstain reported (plain). Endpapers UNVERIFIED (not noted as a distinguishing feature in collector sources).

Dust jacket

US Scribner first-edition jacket is a Will Staehle typographic/graphic design (distinct from the UK crimson-cabin photo-illustration). Front carries title and author; rear/flaps carry synopsis and author photo. Verify against the US Scribner jacket specifically — married jackets pairing the UK crimson-cabin art onto a US book are a known mismatch risk.

Art / design: US Scribner jacket designed by Will Staehle (Scribner cover design). NOTE: the snow-covered cabin against a crimson sky illustration by stock artist Sasha Brazhnik is the UK Hodder & Stoughton cover, not the US Scribner front — do not use the crimson-cabin image to authenticate a US first.

https://www.stephenkingcollector.com/1st/billysummers.html

https://www.rarebookcellar.com/pages/books/306953/stephen-king/billy-summers

https://stephenkingcovers.com/title/billy-summers/

Book-club edition & fakes — how to spot a wrong copyNo mainstream US Book-of-the-Month / Doubleday-style book club edition is a significant concern for this 2021 Scribner title (Scribner-era Kings are not the BOMC-trap of the 1974-83 Doubleday era). Watch instead for: jackets lacking the "$30.00" front-flap price, any "Book Club Edition" notation on the lower front flap, thinner/lighter paper or smaller trim, and absence of the full number line ending in 1. A true first = "First Edition" statement + "1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2" + $30.00 unclipped flap.

Also watch for: (1) Married jacket: pairing the UK Hodder crimson-cabin jacket onto the US Scribner book (or vice versa) — confirm the US Will Staehle jacket on a US Scribner book. (2) Price-clipped jackets passed as fine — the $30.00 must be present on the front flap. (3) Later printings sold as firsts — verify the number line ends in 1. (4) "Signed" copies without provenance — secondary-market autographs are easily faked; prefer publisher/retailer-sourced signings with COA. (5) Ex-library and remainder-marked copies (spray mark on bottom text block) command far less. (6) The Chadbourne remarque/cover-series items are NOT a different publishing first — they are decorated copies of the same Scribner first printing.

Print run & scarcity

This is a modern mega-print Scribner title, NOT a scarce early-King first printing — the 'early King first-printing debate' (e.g., the ~30,000 Carrie figure) does not apply; Billy Summers shipped at roughly 1M out of the gate. FIRST-EDITION ID: copyright-page number line '1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2', $30 list, ISBN 9781982173616, pub Aug 3 2021. NO publisher small-press limited edition was issued (no Donald M. Grant / Suntup / Cemetery Dance signed-numbered-lettered set for this title), so there is no signed/numbered/lettered breakdown to report — the trade hardcover IS the first edition. Third-party/aftermarket signed or limited items that exist: (1) Glenn Chadbourne artist-signed REMARQUED edition limited to 100 copies — signed by the ARTIST, not King; (2) ~100 King-signed bookplate VIP copies distributed via the June 2022 'Pink Pages' (Hoffman Breast Center) charity event; (3) bookseller-made 'slipcased first trade edition' copies — the slipcase is aftermarket, not a publisher limitation. SOURCE DISAGREEMENT: stephenkingcollector.com leaves the exact count blank ('??? copies') while the S&S-catalog-derived forum figure and Grokipedia say 1,000,000 — treat 1M as the publisher's announced/first-printing number rather than a bibliographically confirmed total.

First-state points & errata

No widely-documented first-state errata or text-state change separating early from late first printings has been reported for this title. Identification rests entirely on the "First Edition" statement + full number line ending in 1. UNVERIFIED whether any minor typo states exist.

Limited & signed editions

No Cemetery Dance or PS Publishing traycased/lettered limited was issued for Billy Summers (verified — none found). After-market signed/enhanced variants on the Scribner first printing: (1) publisher/retailer SIGNED first printings (signed by King on the title page); (2) Stephen King Catalog "Billy Summers Artist Signed Remarqued" — ltd 1/100, with an original color remarque hand-drawn on an interior page by Glenn Chadbourne, embossed self-portrait stamp on the title page, gold-foil authentication seal + Letter of Provenance ($250); (3) Chadbourne "New Stephen King Cover Series No. 82" signed/numbered art print (ltd 500) sold alongside. Some retailers also offered an after-market slipcase made to fit the Scribner trade edition.

Market value confirmed sales

$20–60 unsigned (true first, fine/fine, unclipped $30 jacket); $175–375 signed-by-King fine/fine

Assumes a genuine first edition / first printing in near-fine to fine condition (clean copy, unclipped jacket). Lesser condition is worth less.

Confirmed sales: eBay SOLD May 2025 — true first with custom slipcase, $63. eBay SOLD 2024–25 — unsigned 1st/1st fine copies routinely clear $15–40. firstandfine.com — signed US first (fine/fine, signed on title page) sold in the ~$200–300 band. stephenkingcatalog.com — artist-signed & remarqued 1/100 special at $250 (separate category, not a standard trade first). NOTE: no Heritage/PBA/Rare Book Hub auction records exist — the title is too new and too common to reach those rooms; these are documented dealer + eBay-sold comps, not auction-house results.

Book-club edition (the trap): $5–12. There is no traditional Scribner book-club edition of this 2021 title, but later printings and warehouse/club-channel copies (Sam's Club, reading copies) trade at $5–12 and are constantly mislisted as "first editions." stephenkingcollector.com pegs a plain used/reading copy at $10–15 (Dec 2024). — a fraction of a true first; never pay first-edition money for one.

Condition sensitivity is modest because the book is abundant — even fine/fine, the unsigned ceiling is roughly $50–60, and a clipped or worn jacket drops it toward the $10–15 reading-copy floor. The signature is where ALL the real value lives: a genuine, verifiable King signature (he signs at the title page) takes a fine/fine copy from ~$40 to ~$175–375; remarqued/numbered specials are their own $250+ category. The SINGLE biggest thing separating a real first from the mislisted copies of THIS title: the number line on the copyright page must be the complete "1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2" with the 1 present, AND the jacket must carry the original $30.00 price unclipped. There is NO Doubleday gutter code and NO book-club blind-stamp to check here (wrong publisher) — the fakes are instead later printings (number line missing the 1 / not ending ...4 2) and price-clipped or facsimile jackets passed off as firsts.

Value sources:

Sources

Verification notes: Two-source rule met: PRICE ($30.00) confirmed by stephenkingcollector.com + search-synthesized dealer listings. NUMBER LINE ("1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2") confirmed by stephenkingcollector.com + first-edition listing searches. BINDING (bright red boards, black cloth quarter-spine, gilt) confirmed by two independent dealer descriptions. Limited-edition landscape (no CD/PS limited; Chadbourne remarque 1/100) confirmed via Stephen King Catalog. Caution flagged: collector blurbs describing a "crimson cabin/snow" cover are conflating the UK Hodder jacket with the US Scribner first — do not use that image to authenticate a US copy.

confidence: High on the decisive points (number line "1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2", $30.00 price, red boards / black quarter-cloth spine / gilt) — each cross-confirmed by stephenkingcollector.com plus dealer/first-edition listings. Medium on the exact verbatim "First Edition" wording (standard Scribner-era practice, not isolated in a single quoted photo) and on endpaper/topstain detail (UNVERIFIED). The US-vs-UK jacket distinction (Staehle vs Brazhnik crimson-cabin) is confirmed via the Brazhnik/Medium account and cover-credit searches.← Back to all titles