The Reading Vent & Rant Thread

[Sirtel]

This is hilarious. I almost fell from the chair laughing just now.

(And yeah, I tried talking with clenched teeth too. Sounded like I had a bad case of constipation)

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

This is hilarious. I almost fell from the chair laughing just now.

(And yeah, I tried talking with clenched teeth too. Sounded like I had a bad case of constipation)

But in English, Estonian or Russian? Curious mind wants to know!

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Quoth

But in English, Estonian or Russian? Curious mind wants to know!

In Estonian.

[nabsltd]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But in the case of James Patterson, the collaborator is on the cover or he wrote the book himself.

In theory, yes.

The reality is that we just don't know if somebody else is writing at least some part of the book and not getting credit. It happens, and people who are getting enough money to be an "invisible ghost writer" are happy to let it happen.

[nabsltd]

Originally Posted by theducks

THAT WAS THE AUTHORS WISHES

And her heirs are honoring them, on threat of haunting. Also, because they are good people. But, mostly, the haunting threat.

Read "G" Is for Grafton for further details.

[nabsltd]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

And most of the old men's adventure novels (Deathlands, The Executioner, etc.) were written by house names. But at least the Executioner books acknowledged the true author with a thanks.

I was specifically thinking of Red Storm Rising, which has only Tom Clancy's name on the cover, but the book is both a research and writing collaboration with Larry Bond. The is an "acknowledgements" with that info in the book.

Larry Bond signs the book somewhere other than the title page, as my copy has both his and Tom Clancy's signature. I met Larry at a book signing and found out we had mutual friends, so we've talked a bit about all sorts of fun stuff that shouldn't be repeated.

[ownedbycats]

Price stickers on top of the back-cover ISBN/barcode. Can't use my phone ISBN scanner when they do that.

[ownedbycats]

A cozy mystery called "the inconvenient corpse" makes me wonder just what a convenient corpse is.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

A cozy mystery called "the inconvenient corpse" makes me wonder just what a convenient corpse is.

One that happens in someone else's back yard

[theducks]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Price stickers on top of the back-cover ISBN/barcode. Can't use my phone ISBN scanner when they do that.

(retail) Scanner regulations on 'incorrect' scanned pricing

Some barcodes have the price encoded (the supplemental section is common)
In your case, it may be the wrong currency (US$ ), so they over sticker it to comply.

Some books have 2 barcodes

The one on the back is the dumber one request by General Merchandise stores like Walmart. It does not resolve down to the title. 1st half is the Publisher, 2nd half is the price. This is so the jobber just comes in, stocks the shelves, scans the ones they tack back. There is no PLU list maintenance other than the initial entry for the publisher (eg Pengin book)

The one inside is the full ISBN version with the supplemental set to 90000 or the price (first digit is the currency: 5 is US$ implied 2 decimals

[Renate]

For years I used to inventory my books by barcode. When I moved I even had a printed sheet on each box saying which books were in there.

Now I have a more efficient system. I don't own pbooks.

[Quoth]

It annoys me that Draft2Digital insists that they have to add the 90000 supplementary barcode. It's simply never printed on books in the markets I want D2D for. I have hardly any books with even the UK price in the Barcode since the book price setting by publishers was made illegal in UK and Ireland. Irish shops had to stick a price sticker or blank that as even before Irish pound broke with Sterling and became Punt, the publisher set prices were higher in Ireland.
Is the supplementary 90000 barcode on all books in the USA if there is no price code?

Why does Walmart need a different code? Regular retail products have an EAN/UPC barcode. These uniquely identify the item (Heinz regular size baked beans or whatever) and the current ISBN is simply 100% compatible where the 1st 3 digits indicate a book (Bookland country code). Neither true EAN/UPC or ISBN encodes the price, only a product or title.

The supermarkets and bookshops here simply use that regular ISBN the same way as any EAN/UPC on any product they sell. The shelf price label (either paper or eink) usually also has that code in non-book part of supermarket, and by law the shelf or sticker price takes precedence if the POS price is higher. Books are usually priced per shelf or a price sticker (two stickers if a UK chain in Ireland) for the customer, but the basic ISBN without price code is used at POS to lookup price. Publisher pricing of books is now illegal. Wholesale setting retail price was common for nearly everything in still in 1950, The UK Co-op even had its own radio brand as they could not discount. Gradually made illegal and both medicines and books were the last to go in UK & Ireland.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resale_price_maintenance
It's illegal in entire EU and UK now for all products.

[theducks]

The reason is no effort by the retailer for jobber (news stand services) provided books. The simple code identifies just enough information for the receipt and for the payment for goods sold KI(really)SS

The 9000 bit is so there is always a standard footprint for the barcode.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by theducks

The reason is no effort by the retailer for jobber (news stand services) provided books. The simple code identifies just enough information for the receipt and for the payment for goods sold KI(really)SS

The 9000 bit is so there is always a standard footprint for the barcode.

Does not compute. Out of cheese error.

The barcode is only standard without the 90000 part.

Older books in days of publisher fixing price had the UK £ price on additional barcode. That's gone. Now just the regular barcode.

I've never even seen a printed book with a 90000 addition code except from D2D proofs. They refuse to remove it or let us do the barcode, which we do elsewhere with 4 other POD suppliers. Even Amazon doesn't require the 90000 code on KDP formerly Create Space.

It must be a USA thing, but we don't even want D2D to distribute paperbacks in the USA.

[JSWolf]

I do have one thing I really dislike. GRAPHIC NOVELS (aka comic books)! I really dislike it when a book series adds in comic books.. That is really annoying. Just stop doing it.