Publisher Lunacy

[leebase]

Alright, I admit...I've generally been on the opposite side of this topic. I haven't thought it was unreasonable for publishers to take control of their pricing. I have not thought publishers were, in general, evil idiots.

However....Tor is just begging for the label of "a company too stupid to stay in business".

I'm a big fan of Orson Scott Card. Love particularly the Ender's Game series. New months and months ago that a new book, "Shadows in Flight" was going to be released. I PREORDERED the kindle book from Amazon. And today I went to my Kindle app....and no book.

I go to the website and see that the hardback was released today, but the kindle book isn't scheduled to be released for another YEAR! WHAT THE F!

I guarantee you that I'll have read an electronic version of that book well before next year. And unlike me, most people who are fans and are equally irate about this....they won't be paying for the book. Me, I'll just PRE-READ the book I PREORDERED and pay for it NEXT FEB.

Lee

[HansTWN]

Next to Stonetools you would be the last person I would have expected to start a thread with a title like that. Perhaps a wake up call? You can argue this issue all day, of course. But it is quite obvious that publishers have not yet fully embraced ebooks and seem to quietly hope they will go away.

[Fbone]

Mr Card said that an "enhanced" ebook will be available in a few weeks for both Kindle and Nook.

Added: With illustrations but abridged.

The full ebook version in 2013.

[tubemonkey]

Instead of pre-reading (I just love these creative euphemisms), you should boycott. Punish both the author and the publisher. Send a message.

[Blue Tyson]

Originally Posted by leebase

Alright, I admit...I've generally been on the opposite side of this topic. I haven't thought it was unreasonable for publishers to take control of their pricing. I have not thought publishers were, in general, evil idiots.

However....Tor is just begging for the label of "a company too stupid to stay in business".

I'm a big fan of Orson Scott Card. Love particularly the Ender's Game series. New months and months ago that a new book, "Shadows in Flight" was going to be released. I PREORDERED the kindle book from Amazon. And today I went to my Kindle app....and no book.

I go to the website and see that the hardback was released today, but the kindle book isn't scheduled to be released for another YEAR! WHAT THE F!

I guarantee you that I'll have read an electronic version of that book well before next year. And unlike me, most people who are fans and are equally irate about this....they won't be paying for the book. Me, I'll just PRE-READ the book I PREORDERED and pay for it NEXT FEB.

Lee

Macmillan n. Useless luddite reactionary publisher.


Tor have been doing no ebook for years. Hardly surprising in their case.

You are certainly right in that for something this popular someone is likely to scan it.

[Kumabjorn]

@leebase
When you have pre-read it I hope you'll inform us. Kind of curious how long it will take.
I have "pre-read" only one book in my life. Dan Brown's "The DaVinci Code" and the only reason for that was that they didn't release the hard cover version in Sweden (deemed too expensive) but decided to wait for the paperback. Hence trying to find it online I actually discovered a PDF version of it that I downloaded and read on the laptop screen. This was pre-Kindle (for me) and it was not a pleasant experience reading on the laptop.
I remember being surprised how fast it was available, and since I could download it for free I couldn't really figure out how pirates where making money off of it.

[darryl]

Publishers are very slow to face the new reality. Their support for Overdrive lending is crumbling, and they are in general less than enthusiastic about EBooks. DRM is ineffective, and I expect will continue to be so except perhaps for short periods before new DRM systems and changes are hacked. All that will probably be achieved by releasing the EBook much later (or not at all) is Pirates (and probably some frustrated ordinary readers) will be put to the trouble of scanning a book and running it through OCR software, a little more work no doubt than simply stripping the DRM but hardly likely to stem the tide.

They would benefit from spending less time on lobbying for ever more draconian laws and more time in trying to come up with a viable business model.

[xg4bx]

it'll probably be scanned and up on the pirate sites within the week.


like i've said before, they do everything in their power to keep you from legally getting the books then whine that pirates are stealing their money. who the bleep wants an "enhanced" version with pages lopped out of it?


how odd that they chose this book though, tor just put out a new dune with the ebook version released the same day. maybe this is something OSC wanted?

[Blue Tyson]

Or they realise that people actually don't want the new 'Dune' book in any format.

[xg4bx]

Originally Posted by Blue Tyson

Or they realise that people actually don't want the new 'Dune' book in any format.

lol i have all the newer Dune books (in paper no less) but i haven't read a single one yet. i'll eventually get to them because i'm curious if they're genuinely bad or if its just a case of fanboys being nitpicky.

[Blue Tyson]

No, they are actually bad. If you have a fire that needs lighting.... ;-)

Also, Kevin J. Anderson is an orders of magnitude worse novelist than Frank Herbert. Writes some decent short stories - but the rest? Ugh.

[avantman42]

Originally Posted by xg4bx

how odd that they chose this book though, tor just put out a new dune with the ebook version released the same day. maybe this is something OSC wanted?

It may have been released the same day, but in the UK at least, the e-book is more expensive (on Amazon, the e-book is £6.99, the paperback is £5.99. I haven't checked any other stores)

The new Dune books really aren't very good, but I may end up buying it eventually. I'm beginning to think that I may be an addict

[leebase]

Originally Posted by xg4bx

lol i have all the newer Dune books (in paper no less) but i haven't read a single one yet. i'll eventually get to them because i'm curious if they're genuinely bad or if its just a case of fanboys being nitpicky.

I read Dune: the Sisterhood, and enjoyed it. Then again, I've enjoyed all of the series.

Lee

[elemenoP]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Mr Card said that an "enhanced" ebook will be available in a few weeks for both Kindle and Nook.

Added: With illustrations but abridged.

The full ebook version in 2013.

This is even more baffling: enhanced... AND abridged?? Aren't those terms kind of opposites? What could they possibly be thinking?

Oh I've got it. They are thinking that the fanboys will buy the HC AND the enhanced/abridged ebook now, AND the full ebook later?

eP

[Ninjalawyer]

Here's an appropriate quote from Tim O'Reily on his online publishing experience:

In my experience at O'Reilly, the losses due to piracy are far outweighed by the benefits of the free flow of information, which makes the world richer, and develops new markets for legitimate content. Most of the people who are downloading unauthorized copies of O'Reilly books would never have paid us for them anyway; meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of others are buying content from us, many of them in countries that we were never able to do business with when our products were not available in digital form.

History shows us, again and again, that frontiers are lawless places, but that as they get richer and more settled, they join in the rule of law. American publishing, now the largest publishing industry in the world, began with piracy.

Hopefully these things percolate through to other publishers within the next decade or so, and they realize they're just leaving money on the table by not putting out a digital version of their books.