[frquixote]

Arthur C Clarke has been my favorite SciFi author since long before 2001 The Movie.

I was very much looking forward to buying the entire 32 volume collection put out by Rosetta Books by using the B&N Christmas gift cards I receive each year from my grown children. Unfortunately, when I looked at my Wish List a few weeks ago I discovered that all of the A C Clarke books were showing a status of: "A new copy is not available from Barnes & Noble.com at this time."

I Immediately contacted B&N via email and received a reply that told me to send a list of the books I was concerned about. I did and haven't heard from them since. I also contacted Rosetta Books at the time and received no reply at all.

Last night I sent a second round of queries and received a reply from Maxine Schweitzer, VP, Finance at Rosetta Books today. She advised that "(u)nfortunately, the Arthur C. Clarke titles are currently a Kindle exclusive and not available through any other e-tailers. " I guess that means their agreement with B&N has been cancelled and they are no longer offering the books in ePub format.

I just can't say how disappointed I am with this without getting thrown off MobileRead! It seems like the works of many of my favorite authors from the 1950's through 1970's are being locked up by Amazon. I'd love to have Arthur C Clarke's books on my reader when I travel, but I refuse to be forced into buying a Kindle or a backlit tablet and I don't know enough about the Kindle ecology to be comfortable with the process for freeing the books using Apprentice Alf-enhanced Calibre.