Charlotte MacLeod at BoB and BN!!!!

[phenomshel]

I am so happy I can barely type! Charlotte MacLeod is one of my all time favorite authors, right on up there with Barbara Michaels/Elizabeth Peters. I just received my weekly Books on Board email, and what do I see, but "The Balloon Man", one of Ms. MacLeod's Sarah and Max Bittersohn mysteries, due for release on the 19th!! As far as I know, this is the first of her books available anywhere electronically. I checked, and Barnes and Noble has it too, although oddly enough, Amazon does not.

I tracked down contact information for the listed publisher, which seems to be Grand Central Publishing, one of the Hachette imprints. I dashed off an email begging them to release the rest of her backlist, and SOON.

Off to preorder!!

[AnemicOak]

Odd that they're releasing the last book first. I wonder if they have the rights for all of them or just some.

[phenomshel]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Odd that they're releasing the last book first. I wonder if they have the rights for all of them or just some.

Yes, it is odd, but you know, sadly enough, I'm getting used to publishers releasing series with "holes" in them . I hope they have all the rights and will release the rest of her books ASAP. I haven't heard back from the email I sent to the listed publisher. Will update if I do hear from them.

[JSWolf]

Personally, I will not purchase any eBooks in a series if the series has holes in it. I think it's just telling publishers that it's ok to have series with holes.

[phenomshel]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Personally, I will not purchase any eBooks in a series if the series has holes in it. I think it's just telling publishers that it's ok to have series with holes.

Jon, you know I love you hon, and I admire you beyond words for your adherence to principal. However, if I did that, with the mysteries I read, I'd never get to replace many, many, of my treasured older series that I had in physical form that got left in Texas during my move (looong story, suffice to say ex was not going to pay for shipping to IL!!). So I take what I can get and write a LOT of emails and make a LOT of phone calls to publishers.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by phenomshel

Jon, you know I love you hon, and I admire you beyond words for your adherence to principal. However, if I did that, with the mysteries I read, I'd never get to replace many, many, of my treasured older series that I had in physical form that got left in Texas during my move (looong story, suffice to say ex was not going to pay for shipping to IL!!). So I take what I can get and write a LOT of emails and make a LOT of phone calls to publishers.

What I try to do with series that have holes in them is see if overdrive has them and if they do, does my library have them and if not, make a request for them. That way I can read the eBooks without having to actually pay for them. For example, I just requested from one of my local libraries the Spencer eBooks. They did purchase them. And the series does have a lot of holes. So to read the series, it'll be a combination of eBook and pBook (from the library)

If you do get email addresses for Charlotte and her publisher, please post them in this thread. I'll help out by writing to them asking for all the rest of the books come out as eBook adn why I'm not purchasing what's already out.

[phenomshel]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

What I try to do with series that have holes in them is see if overdrive has them and if they do, does my library have them and if not, make a request for them. That way I can read the eBooks without having to actually pay for them. For example, I just requested from one of my local libraries the Spencer eBooks. They did purchase them. And the series does have a lot of holes. So to read the series, it'll be a combination of eBook and pBook (from the library)

If you do get email addresses for Charlotte and her publisher, please post them in this thread. I'll help out by writing to them asking for all the rest of the books come out as eBook adn why I'm not purchasing what's already out.

Hon, Charlotte has been dead since 2005 . Her books are out of print (hers are series I had high hopes of getting hold of through the Google book settlement). She had Alzheimer's toward the end, and all I can hope for is she spent her last days happily in the company of her book's characters. Wikipedia gives no information about who now holds her copyrights.

The publisher listed at BoB for The Balloon Man is Grand Central Publishing, an imprint of Hachette. I just did a Google search and used the customer service email listed for Grand Central. I appreciate greatly your offer to email and add your voice to mine about getting her books completely re released in electronic formats.

[rogue_librarian]

Just for the record, http://mysteriouspress.com/ has done what appears to be a full set of MacLeod's books.

[AlexBell]

Thank you both for the information and links. She's one of my favourite authors, and I had no idea her books were available in ebook format

[HarryT]

They seem to be rather expensive. Just looked at the first one, "Rest You Merry", and it's £7.41 on Amazon UK. For comparison, £6.99 is a standard full-price UK paperback price.

[rogue_librarian]

Speaking of "Rest You Merry", list price seems to be USD 9.99, Sony has them for USD 7.99, B&N for USD 8.49. Kobo claims a list price of EUR 11,99 (!), that translates to USD 15.77,
and has them for EUR 8,03, Amazon.de for EUR 7.20 (USD 9.50 / GBP 5.90)

Either way, certainly expensive for a book that was first released in 1978.