No Roger Zelazny ebooks?

[jmilica]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Thanks for the correction, but the point that I was making still stands: that changes to international treaties generally take a very, very long time.

I think the time is slowly becoming faster it has to, considering where we are in the 21 century

[pwalker8]

It can take a long time to modify a treaty, but individual nations can usually opt out after giving notice. I doubt the US would choose to do that since they have more to lose with the mouse in charge, but it's possible.

[Calenorn]

Originally Posted by starrigger

By coincidence, I just happened to be talking to Roger Zelazny's son at Readercon, and he mentioned that many of his father's books were not in ebook because of rights being tied up in old contracts. We were also talking about rights that get tied up in bankruptcy of publishers, and I think that may be a factor here, too. (Not sure about that; we were really talking about something else.)

Anyway, that's undoubtedly why there aren't ebooks of all of Zelazny's work--because the ebook rights are locked up in one way or another, and aren't available to those who might actually make it happen.

Thanks for sharing this. It rings true. Folks weren't thinking about e-books in 1970.

It's a shame, though.

[Calenorn]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

If you read the new edition of Katherine Kurtz's Deryni trilogy, you will see that fans scanned in copies of the first three books and edited it, so she could work from a digital edition, rather than re-type it in by hand. I suspect this is the reason that these three books are available as ebooks, while the rest (with the exception of the last three) are not. This might be a viable solution where the ebook rights have reverted back to the author and the author has a sufficiently dedicated fanbase. Of course, in such cases, I suspect that it's not that uncommon for the rights of those books to still be tied up in contracts.

Katherine Kurtz is another author whose titles I'd gladly pay full retail for as e-books. Some of her later Deryni novels (though exquisitely written) didn't sell well even in their initial release, so I have little hope any publisher will produce them as e-books. Good candidates, maybe, for fan efforts or crowd sourcing.

Unfortunately, Ms. Kurtz has very little internet presence these days. I hope she is in good health.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by Calenorn

Katherine Kurtz is another author whose titles I'd gladly pay full retail for as e-books. Some of her later Deryni novels (though exquisitely written) didn't sell well even in their initial release, so I have little hope any publisher will produce them as e-books. Good candidates, maybe, for fan efforts or crowd sourcing.

Unfortunately, Ms. Kurtz has very little internet presence these days. I hope she is in good health.

I really liked her Deryni books, though some of them were rather depressing. I agree with you on the likelihood of them becoming available. I'm not even sure if some of the Camber books even made it to the darknet.

[andi1235]

Katherine Kurtz is pretty much my favorite author, and it's definitely possible to get her books as ebooks.

The Deryni books are available, as are the Adept series (which she wrote with Deborah Turner Harris.)

A quick search for "Deryni" and "epub" (or Kindle) gets you plenty of places to buy them.

Also, FYI, if you go to deryni.org and look at the KK chat transcripts section of the forums, you can see that KK is doing alright. She's just busy writing, if the chat log is any indication.

[andi1235]

Err, should have read more closely! I see you know about the Deryni books that are available. However, looking at Amazon, it appears that at least a few of the later Deryni books are available beyond the first three, and it's definitely possible to get the Adept books, so it looks like they're coming -- if slowly.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by andi1235

...and it's definitely possible to get the Adept books,

The first three are available, but not the last two (in the US & UK anyway).

[grumbles]

$3000 for 30 hours? $100/hour. You must have civil service type (or union shop) overheads! But assume that your right (I don't think you are, I'll scan a book and proof it for a hell of a lot less. I'm sure that the work could be contracted out to competent people for much less). Add another $500 to get it online. If the publisher sells it to retailers for $5.00 the breakeven point is 700 units. If it was a good, popular book by an established author I doubt if it would be a problem to make money.

More to the point, if you do it you might make some money. If you don't you won't make any money.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by tompe

So what is the cost for that work? Maybe $3000? How many book do you have to sell to get back the cost? 1500-3000? Will really all backlist books sell in these numbers?

I agree with you to a point although if I can scan, proof & make an ePub over my lunch hour for two weeks I'm not sure about the $3000 cost, especially when they're farming it out overseas.

How many they'll sell is definitely a consideration though. Will all of them do well? Of course not, but that's no different than backlist print books and with those they're also having to warehouse them, sometimes for years, until they sell (& for paperbacks writing off some copies and returns on hardcovers).

[HarryT]

SF Gateway seem to have got the process down to a pretty efficient one, now. They don't aim to produce "perfect" books, but their current output is certainly "good enough", and dramatically better than their early releases.

[Fbone]

If you're outsourcing, you need the cash upfront. For a few dozen books that can add up to quite a bit of money. I'm not sure a small publisher has the financial resources. If they have a good cash flow with previous titles selling well, then they may try it but there are risks. Small publishers do fail.

[Jer00n]

So if copyright ends after 50 years, in a few years we will probably start to see Roger's work popping up in eBook form when it enters the public domain.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by Jer00n

So if copyright ends after 50 years, in a few years we will probably start to see Roger's work popping up in eBook form when it enters the public domain.

Actually, copyright is life plus 70 in many places, so we won't see any of his books enter the public domain until at least 2065. (or 2045 in the life plus 50 countries)

Shari

[maddz]

A bit of necromancy here, but if people are interested The Great Book of Amber and other Zelazny titles are available (for the moment!) on the Kindle store. Rumour has that someone is screaming blue murder over this so it may not be available for long...