[SF/F]Out of Print works as eBooks...

[jaxx6166]

Just found this on A Dribble of Ink

Introducing Wizard’s Tower Press
Wizard’s Tower Press is a new small press publisher specializing in science fiction, fantasy and related literature. Founded by Hugo Award winning critic, Cheryl Morgan, the company aims to do the following:
Make long out of print works available again as e-books
Help authors and small presses exploit the e-book market
Publish anthologies highlighting new and minority writers
Publish an online literary review magazine, Salon Futura, which will launch at this year’s World Science Fiction Convention
Much has been written of late about the impact of e-books on the publishing business. Regardless of their impact on new titles, however, there can be little doubt that they provide a cheap, low risk means of making books available to the public. For books that are long out of print, this is an attractive option. Sadly much of what has been done so far has had low quality standards. Scanning and automated conversion alone result in an inferior product that gives e-books a bad name. Wizard’s Tower Press aims to ensure that all of its books are properly proofread and corrected before publication.
Markets such as the Kindle and iBooks are simple ways to bring e-books to market, but their catalogs are already vast and growing quickly. To sell effectively, a specialist genre requires a dedicated online market where readers will find the sort of books they are looking for, and where publishers can effectively promote their wares to their target audience. Wizard’s Tower will be happy to provide such a service to any e-book, whether they publish it or not.
A key element of the Wizard’s Tower strategy will be Salon Futura, a monthly online literary review magazine that will highlight the best and most interesting releases in the science fiction and fantasy fields. The magazine is currently open to submissions for critical articles, book review articles and cover art. Initial pay rates will be 5c/word, up to a maximum of 2000 words. The first issue will be available at the 2010 World Science Fiction Convention (Aussiecon 4) in Melbourne, Australia (September 2010).
Everyone involved in Wizard’s Tower loves physical books too. Very small presses cannot compete effectively with large, multinational publishing houses when it comes to novels, but we do aim to publish a limited number of special interest anthologies. Our first publication will be Dark Spires, a collection of fantastic stories from the Wessex region of England edited by Colin Harvey. It is scheduled to be launched at BristolCon in Bristol, UK on November 6th 2010. It will also be available as an e-book.
Wizard’s Tower press is owned and managed by Cheryl Morgan and based in the UK. Cheryl has won two Hugo awards for her online writing. She is the non-fiction editor for the Hugo, World Fantasy and Locus Award nominated Clarkesworld Magazine. Cheryl is also a director of San Francisco Science Fiction Conventions Inc, and of the Association for the Recognition of Excellence in SF & F Translation.
For further information please email info@wizardstowerpress.com or visit the website at http://wizardstowerpress.com/

Good news for SF/F fans of out of print works...anyone have any input on this?

[Clancy_s]

Sounds interesting - as far as I can see they're not actually selling books yet, I'll certainly keep an eye on them.

[starrigger]

Interesting. Sounds like their niche (in terms of books) will overlap with E-reads, Bookview Cafe, and a few others. And for that matter, with some authors bringing their own o.p. titles back by directly publishing through Amazon and others.

[falchion]

Just had a look at the web site - parts of it are still under construction. Looks as if it could an interesting source of ebooks when it gets going.
I' ll keep an eye on it from time to time

[Worldwalker]

One of my projects, as availability and money permit, is to replace or supplement a lot of my dead tree fiction with ebooks. I love books, and I would love to own a paper book of every book I've ever read (at least, the ones that don't suck, aren't by authors named S.L. Viehl, etc.), but the sheer volume of books involved is reaching terrifying levels. I am starting to worry about the floors. So any source of SF reprints looks to be a good thing, assuming that they are: 1) reasonably priced (Baen prices, not Agency Cartel prices), and 2) DRM-free. So I'm hoping ....

In an ideal world, they'd sell Hugh Walters books. My library didn't have all of them when I was a kid.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by starrigger

Interesting. Sounds like their niche (in terms of books) will overlap with E-reads, Bookview Cafe, and a few others. And for that matter, with some authors bringing their own o.p. titles back by directly publishing through Amazon and others.

Kinda sounds like it.

There's also A Writers Work and Closed Circle. I wouldn't be surprised to see more author consortiums like these pop up.

[HamsterRage]

That does look like a good idea. This is clearly an area where there can be some big wins for both authors and readers, just because the overhead to get an ebook distributed is so low.

I can see them spending a lot of time dealing with legal and copyright issues, though.

[nyrath]

There are some out-of-print F/SF books on Project Gutenberg, but for the most part they are pre-1930.

[Ravensknight]

I think this a great beginning idea. We'll have to wait and see how it matures and IF it works. Bookmarking and hoping though :-D

edit:

After looking over their site, I have to wonder, WHY do they even have a site yet? I went over expecting a bit more than some colors on a under construction website. Get some licensed material, get it ready for sale, THEN open the site.

[pwalker8]

It does seem like several authors have this idea, but don't follow through with it. Like WorldWalker, my goal is to replace all my dead tree books with ebooks. I have on the order of 500 books in both formats (all paid for btw) and have several thousand more to replace. So, for example, I would love to get a number of CJ Cherryh's books, especcially the Morginne series. Alas, though they have had the web site up for a while, so far, they seem rather reluctant to actually put any of the major backlist books up for sale. I don't know if it's a contract thing, or a "I'm afraid to put my best books up" thing, or a this is on the back burner thing.

Moorcock is starting to release his books in ebook format (first author whose books I purchased with my own hard earned money. 75 cents was a lot of money in 1974 when I was 14 making $10 a week tutoring.). Lackey is starting to release many of her non Baen books also, as is Pournelle and Kurtz. If this particular company can round up some of the mid list authors from the 70's, 80's and 90's, such as Brian Dailey, Gemmell and Roberson, as well as some of the big name authors who have passed away (Zelazny for example), then they could make a ton.

[Worldwalker]

Originally Posted by Ravensknight

After looking over their site, I have to wonder, WHY do they even have a site yet? I went over expecting a bit more than some colors on a under construction website.

There's no there there. This is why I'm writing a book on website design: To smack people like this upside th' haid with. You do not, do not, launch your site until you've got something on it. Something that your users want, that is, not your mission statement or other corprobabble that nobody but your CEO cares about. And no user should ever, ever, ever see an "under construction" page. If a page doesn't exist yet, then the link should be either grayed out or not there. Otherwise, you're teaching your users that your site is a collection of dead links. So even when you do eventually have content on those pages, most people who've been there before and found nothing but "under construction" notices won't bother to go back.

Before I learned the right question to ask them, I would ask clients "What do you want your website to do?" The answer, almost universally, was "Tell people about our company." The problem is this: nobody but you gives a fig about your company. If you go to a bookstore website, do you go to read about the company or buy the books? I'd venture a guess that it's to buy books ... so if all you can do is read about the company, your mental tag will be "nothing there for me" and they'll have to try twice as hard to get you back there ever again.

You wouldn't think this stuff was rocket surgery...

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

The answer, almost universally, was "Tell people about our company." The problem is this: nobody but you gives a fig about your company. If you go to a bookstore website, do you go to read about the company or buy the books? I'd venture a guess that it's to buy books ... so if all you can do is read about the company, your mental tag will be "nothing there for me" and they'll have to try twice as hard to get you back there ever again.

You wouldn't think this stuff was rocket surgery...

It is
Artists are busy making it Pretty/Wow!/Flashy
Programmers are busy doing Really Kewel web tricks
and the all miss the point, that was epitomized in the ancient TV Ad: "Show me the Beef".

If you are selling Product (as opposed to WW's, the company is selling themselves model),
Make the products easy to Locate, Support (full docs) and Purchase (or find a retailer).

As much as I hate Amazon's locking up e-ditions from non-kindle users, They got the store part closest to date: Find, Support and Buy all pretty easy (in the USA).

[afa]

I think this is a good idea, assuming they actually make available books that I would care to read.

I've been trying in vain to find ebooks for the first trilogies of Glen Cook's The Black Company and Stephen R. Donaldson's The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. No one seems to have it. At least no one I've checked with, though if anyone here has any idea on where I can get it, please do point me in the right direction.

[Clancy_s]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I would love to get a number of CJ Cherryh's books, especcially the Morginne series.

My reading of the notes was that she doesn't have the erights to anything except her very early work and what she's writing now...

[pwalker8]

If that's the case, then she doesn't have much to sale. The last Morgaine omniobus was published 10 years ago. It seems very odd that the rights would not have reverted back to her by now.