Limited edition ebooks

[outlander78]

Have you tried emailing the author to ask why their ebook is sold that way, and what your options are? I have found some authors and publishers to be happy to exchange polite email, especially when your underlying question is "how can I give you money?"

[elcreative]

Bloodletting Press do signed, limited edition hardbacks and some paperbacks... no ebooks... if Amazon had an ebook offering for it, I guess it or its database made a mistake...

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

This is the one I wanted, I had it in my Kindle wishlist but didn't want to buy it until I had a gap in my reading schedule. But now that the book has sold all its 400 copies the ebook has been withdrawn.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hero-J-F-Gonzalez/dp/1935006029

The parrot on my shoulder is no help either.

[bbqncigars]

The only limited edition I've purchased was a DTB. It was a limited run that involved a lot of expert hand labor in both the exquisite binding and the old-style marbleized paper edges. That's a book that is a joy to all the senses. A "limited edition ebook" is an oxymoron.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by outlander78

Have you tried emailing the author to ask why their ebook is sold that way, and what your options are? I have found some authors and publishers to be happy to exchange polite email, especially when your underlying question is "how can I give you money?"

He said it is no longer available and the only option is to buy the hardback on the secondary market.

I don't really understand this business strategy. If you limit the number of potential readers how do you grow your reader/fanbase? I don't know what sort of deal you would get with small publishers, but even assuming you get 50% of retail that would still only make about $8,000 per book. And this one was written by two people, so they would only get half of that each.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by elcreative

Bloodletting Press do signed, limited edition hardbacks and some paperbacks... no ebooks... if Amazon had an ebook offering for it, I guess it or its database made a mistake...

Darkside Digital had it as well, it was actually one of their best selling ebooks for a while. All the other ebooks they still sell are on Amazon too.

[WillAdams]

Well, an old precedent for this would have been William Gibson's _ AGRIPPA, A Book of the Dead_ --- to be fair, it was a self-encrypting floppy disk, bundled in cloth printed in such a way as to begin to degrade when exposed to light:

http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/source/source.asp

William

[CWatkinsNash]

Originally Posted by WillAdams

Well, an old precedent for this would have been William Gibson's _ AGRIPPA, A Book of the Dead_ --- to be fair, it was a self-encrypting floppy disk, bundled in cloth printed in such a way as to begin to degrade when exposed to light:

http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/source/source.asp

William

That's actually kind of a cool idea. I was thinking last night about ways to add "packaging" to the ebook for something like this. It may seem a little silly because for many, the great thing about ebooks is easy and instant availability (restrictions notwithstanding). But I'd totally buy into something like a series distributed on a limited edition USB keychain or something like that.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by CWatkinsNash

That's actually kind of a cool idea. I was thinking last night about ways to add "packaging" to the ebook for something like this. It may seem a little silly because for many, the great thing about ebooks is easy and instant availability (restrictions notwithstanding). But I'd totally buy into something like a series distributed on a limited edition USB keychain or something like that.

Or on a CD in a DVD type case with printed cover. Something like that would bring in people who like to put things on shelves, and give it some resale value to keep the collectors and Ebay flippers happy.