Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken Maltby
Take the example of Lawrence Watt-Evans and his "Obsidian Chronicles" series; He is a very savvy internet user with ebooks released through many outlets, and yet for this series you can only find the first book in the series available as an ebook. The rest of the trilogy is only available in paperback or hardback.
Much of what I've seen at Baen Books follows a similar pattern, with only some parts of series available for purchase as an ebook.
As a reader and ebook purchaser I find this a deliberate slap in the face by the author, and a very odd and cynical move on their part.
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Lawrence Watt-Evans doesn't have the rights or control to release certain of his books in e-editions, and then it becomes up to the publisher to do so, which they often don't.
He's previously blogged in the past about how he wished the two "missing" Ethshar books right in the middle of the series (which also happen to be out of print) were available because he's well aware that they kind of screw the reading order for his fans (especially since one of them is an important linking volume that's part of a major story arc involving the warlocks).
But unlike the early rights-reverted ones he took to Wildside (who did e-editions), and the latest ones he writes via a subscription model on his website (which then get picked up and paper/e-printed by Wildside as well), he can't release them himself because Tor or whoever it was who bought the series after he moved over from Del Rey/Ballantine either has no plans to release e-versions/isn't returning the rights.
In Baen's case, the guy who managed most of their Webscription activity died last year and it turned out he was doing a lot of the associated work on a basically volunteer basis, so they'd been scrambling to replace him, and it costs to bring books older than Webscriptions (which dates back to 1999, IIRC) back into e-print simply due to different file formats and such which have to be converted over.
They are slowly filling in the gaps for some of the series by the really popular authors with moderately high demand (some of those Mercedes Lackey books, and some Anne McCaffrey stuff, for example). And Baen has had to remove books from their old Webscription bundles because the authors have withdrawn distribution rights, planning their own releases now that the market is growing (Doranna Durgin, Holly Lisle, and probably some others I haven't noticed).