Thread: Ebooks high prices - the reasons beyond
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Old 01-12-2009, 12:03 AM   #95
starrigger
Jeffrey A. Carver
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nate the great View Post
Yes, actually. Why couldn't TOR have started selling ebooks last year? What about the year before? Or the one before that?

Most of the other publishers I want to buy from were already trying to sell ebooks 2 and 3 years ago. Why is it taking TOR so long to figure out what everyone else seems to know? Why did TOR screw around the last 3 years?

TOR has no system in place to release current ebooks at the same time as paper. They are the one major publisher that has no system, not a good one, not a bad one, but none at all. What makes you think the system will magically appear when the ebooks are on Webscription (Baen's website)? Why couldn't TOR have started creating the system last year, or the year before?


BTW, I'm not asking for cheap or DRM free. I just want to be able to _buy_ the ebooks. I have no confidence that TOR will accomplish that.
I can't answer why Tor didn't start sooner on ebook sales, but it's clear they're serious about it now. I sat one evening working with the man who is overseeing the effort. I'm fairly certain that one obstacle to be overcome is that Tor is part of MacMillan USA, and their planned ebook store will be part of or coordinated with the MacMillan ebook store. (Or so I was told.) I never said anything about books magically appearing when they're tied into Baen webscription, though that is part of their plan--that Baen will be one of their distributors, or retailers. (And please note that even at Baen, things don't always move as efficiently as one might like.)

Obviously, I wish the Tor ebook project would move faster, because my own book is caught up in the delay. And if it's delayed much longer, I'll be pretty unhappy about it. So do I wish they were pushing harder? Yes. But do I believe they will get it going? Yes.

That said, I'll just note that more than one person at Tor expressed the feeling to me that the Mobileread community is sometimes...well, let's just say, less than constructive in supporting their efforts. (Note--the MR community has been great to me, and I share some of the frustration voiced here--but I'm telling you how MR is seen by some at Tor.)

(Why did I even get into this? If I'm smart, I'll leave this topic alone, because I'm not sure I'm contributing anything constructive to it.)
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