Geographic restriction
I'd agree that geographic restrictions are crazy, but we have to understand that there will be a transitionary period between traditional and "modern" publishing.
It is much more profitable currently for authors and their agents to sell their right to the highest bidder in each territory rather than to one publisher for worldwide rights. It is then up to the individual publisahers as to whether they make the books available in eBook formats.
This may not change anytime soon as the industry is so used to this model. What we may have though, is savvy authors selling the digital rights to their books to an internet based publiaher or retaining them for non-exclusive distribution themselves.
All this will take time, but we the readers can play an important part by posting on sites like this about what we want. Believe it or not, the powers that be do occassionally listen!
|