Quote:
Originally Posted by starrigger
I can affirm, because I asked, that the Pangborn books were withdrawn from e-reads by the estate. The truth is that most backlist books sell very poorly in ebook format unless the author is either writing new books or out there actively promoting the older books. A few hundred dollars a month for an old title would be considered a great success. It may be that poor sales were the reason for the withdrawal of the Pangborn books.
I suppose it's also possible that Beagle either dislikes ebooks or has other ideas about how to proceed with them.
For us readers it's a shame, with respect to both authors.
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Withdrawn from e-reads because they thought they could sell more at Amazon or somewhere?
Because withdrawing from sale completely because you are not selling enough is crazy? They seriously expect Pangborn books (old, dated, just another forgotten author of no particular note) to shift lots of copies? If so, then quite possibly there is some nuttery there.
From what some experts say though, there are plenty of delusional in la-la land estates out there that think some 50 year old novel or story should be worth lots of money with no basis in reality at all.
In someone like Beagle's case that has a few dozen short stories (some novellas.) To make 'a few hundred dollars a month' via Amazon, smashwords, fictionwise, and wherever else flows on from that is not that many copies of each, is it?
Apparently with that addition thing, a few hundred a month can add up to a a few thousand a year.
Beagle's best known works of course will take you the usual minute or two to find for nothing if you are so inclined.