Any idea why Arthur Hailey and Michael Crichton ebooks are so few?

[outlander78]

I have been looking for ebook versions of two of my favourite authors, Arthur Hailey and Michael Crichton, and can't understand why only one book Hailey's books (Hotel) and only eight of Christon's (even Jurassic Park is missing) are available.

Any idea? Is there a story behind this, rights disputes perhaps, or just publishers failing to get books into the new format?

[Namekuseijin]

they hate pirates.

[CWatkinsNash]

Originally Posted by Namekuseijin

they hate pirates.

The only Crichton ebook my library has is _Pirate Latitudes_.

[bill_mchale]

I don't have any idea about Hailey, but I would guess that in Crichton's case, it probably has to do with when he died. He died near the end of 2008, just when ebooks were really starting to break into the main stream. I expect with a lot of his older novels, including Jurassic Park, that it might not be clear if the ebook rights are held by the estates or by the publisher. Probate issues can take years to resolve. I expect most if not all of his novels will end up there eventually.

--
Bill

[Dulin's Books]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

I expect most if not all of his novels will end up there eventually.

--
Bill

Death plus....

[CWatkinsNash]

Originally Posted by Dulin's Books

Death plus....

Wasn't Pirate Latitudes contracted for publishing after his death? This might be a stretch, but if that's true, I suspect that his estate is probably negotiating the digital rights or sorting out the existing contracts on his other works as Bill suggests.

(Of course, if the discovery of the book after his death was a publicity stunt and it was actually already contracted, then it could mean nothing.)

[mr ploppy]

There isn't many James Herbert or Harry Harrison ebooks either.

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by Dulin's Books

Death plus....

...infinity and beyond.

If the Mouse has its way.

[JeremyR]

Plus, it's probably also like why isn't Airport '75 out on Blu-Ray?

Because the people who own the publishing rights don't think it will make them enough money to be worth it. While both were insanely popular for a while, that actually kind of hurts, because used book copies are a dime a dozen (almost probably literally).

And since the original author is dead, there's likely no one really pushing for it on that end.

[outlander78]

CD's got people to re-purchase their tape and vinyl music collections, DVD's got people to re-purchase their VHS and Beta collections, and Blu-Ray has to some extent got people to buy for a third time. eBooks can do the same for publishers.

What I am getting at is that I hope that every publisher has, or will have, a room full of low-cost interns or staff trying to get every bit of value out of their vaults in the form of ebooks. I don't know how well-known Hailey is, but surely Crichton is a household name that transcends the book market?

I'm having a down day, though, and I suspect your life+70+mouse guess is more accurate. Sigh.

[bla]

Dunno... I have 9 Critchon books in pdf format on my pc..old archive have no idea where they came from... likely Usenet

[curtw]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

...infinity and beyond.

If the Mouse has its way.

I wish I could get my local congresscritter to care about this, so that the next time there's a 'Sonny Bono' style extension proposed, somebody will have the cojones to point out that Disney has now had copyright protection on their version of Alice in Wonderland for a longer period of time than Lewis Carrol had on his original! (60 years for Walt; 42 for Rev. Dodgson). Under what system of laws does this make any sense at all?

[Russell Brooks]

In my opinion, traditional publishers don't like the idea of ebooks because they would be in competition with Indie authors who can afford to price their books a lot less. In addition, I believe that they don't like ebooks as much because they hurt all of their paperback and hardcover sales, which are being squashed by ebook sales.

[Pinecone]

Some authors are starting to have more and more of their books come out in e format. Heinlein had a few a year ago, but many more have come out in the past year. A few just last week or so.

But there are some strange holes. Like John Sanford, pretty much everything he wrote is available E, except The Empress Files. Richard Herman, his later books were out, but not the earlier ones. But then the early ones came out, but missing two mid-later ones. Clive Cussler, Dirk Pitt #1 and #3 were out a while ago, but a big hole to the next one.

Dick Francis, they come out in batches, working backwards from the latest ones.

I think later books are easier, since there were probably handled pretty muc in electronic form. Earlier books, were all manual, hard copy, so they have to be converted to e format.

[jbcohen]

wow I was not aware that Michael Creighton was not longer with us. Try a few of these authors - Boyd Morrison, Greg Bear, Bill Evans or my personal favorite RJ Pineiro.