A bit of help and I'll be entirely digital

[TFeldt]

Salutations all. Hopefully I'm not being rude by asking a question, and possibly a problematic one, as my first post. (Very) Long story short; despite disposing of books that I didn't truly enjoy I've amassed a small library.

About ten years ago I began reading books digitally and immediately decided that this was the way to go. I've been slowly picking up digital versions of my physical books whenever the publishers favored me with a desired title. Thanks to the e-book boom in the last number of years I'm happy to say that I've managed to replace almost all of the books. My shelves are almost empty! Almost..

That will have to do as an introduction. Now then, to the question. Below is a list of the few books that I've yet to find replacements for. At this point it's become almost like a quest, despite not being overly fond of the Alien series it would be nice to replace -all- the books instead of -most-.

Has anyone seen any of these books available anywhere? Please say you have, pretty please.

Aliens: DNA War by Diane Carey
Aliens: No exit by B. K. Evenson
Aliens: Steel egg by John Shirley
Bareback by Kit Whitfield
Subterranean by John Shirley
Pretty much anything by Nick Perumov in english. I've got the physical books in swedish but I just can't seem to find ebooks in english (or swedish for that matter).

There's also a grip of Lovecraftian books written by acolytes and aspiring mythos writers but those are slowly cropping up on kindle as time goes by. Have to admit that I find it somewhat amusing that the movie / comic licensed works are the ones that have turned out to be the most difficult to find, must be a rights issue.

[ATimson]

Originally Posted by TFeldt

Aliens: DNA War by Diane Carey
Aliens: No exit by B. K. Evenson
Aliens: Steel egg by John Shirley

Originally Posted by TFeldt

Have to admit that I find it somewhat amusing that the movie / comic licensed works are the ones that have turned out to be the most difficult to find, must be a rights issue.

Normally you'd be right - generally, once the license runs out they can't go and print new copies in the same format, much less release it in a new one. However, Dark Horse Comics still has the license; they just haven't released any of their novels as ebooks yet (not even non-licensed ones).

[DiapDealer]

Have you "read" every single ebook before you got rid of the original? I know I've come across several ebooks that could never qualify as a replacement for the original... by any stretch of the imagination. I'd check them all carefully before ditching/selling/donating the originals.

[wannabee]

and make back ups

[Nahgem]

Where are you shopping from? It might be a location rights problem because Bareback/Benighted is available from Amazon (US and UK), B&N, Sony, and Kobo. Great taste, by the way. It's one of my all-time favorites.

[carpetmojo]

I still can't find a copy of "In the Heat of the Night" in UK - please don't say copia, I've given up on them.............

[TFeldt]

Originally Posted by ATimson

However, Dark Horse Comics still has the license; they just haven't released any of their novels as ebooks yet (not even non-licensed ones).

Bizarre really. One would think that comic book publishers in particular would be more welcoming to new distribution channels for their assets. Many thanks for the heads up, I would probably have continued searching for those since I simply assumed (and you know what they say about assumptions) they would be available somewhere.

and make back ups

Excellent advice. I've got both redundant on-site and off-site backup due to the nature of my work. Rest assured, my books are safe. And thanks to the advent of DRM circumvention I'm also fairly confident that I'll be able to read them in 20 years time. Unless those darn wetjack drm-chips become mandatory..

Have you "read" every single ebook before you got rid of the original? I know I've come across several ebooks that could never qualify as a replacement for the original... by any stretch of the imagination. I'd check them all carefully before ditching/selling/donating the originals.

You're entirely right, unfortunately. During a desperate time in my quest I actually took the time to manually correct several of the books I'd bought. Some books I had to buy three times because the first digital version I bought looked like a pdf composed of images, the text wasn't even OCR'ed. That was in the dawn of my ebook crusade, however, and you might imagine how favorable I am to Calibre which makes maintenance and conversion a cinch.

Where are you shopping from? It might be a location rights problem because Bareback/Benighted is available from Amazon (US and UK)

Hah! You're right! I could have sworn I'd checked the kindle store but I must have been logged into the UK version (sweden can only buy kindle books from the US store, not the UK, which makes absolutely no sense to anyone but region restrictors since it's the UK books we get in physical stores here).

Fantastic, that's the last book I truly love on the list, the rest I can wait until Dark horse releases them as noted by ATimson above. Does anyone know if Perumov's books have even been released as ebooks? It feels like chasing a unicorn, there's references to it everywhere, some even claim to have seen it but I'll be darned if I can find it.

[anamardoll]

You might try the Inkmesh search engine. I've had good luck with them.

Also, hail to you, fellow Aliens novel reader. I've got the whole set in pBook, though I wouldn't replace most of them in eBook. For every one shining gem, there are three turds in that set, I swear.

[ATimson]

Originally Posted by TFeldt

Bizarre really. One would think that comic book publishers in particular would be more welcoming to new distribution channels for their assets.

Were it just distribution, probably. But ebooks also requires creating new assets - and new licenses in many cases - so it's not as easy to start with as one might hope.

[TFeldt]

Originally Posted by ATimson

Were it just distribution, probably. But ebooks also requires creating new assets - and new licenses in many cases - so it's not as easy to start with as one might hope.

True enough, but that's a hurdle every new venture has to overcome. The major time sink in any content creation industry is the development of the content itself. Everything else, packaging, formatting, distribution, advertisement, et cetera is secondary to it. There's exceptions to this rule of course, the saying "All glitter and no substance." comes to mind, especially concerning overly dramatic advertising campaigns.

Once you've got the content ready the finished product is comparatively few steps away. Even if they had to start up an entirely new division to deal specifically with ebooks it would be nothing compared to the time it took to create the original content that they want to rework into new assets. That's what strikes me as surprising, ignoring this (again comparatively) cheap new distribution medium makes little fiscal sense in the long run.

No matter, for all I know they've got every single ebook ready to go, they're just waiting for the paint to dry on the digital covers. Here's hoping it's sooner rather than later.

[TFeldt]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

You might try the Inkmesh search engine. I've had good luck with them.

Also, hail to you, fellow Aliens novel reader. I've got the whole set in pBook, though I wouldn't replace most of them in eBook. For every one shining gem, there are three turds in that set, I swear.

This thread has turned into a veritable goldmine. Had never heard of the inkmesh engine before, much obliged mate.

Your ratio for the alien series is pretty darn close to my own. I'm "lucky" (I suppose) that I borrowed most of the ones I read and only bought three. Or maybe I'm unlucky, if I had just read the crappy ones I doubt I'd still be spending time trying to get ebook replacements for them.