Trend or fluke?

[ghostwheel]

I am currently reading Gene Wolfe's The Wizard Knight (excellent book till now).
The book is somewhat on the heavy side (~2 phonbooks worth), so I thought I'd also get it in electronic form. Since I only get a version I can convert to any future reader I'll own, I only buy DRM books in .lit format. A short search revealed that the book was available in lit format from fictionwise
http://www.mslit.com/details.asp?bookid=0312712006
but not anymore, it seems:
http://www.fictionwise.com/eBooks/eBook20074.htm?cache
It is, however available for the kindle (at $7.99 much cheaper than the $19.95 for the fictionwise version), and also for the sony reader (here for $13.96).
Did people notice a similar trend? Are books disappearing from fictionwise in lit and other formats?

[Lemurion]

Good question, I hope not.

[HarryT]

Extrapolating a "trend" from one data point is perhaps a little unwise . We'll have to wait and see.

[AnemicOak]

Tor is kinda in limbo right now as far as ebooks go. The one's they do have out are generally very high priced and many of them were only out for a while before being pulled. It looks like they do have some kind of deal with Amazon for some titles. Rumor is that some form of the deal they had with Webscriptions is back on once the lawyers get through.


It looks like you can get the book you linked to in Mobi format still, but at the higher (based on HC) price. Note that the second half, The Wizard, doesn't appear to be available as an ebook anywhere.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ghostwheel

I am currently reading Gene Wolfe's The Wizard Knight (excellent book till now).
The book is somewhat on the heavy side (~2 phonbooks worth), so I thought I'd also get it in electronic form. Since I only get a version I can convert to any future reader I'll own, I only buy DRM books in .lit format. A short search revealed that the book was available in lit format from fictionwise
http://www.mslit.com/details.asp?bookid=0312712006
but not anymore, it seems:
http://www.fictionwise.com/eBooks/eBook20074.htm?cache
It is, however available for the kindle (at $7.99 much cheaper than the $19.95 for the fictionwise version), and also for the sony reader (here for $13.96).
Did people notice a similar trend? Are books disappearing from fictionwise in lit and other formats?

Sometimes publishers pull eBooks. It's happened before.

The odd thing is The Wizard is not available at all in any format. So why even have book 1 when there is no book 2?

[Taylor514ce]

To force a sale of the hard-cover book 2, of course.

[Liviu_5]

Originally Posted by Taylor514ce

To force a sale of the hard-cover book 2, of course.

I am not so sure since right now the new hc Wizard is selling at a remainder price of 4.99 on Amazon, while a used like new tpb can be had for 4$ (including sh).

Just leaving revenue on the table..

[HarryT]

It's even sillier when the latter part of a series is available as an eBook, but not the earlier part of it. Eg, books 4 and 5 and David Eddings' "Belgariad" series are available as an eBook, but not books 1-3.

[Elsi]

Originally Posted by HarryT

It's even sillier when the latter part of a series is available as an eBook, but not the earlier part of it. Eg, books 4 and 5 and David Eddings' "Belgariad" series are available as an eBook, but not books 1-3.

My ongoing complaint to the publishers. I did send a note to Amazon pointing out that I had found an intriguing book in their Kindle catalog which was #4 in a series. But since #1-3 are not available, they're losing 4 book sales, not just one. It does look like the catalog is slowly filling up with older books. I definitely want to collect many of my "all time favorites".