Backlist conversion slowing down?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by susan_cassidy

Yes, and the other 2 books of the Harper Hall trilogy arent' available at all. The second one has an Audible edition, but I'm not interested in those. Perhaps the "not available" entry means that possibly they are coming? One can but hope. I really want these in Kindle format.

They're all available in the UK. You could pay us a virtual visit and buy them.

[susan_cassidy]

Too much hassle, and I have ethical objections.

[Fbone]

I tried the virtual visit in the past and Amazon caught me. The risk of them closing my account wasn't worth the ebooks I was interested in purchasing.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Fbone

I tried the virtual visit in the past and Amazon caught me. The risk of them closing my account wasn't worth the ebooks I was interested in purchasing.

You need to use an account that has NOTHING to do with your Amazon US account, and pay with gift vouchers. Don't use a credit card.

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You need to use an account that has NOTHING to do with your Amazon US account, and pay with gift vouchers. Don't use a credit card.

Yes, and you may need a VPN and a clean computer. My problem too was I don't own a Kindle. Kindle for PC is country specific and switching back and forth raised red flags.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by crossi

A year or two ago it seemed that there were some of my old favorites converted to ebooks every week. Lately I'm lucky to find any in any given month. Why the slowdown? Could all the easily reacheable authors already had their books converted or could it be problems with estates? A lot of the books I want are from deceased authors: Heron Carvic, David Eddings, Louise Cooper. Other delays like the RiddleMaster by McKillip, or the Blue Sword and Hero and the Crown by McKinley or the Harper Hall triology by McCaffrey I can't explain at all.

The Blue Sword is available. I bought it Feb 7th of this year. As for the rest, I suspect it's a combination of questions about who owns the ebooks rights in the US and the ebook rights owner not being interested in putting it out in ebook format. I have quite a few books that I would buy in a heartbeat if they were available, including most the ones you list. I would throw in all the Zelazny books and The Morgaine series, among others. Some are available in other countries.

[greenapple]

I've been waiting for Arthur Hailey's books to be in e-format like forever. It's been such a long wait now, the hope of seeing them in my life time dwindles with each passing day.

[GeoffR]

What frustrates me is the partially published series with missing books. In some cases I bought the whole rest of the series, and am now waiting on the one missing book to be published before I can read it. I'm a bit more cautious now, but there are a number of already published series that I would buy today if they would just release the missing books. Examples:

Joan D. Vinge's Snow Queen (Books #1,#2 of 4 missing)
Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun (Book #2 of 4 missing)
C. J. Cherryh's Foriegner (Books #4,#5,#6 of 15 missing)

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

What frustrates me is the partially published series with missing books. In some cases I bought the whole rest of the series, and am now waiting on the one missing book to be published before I can read it. I'm a bit more cautious now, but there are a number of already published series that I would buy today if they would just release the missing books. Examples:

Joan D. Vinge's Snow Queen (Books #1,#2 of 4 missing)
Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun (Book #2 of 4 missing)
C. J. Cherryh's Foriegner (Books #4,#5,#6 of 15 missing)

I'm with you on that. For some series, the rights of various books belong to different entities, or are unclear, for others, the publishers just don't seem to care.

[pwalker8]

Coincidentally, I notice that Allen Wold's Rikard Braeth series (Jewels of the Dragon, Crown of the Serpent and Lair of the Cyclops) are now available in ebooks. Just scarfed them up. It's a very nice little series.

[MickiTee]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Yes, and you may need a VPN and a clean computer. My problem too was I don't own a Kindle. Kindle for PC is country specific and switching back and forth raised red flags.

When I set this up, I created a second user account for myself on my PC and set the country to US in Region & Settings from Control Panel. Together with VPN and Paypal it worked fine.

Haven't got around to trying Amazon or Kobo yet, but I guess I'll need a different email account to shop at the US stores.

[jhowell]

I read mostly fantasy and science fiction and have done so since the late 1960's. I keep track of books that I have read and out of curiosity I have checked to see which are currently available in e-book form. It is roughly 2/3 of them, which is pretty good. And there are more coming soon.

Open Road Media publishes back catalog titles from several of the less well known authors. Earlier this year they released e-books by Samuel Delany. I see upcoming from them in April e-books of stories I read previously by Brian Aldiss, Piers Anthony, Greg Bear, John Brunner, F. M. Busby, Dave Duncan and Fritz Leiber.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

What frustrates me is the partially published series with missing books. In some cases I bought the whole rest of the series, and am now waiting on the one missing book to be published before I can read it. I'm a bit more cautious now, but there are a number of already published series that I would buy today if they would just release the missing books. Examples:

Joan D. Vinge's Snow Queen (Books #1,#2 of 4 missing)
Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun (Book #2 of 4 missing)
C. J. Cherryh's Foriegner (Books #4,#5,#6 of 15 missing)

FWIW, Ms. Cherryh says that while she has no control over when the missing 3 books in the Foreigner series will be available in eBook format, nor does she know specifically when, she does know that they are being worked on.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by MickiTee

When I set this up, I created a second user account for myself on my PC and set the country to US in Region & Settings from Control Panel. Together with VPN and Paypal it worked fine.

Haven't got around to trying Amazon or Kobo yet, but I guess I'll need a different email account to shop at the US stores.

Why did you set the regional settings in Windows to US? What does doing that achieve?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by jhowell

I read mostly fantasy and science fiction and have done so since the late 1960's. I keep track of books that I have read and out of curiosity I have checked to see which are currently available in e-book form. It is roughly 2/3 of them, which is pretty good. And there are more coming soon.

Open Road Media publishes back catalog titles from several of the less well known authors. Earlier this year they released e-books by Samuel Delany. I see upcoming from them in April e-books of stories I read previously by Brian Aldiss, Piers Anthony, Greg Bear, John Brunner, F. M. Busby, Dave Duncan and Fritz Leiber.

For people outside the US, SF Gateway is a wonderful resource for backlist SF and fantasy. Unfortunately, due to rights issues, very few of their books can be sold to people in the US. They sell pretty much the complete works of authors like Harry Harrison, Clifford Simak, Gordon R. Dickson, and hundreds more.