Books you gave up on ever being ebooks

[NNolan]

I'm glad this thread floated to the top of the discussion list; it reminded me to look for Zenna Henderson ebooks and lo and behold....they published both collections of her works
(People and non-People stories) as ebooks last year! Woo hoo!

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by NNolan

I'm glad this thread floated to the top of the discussion list; it reminded me to look for Zenna Henderson ebooks and lo and behold....they published both collections of her works
(People and non-People stories) as ebooks last year! Woo hoo!

I remember reading some of those stories as a teen. thanks for the pointer.

[gtriever]

I've pretty much given up on (2) of my favorites ever being ebooks:

The Children of First Man, by James Alexander Thom
Reign in Hell, by William Diehl (the last book in the Martin Vail/Aaron Stampler series)

[tomsem]

Gödel, Escher, Bach.

[pwalker8]

James H Cobb's Amanda Garrett series (also known as the USS Cunningham Quartet) came out last Saturday. Cobb died back in 2014, so I had given up on this. I finished the first. There are some scan errors but I didn't think they were too bad.

In this particular genre, a couple of books that I'm still looking for are Harold Coyle's The Ten Thousand and John Hackett's The Third World War - August 1985. I still have hope for Coyle's book since most of his books are available and he's still alive. Hackett's book seems unlikely. It was actually a best seller when it was published back in 1979 but has been out of print for a while. Hackett died back in 1997.

[blar]

I can't for the life of me understand why Sailor Song by Ken Kesey doesn't have an ebook format yet, when it's decades old by a well-known author! I want to shake whomever owns the rights to it and tell them to let me buy it already. No idea where my physical copy is right now.

Originally Posted by tomsem

Gödel, Escher, Bach.

Excellent book.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by blar

I can't for the life of me understand why Sailor Song by Ken Kesey doesn't have an ebook format yet, when it's decades old by a well-known author!

For older books sometimes just who owns the electronic publishing rights isn't clear.

Some authors or their estates are ebook phobic.

The book might only exist in printed form and the publisher doesn't want to experience the pain of OCR plus proofing.

Just another downside of excessive copyright duration.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

For older books sometimes just who owns the electronic publishing rights isn't clear.

Some authors or their estates are ebook phobic.

The book might only exist in printed form and the publisher doesn't want to experience the pain of OCR plus proofing.

Just another downside of excessive copyright duration.

Yep. I think that many times, once the author dies, the estate simply isn't all that interested in keeping the books in print unless we are talking a major hit. Way back when Jim Baen was active on his web board, he mentioned that most books earn most of their money within the first or two year of publishing. Authors with a big backlist that keep writing, can get a steady flow of money from readers who discover the author, then buy the backlist. Jerry Pournelle once referred to his backlist books as his 401-K.

But once the author dies, for the vast majority of authors, there just isn't much incentive to get the book out in ebook form.

[blar]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

Just another downside of excessive copyright duration.

I'm in full agreement with you, here. It's a shame books are valued for the wrong things by many.

[spindlegirl]

Originally Posted by spindlegirl

A few years ago, I gave up and bought the giant tome "A Suitable Boy" by Vikram Seth, because it's the size of war and peace, and I can't see it ever gettting e'ed. I tend to buy long books because I tend to read slowly and flit from book to book, at that. So it was a decent buy.

For kicks, I looked it up on Kindle. It's there! Of course I bought it. 1553 pages to read through. I still have the actual thick book, but my wrists and my eyesight struggle to read through.

[HLS]

Bridge Over The River Kwai. Its not available in the USA as an ebook when I last checked

[svenlind]

Originally Posted by HLS

Bridge Over The River Kwai. Its not available in the USA as an ebook when I last checked

Well actually it is here.

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by svenlind

Well actually it is here.

Well...that ain't the way I heeerd it!

[Apache]

Originally Posted by svenlind

Well actually it is here.

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

Well...that ain't the way I heeerd it!

Yep I see the same thing as the Dr. It says it is a Kindle Edition, but does not display a price.
Apache

[DNSB]

For what it's worth, I see a price on The Bridge on the River Kwai (mobi-asin B0052Z3IY8 ) on both Amazon.com and Amazon.ca. Admittedly, if I try buying it on Amazon.com, I get referred to Amazon.ca. Geolocation is so much fun...