Sunborn: an update

[Treven]

Downloaded the available books. I'm looking forward to starting on them.

[cklammer]

That is excellent news. You are starting to get something back.

Thank you so much.

P.S.: So I bumped a five-day-old thread. So?

[Croptop]

Originally Posted by cklammer

P.S.: So I bumped a five-day-old thread. So?

And I thank you for that. Otherwise, I'd have missed it and wouldn't have been able to add Jeffrey's book to my queue.

[starrigger]

Originally Posted by Croptop

And I thank you for that. Otherwise, I'd have missed it and wouldn't have been able to add Jeffrey's book to my queue.

And I thank both of you.

[ShortNCuddlyAm]

Originally Posted by cklammer

P.S.: So I bumped a five-day-old thread. So?

Thank you for bumping the thread - I missed it originally!

Congrats, Jeffrey, that's great news!

Now I must remember to get the Star Rigger books before the Christmas break.

[Xenophon]

Jeffrey:

Can you say anything about the magnitude of your e-Sales? When authors are willing to share actual royalty info, it helps eBook enthusiasts to make a stronger case for DRM-free and region-restriction-free ebooks. Any hard info you can share would be most welcome.

Xenophon

[starrigger]

Originally Posted by Xenophon

Jeffrey:

Can you say anything about the magnitude of your e-Sales? When authors are willing to share actual royalty info, it helps eBook enthusiasts to make a stronger case for DRM-free and region-restriction-free ebooks. Any hard info you can share would be most welcome.

Xenophon

Only in general terms. I don't think the people I work with would appreciate my putting up numbers that are considered private between me and them. Nor would those numbers be even remotely impressive in the context you're talking about. They're still a drop in the bucket compared to even mediocre paper book sales.

No, what was so encouraging to me was seeing books that previously had been selling on the order of 1-3 copies per quarter suddenly going into (low) triple digits. And the new books following suit. And knowing that they're on the market for as long as I want and won't quickly drop out of print or vanish from shelves.

I say "suddenly," but that's not quite accurate. It turns out that royalty reporting is almost as slow with ebooks as it is with paper books. The retailers have something like 3-6 months to pay the publisher, and then the publisher reports quarterly, so that by the time numbers come to the author, there's almost no way to tell what time period those numbers actually represent. I'm guessing I just saw numbers relative to last spring, but not summer. I haven't seen any accounting yet for books sold on webscription, for example, and those went on sale in June. You'd think a sale that's completed with a click of a mouse would then be reported almost immediately. You'd be wrong, I'm afraid.

I think what will carry weight with the DRM-free cause is increased sales in general, and the authors and publishers of the DRM-free editions pointing out that they're doing as well as the others.

The region-restrictions probably have more to do with the original book contracts specifying rights in particular countries than anything else. It's frustrating, but where the original publisher controls ebook rights, it's going to be slow to change.

[animedude01]

Thanks for the bump. I've added it to my queue and may get to it sometime next year.

I've actually been able to make a dent in my queue. Not a bit one, but every little bit helps.

[starrigger]

At last! Sunborn has appeared in many ebook stores as an official Tor ebook, as of this week. It's in the Kindle store, the Sony store, Barnes and Noble, and BooksonBoard. It's not available at Fictionwise, at least not yet.

Prices range from $7.19 at B&N and $7.99 at Kindle to $11.90 at BooksonBoard and $12.60 at Sony. Interestingly, most of those prices were higher a couple of days ago, when I first got word it was up. (I complained to my editor at the time, but I suspect this change happened too fast to be attributed to my squawk.)

Sorry about the DRM, by the way. I was assured before that efforts were being made to get DRM-free books up--but now I'm told that it was too hard, with all of the distributors geared for DRM. I don't have the complete story on that yet.

BTW, for some reason B&N is currently selling my other ebooks for $3.21 each, which is the best deal around. I don't know for how long. (What the--? Sunborn is $9.99 at B&N if you search on my name. But it's $7.19 if you search on the title, here. Don't ask me why.)

[kennyc]

Wonderful! Congratulations Jeffrey!

[Tattncat]

You are an awesome author, Congratulations. And thanks for writing such enjoyable books.

[shootingMaNs]

Congratulations, Jeffrey!

I just started "Neptune Crossing" yesterday, and I'm enjoying very much. Thanks for the free downloads!!

[Polyglot27]

Hi Jeffrey, after reading the Chaos Chronicles and Eternity's End on my Cybook, I just had to read the other books you have written. So I went to Amazon and ordered everything you have published in paper form (I don't buy e-books because of DRM and other problems).
I was surprised to see "Seas of Ernathe" in a new edition and the explanation that although it was the first book you wrote, it is the last in the Star Rigger series. Thanks for explaining that the series can be read in any order except the two with "Dragons" in the title.
I loved "The Rapture Effect" and am in the middle of "The Infinity Link" now. Who could have foreseen that the "Soviets" referred to would have disappeared only 15 years after you wrote the book and not exist in the future described in it. Perhaps you could replace the word with simply "Russians" in a future edition.
Putting the Chaos Chronicles online for free certainly incited me to buy your other works. Thank you for a wonderful and continuing reading experience.

[starrigger]

Thanks, everyone!

Originally Posted by Polyglot27

Hi Jeffrey, after reading the Chaos Chronicles and Eternity's End on my Cybook, I just had to read the other books you have written. So I went to Amazon and ordered everything you have published in paper form (I don't buy e-books because of DRM and other problems).
I was surprised to see "Seas of Ernathe" in a new edition and the explanation that although it was the first book you wrote, it is the last in the Star Rigger series. Thanks for explaining that the series can be read in any order except the two with "Dragons" in the title.
I loved "The Rapture Effect" and am in the middle of "The Infinity Link" now. Who could have foreseen that the "Soviets" referred to would have disappeared only 15 years after you wrote the book and not exist in the future described in it. Perhaps you could replace the word with simply "Russians" in a future edition.
Putting the Chaos Chronicles online for free certainly incited me to buy your other works. Thank you for a wonderful and continuing reading experience.

That's great. Delighted to hear it.

All of my backlist ebooks are available from Ereads in multiformat, DRM-free editions, by the way--from Fictionwise and Webscription. Some of those, the ones that have been reverted by the original print publishers, are also available in print-on-demand editions.

You must have one of the original editions of The Infinity Link. When I prepared the text for the new ebook release, I actually did exactly what you suggested--I replaced "Soviet" with "Russian." I was surprised by a few things like that, in seeing how the future isn't what it used to be.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by starrigger

At last! Sunborn has appeared in many ebook stores as an official Tor ebook, as of this week. It's in the Kindle store, the Sony store, Barnes and Noble, and BooksonBoard. It's not available at Fictionwise, at least not yet.

Prices range from $7.19 at B&N and $7.99 at Kindle to $11.90 at BooksonBoard and $12.60 at Sony. Interestingly, most of those prices were higher a couple of days ago, when I first got word it was up. (I complained to my editor at the time, but I suspect this change happened too fast to be attributed to my squawk.)

Sorry about the DRM, by the way. I was assured before that efforts were being made to get DRM-free books up--but now I'm told that it was too hard, with all of the distributors geared for DRM. I don't have the complete story on that yet.

BTW, for some reason B&N is currently selling my other ebooks for $3.21 each, which is the best deal around. I don't know for how long. (What the--? Sunborn is $9.99 at B&N if you search on my name. But it's $7.19 if you search on the title, here. Don't ask me why.)

The $7.19 is the member price for the paperback and the $9.99 is for the eBook which makes the eBook more expensive then the paperback. So, anything you can do to get the price lowered to less then the paperback? Will the price be lowered come April with the new pricing since it's already out in paperback? Will we get the $5.99 price for it?