If only I lived in the US.

[sergiodongala]

Can it be the author fault?
For example if I publish a book and sell the right to sell in US for Macmillan for example.
Them when I'm talking to others publishers to sell them the rights in others country's.
My readers in those countrys will have have to find a way to get it, when there is not yet.

So why authors don't just sell the rights for worldwide sells?

[Pardoz]

Originally Posted by sergiodongala

So why authors don't just sell the rights for worldwide sells?

The simplest answer is "Because nobody wants to buy them" in a lot of cases.

The simplest solution to all this nonsense is to just define the point of sale as the place where the seller is, same as for a paper book - this is why you can buy a paperback from Amazon US and have it shipped to the UK, but you can't buy an e-book from Amazon US and download it in the UK.

The problem, from the publisher's point of view, is that this would loosen their control and open the doors to competition, and neither of these is acceptable.

[DrZoidberg]

Originally Posted by sergiodongala

So why authors don't just sell the rights for worldwide sells?

The reason is because today a book generally has six months of life when it can actually rake in cash. You want your book visible, and people talking about your book. The attention span of would be consumers is very short. So it needs a directed pretty focused marketing campaign. Lots of noise at one time. It helps if the author tours the country, gets interviewed on TV and does signings. Each book generally only gets one shot.... when it gets released. You want to wait with doing this until you've got a marketing campaign ready to go.

This is partly a cultural thing, partly a marketing thing. It needs to change and it will change. But what needs to change first is how book consumers inform themselves of which books to read. This will be painfully slow. Consumers are always conservative.

Do you remember how movies used to be released, before Internet came? It could be years between a US premier and a Swedish premier. Then Internet piracy came which effectively forced the major studios to release films simultaneously all over the world. What Internet piracy created was a new way film consumers found out about new films, which then changed the way they formed an opinion of what to see, regardless of if they pirated or not.

This will happen to books as well, I'm sure. Book readers won't sit passively waiting to be informed any longer. They'll go out on the Internet and go looking for things to find, like the person who started this thread did. The rest is just market economy. Publishers will find a new model that will allow them to sell over the Internet to the whole world. It's just a matter of time.

[daffy4u]

Originally Posted by Argel

Roll on the day when Amazon (and others) start to bid for ebook rights and publish directly...

It's starting to happen quietly. I read this a couple of days ago.

After Zetta Elliott couldn't interest publishers in her novel about a black-Latina teen who travels back in time to Civil War-era Brooklyn, she joined a growing number of writers and paid to publish it herself in 2008.

A Wish After Midnight sold about 500 copies — nearly covering her expenses, she says. More important, she says, her teen novel was praised on blogs and used in schools and libraries.

But when an editor from Amazon, the online retailer, called last year offering to publish it, Elliott says, "I thought it was a hoax."

It wasn't. This month, her novel, along with Daniel Annechino's They Never Die Quietly and Maria Murname's Perfect on Paper, will be released as AmazonEncore paperbacks, e-books and audios.

Amazon's major rivals, Barnes and Noble and Borders, list AmazonEncore titles on their websites and say that, depending on demand, they may carry them in their physical stores as well.

Given Amazon's dispute with publishers over e-book pricing, Michael Norris, an analyst with Simba Information, sees the experiment as a sign of Amazon's ambitions. But he says it's far from "the top of the things (big) publishers have to worry about. It's something to watch and see if it grows or goes away."

[roger the rabbit]

Having seen the glowing recommendations by Dr Drib and others in the 'what are you reading thread' for *The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo* I thought I would check it out.

Yes! you guessed it, I can't buy a copy of this ebook from anywhere.

Now where do I go from here Hmmmmmmmmm?

Problem solved Christmas came early this year

[Argel]

Originally Posted by kennyc

That has gone out the window with the MacMillan take-over.

Not at all - it's perfectly within the rights of an author to negotiate separate rights for paper and electronic - or to threaten to. It would be the blockbusters who would have to blaze the trail because they have market power. If Dan Brown were to sell ebook rights separately on a world-wide availability basis, that would still leave publishers falling over each other for the rights to paper editions in their own territories.

In fact if Dan Brown were even to hint that he was thinking of separating the rights, publishers would be falling over themselves to offer deals which would include non-territorial sales.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Argel

Not at all - it's perfectly within the rights of an author to negotiate separate rights for paper and electronic - or to threaten to. It would be the blockbusters who would have to blaze the trail because they have market power. If Dan Brown were to sell ebook rights separately on a world-wide availability basis, that would still leave publishers falling over each other for the rights to paper editions in their own territories.

In fact if Dan Brown were even to hint that he was thinking of separating the rights, publishers would be falling over themselves to offer deals which would include non-territorial sales.

Well yes, and some authors are doing exactly that, like Stephen Covy, but with MacMillan attempting to control pricing then it's is, while still possible, less likely that Amazon in particular would be able to accomplish this.

[Argel]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Well yes, and some authors are doing exactly that, like Stephen Covy, but with MacMillan attempting to control pricing then it's is, while still possible, less likely that Amazon in particular would be able to accomplish this.

I think I'm missing your point somewhere along the road here. If Amazon bought the world-wide rights for ebook distribution of the latest blockbuster by a previously Macmillan-only author and sold it at $9.99, I suspect they'd be quite happy for MacMillan to sell paper editions for an enforced higher price.

[polly]

As an American living in Germany, I've faced this problem too. A free program called Hotspot Shield gives me an American IP address. I'm lucky enough to have a US credit card, but gift certificates are also an option. Buy a BoB gift certificate using Google checkout and then purchase the books with the gift certificate. Amazon is the only bookstore so far that has cared about my IP address and they accept the American IP address that Hotspot Shield gives me. It also works for the iTunes store and YouTube. It's not a perfect option, but I've been able to buy all the books I've wanted.

[Gurvan]

The stupidity of being able to buy a paperback in the US via Amazon (For instance) and not its legal electronic version is clearly visible...

Damn those stupid luddites !

[Crowl]

Sometimes you do have to wonder how one industry can be that stupid in so many different ways at once, but geographical restrictions and delayed ebook releases are probably the worst for everyone as they don't help anyone, the customer can't get the books they want and the shops, publisher and author can't make any money from selling the book.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by ill_dawg

@hans: I could use a US credit card, but there is still IP blocking. I could get around that by using proxies, which I wouldn't trust with my credit card info, or a VPN, which I would have to pay for. It's not worth my time to jump through hoops in an attempt to pay for something that it takes me 5 minutes to get for free. I could waste my money and my time to support stupid policies, or I can protest them in a way that makes my life easier.

Use Secure a VNC (free versions are not secure) connection to a US Located computer you trust.
In case you did not know, VNC allows you to "drive" the host computer from your remote location. Usful when you do not want to pass your session through 3rd parties (not under your control) like "GoToMyPC"

[sabredog]

I have a secured VPN with a valid US IP, but not the means to purchase the ebook without the geo restriction test failing. Paypal, credit/debit card place of origin is checked and the whole purchase process grinds to a halt.

[Crusader]

Originally Posted by sabredog

I have a secured VPN with a valid US IP, but not the means to purchase the ebook without the geo restriction test failing. Paypal, credit/debit card place of origin is checked and the whole purchase process grinds to a halt.

At which store are you trying to purchase? I've had success at Fictionwise by using a valid US address and your normal CC info to purchase their georestricted books.

[sabredog]

Diesel at the moment