Disappearing ebook editions?

[gmw]

Tonight I logged into Kobo AU and almost 20% of the books on my Wishlist were marked "Item has Changed", and when I looked it seems the books are no longer available. Some examples:

Robert Goddard's "Borrowed Time", but most of the rest of his books are still there.

Robin McKinley's "Spindle's End", but at least some of her other books are still there.

Eoin Colfer's "Artemis Fowl" series seems almost completely gone, omnibuses and individuals both missing, but some of his other books are still there (including the newer Fowl Twins books).

Anne McCaffery's "Talent" series disappeared.

"The Anthropocene Reviewed" by John Green disappeared ... in fact it looks like most of his books are gone, while his brother Hank's books are still there.

And so on.

A lot of the older stuff I own in paper and only had on the wish-list just in case they ever came up on special, so no big loss. In the past I've had a book here and there disappear, but I thought this mass extinction was bit strange.

Is anyone seeing it anywhere else?

[Katsunami]

Not right now, but I have a few books bought from Kobo that are now not available anymore (not there, and not anywhere else either, as far as I've been able to see), so it isn't something new.

[Byrdie]

Have you tried Amazon? I've had a fair number of books on my Kobo (Canada) wish list display the same notice only to find them turn up there as Kindle Unlimited books. And Kindle Unlimited demands Amazon exclusivity, last time I checked. Not saying that's what happened to yours, mind you, ebooks can get pulled for many reasons that may or may not make sense to us customers. But it is a possibility.

[JSWolf]

I went to eBooks.com and switch to AU. I found this..

https://www.ebooks.com/en-au/series/the-talent-series

So have a look there and see if the other eBooks you don't see at Kobo are there.

[ownedbycats]

See here my difficulties in finding the eBook copy of "Farmer in the Sky," including a Baen page going "sorry, this isn't sold anymore."

It's... frustrating because eBooks is obvious solution for when books are not quite popular enough to keep printing indefinitely. When they're unavailable it just pushes people toward acquiring them illegally.

[gmw]

Most of the books appear to be available on ebooks.com (thanks for the suggestion JSWolf) and on Amazon AU (and not just Kindle Unlimited). So at this point it looks like a Kobo-specific thing. I've had other books disappear, it's just the magnitude of this event that stood out - my Wishlist is now 5 pages shorter than it was!

Given that the ebook editions remain available elsewhere, maybe this is some temporary glitch with Kobo and they might return ... time will tell I guess.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I went to eBooks.com and switch to AU. I found this..

https://www.ebooks.com/en-au/series/the-talent-series

So have a look there and see if the other eBooks you don't see at Kobo are there.

Interestingly, I clicked that link and saw the books. Then it offered to switch me to Canada and then no search results.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by gmw

Most of the books appear to be available on ebooks.com (thanks for the suggestion JSWolf) and on Amazon AU (and not just Kindle Unlimited). So at this point it looks like a Kobo-specific thing. I've had other books disappear, it's just the magnitude of this event that stood out - my Wishlist is now 5 pages shorter than it was!

Given that the ebook editions remain available elsewhere, maybe this is some temporary glitch with Kobo and they might return ... time will tell I guess.

It could be a mistake in which case asking Kobo would be a good idea.

But, it could be the publisher related. Whether that is the publisher withdrawing the book from Kobo AU, a mistake by the publisher, or the author changing publisher I don't know. When I looked at the list via the ebooks link above, most of the books mentioned are from either Transworld or Penguin Random House Children's UK. While there are still books from Transworld at Kobo, something might be changing. The books by Eoin Colfer that are still at Kobo AU are published by HarperCollins, which does suggest it is publisher related.

Doing a search in another country can also show something. Traditionally, Australia gets the UK edition from the Australian branch of the UK publisher. That still seems to happen with ebooks. The books I looked for are missing from Kobo UK. Kobo US has them but from a different publisher. Again, that suggests something is happening with the publisher.

If it is the publisher, you could ask them. If they made a mistake, hopefully it will prompt them to fix it.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

See here my difficulties in finding the eBook copy of "Farmer in the Sky," including a Baen page going "sorry, this isn't sold anymore."

It's... frustrating because eBooks is obvious solution for when books are not quite popular enough to keep printing indefinitely. When they're unavailable it just pushes people toward acquiring them illegally.

This shows an advantage (for an established author) to self publishing their back catalog. While in theory ebooks should be a 'set it and forget it' thing that need never go OOP, there s still contracts with publishers that expire in time.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

See here my difficulties in finding the eBook copy of "Farmer in the Sky," including a Baen page going "sorry, this isn't sold anymore."

I did notice your earlier post. I do have the book from Baen and when I checked, I can still download it but Baen is no longer able to sell a new copy.

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

It's... frustrating because eBooks is obvious solution for when books are not quite popular enough to keep printing indefinitely. When they're unavailable it just pushes people toward acquiring them illegally.

The right to sell the ebook is often a time limited contract and when it expires, that's all she wrote. One series that my wife liked and had purchased the first 5 books in had the last 3 disappear when the rights reverted to the author who wanted to negotiate new contracts for ebook sales. My wife actually ended up purchasing the books from the author's site at pretty much the same price but it took close to a year before the books showed up back at Amazon/Kobo/Google/etc.

I can't really blame the author since the original contract basically allowed the publisher to keep all the revenue from the ebooks. Even when the pbook rights reverted, she had to take the publisher to court since there was a claim that since there was no mention of ebooks in the original contract, the rights could not revert.

[Quoth]

The publishing industry is broken. Especially the big publishers.

[Apache]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I did notice your earlier post. I do have the book from Baen and when I checked, I can still download it but Baen is no longer able to sell a new copy.



The right to sell the ebook is often a time limited contract and when it expires, that's all she wrote. One series that my wife liked and had purchased the first 5 books in had the last 3 disappear when the rights reverted to the author who wanted to negotiate new contracts for ebook sales. My wife actually ended up purchasing the books from the author's site at pretty much the same price but it took close to a year before the books showed up back at Amazon/Kobo/Google/etc.

I can't really blame the author since the original contract basically allowed the publisher to keep all the revenue from the ebooks. Even when the pbook rights reverted, she had to take the publisher to court since there was a claim that since there was no mention of ebooks in the original contract, the rights could not revert.

You could also make the case that since ebooks were not listed in the contract, the publisher did not have the right to sell them.
Apache

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by Apache

You could also make the case that since ebooks were not listed in the contract, the publisher did not have the right to sell them.
Apache

The effort and expense involved in taking the publisher to court would likely deter most authors from pursuing that even if they are likely to succeed in the end.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Apache

You could also make the case that since ebooks were not listed in the contract, the publisher did not have the right to sell them.
Apache

Absolutely. And if your lawyer is any good, that wins. Printed book rights ONLY include the right in the supplied language, not ebook, graphic novelisation audio, film or translations unless the contract has that in writing.

Basic copyright law. It's why many older books are only on paper, because the original contract had no mention of ebooks, so publishers could not issue them without a fresh agreement with the Author or the Estate. Loads of authors, Estates & Publishers don't understand ebooks or that DRM is pointless and that a paper copy can be "pirated" just as easily as an ebook now, on paper or as an ebook. Google Playstore was rife with pirate ebooks (often just as PDF, which isn't a proper ebook) from paper scans at the start.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

See here my difficulties in finding the eBook copy of "Farmer in the Sky," including a Baen page going "sorry, this isn't sold anymore."

It's... frustrating because eBooks is obvious solution for when books are not quite popular enough to keep printing indefinitely. When they're unavailable it just pushes people toward acquiring them illegally.

Farmer in the Sky is not available in the UK or US.

The problem sometimes is that when an author dies, the estate get to decide what to do with said author's works. Which is probably why the eBook has been pulled form sale.

I remember the Belgariad series (David Eddings) issue. They were available in the US and UK. But they were pulled from the US. Eventually, they can back to the US. This is most likely another estate issue.