01-06-2017, 06:22 PM | #271 | |
Evangelist
Posts: 417
Karma: 6913952
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: Hamden, CT
Device: Kindle Paperwhite (11th gen), Scribe
|
Quote:
In addition, none of his sci-fi short story collections are available as eBooks (The Martian Way and Other Stories, Earth Is Room Enough, Buy Jupiter and Other Stories, etc.). And, not many of his non-Foundation novels (A Whiff of Death, Murder at the ABA, etc.) are available. In my Calibre database, it works out to 21 of 49 fiction books (novels or short story collections) are available as eBooks. That's a shockingly low percentage for such a big-name author, and it doesn't include the hundreds of non-fiction books he wrote, of which only a handful are available. |
|
01-06-2017, 06:31 PM | #272 | |
Gentleman and scholar
Posts: 10,971
Karma: 108309641
Join Date: Jun 2015
Location: Space City, Texas
Device: Clara HD; Nook ST w/Glowlight, (2015) Glowlight Plus, Paperwhite 3
|
Quote:
|
|
01-06-2017, 06:44 PM | #273 |
IOC Chief Archivist
Posts: 3,950
Karma: 53868218
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: Fruitland Park, FL, USA
Device: Meebook M7, Paperwhite 2021, Fire HD 8+, Fire HD 10+, Lenovo Tab P12
|
Luck Be a Lady, Don't Die, by Robert Randisi. It's the 2nd book in the Rat Pack Mysteries series. It's OOP and the only one in the series that hasn't been re-released as an ebook.
I can only assume the rights are tied up with the old publisher (there were publisher changes as the series was originally released) because Mr. Randisi has done a magnificent job of getting much of his backlist back out there in ebook form. |
01-06-2017, 07:27 PM | #274 |
Resident Curmudgeon
Posts: 73,866
Karma: 128597114
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Roslindale, Massachusetts
Device: Kobo Libra 2, Kobo Aura H2O, PRS-650, PRS-T1, nook STR, PW3
|
|
01-06-2017, 08:32 PM | #275 |
Grand Sorcerer
Posts: 7,195
Karma: 70314280
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Atlanta, GA
Device: iPad Pro, iPad mini, Kobo Aura, Amazon paperwhite, Sony PRS-T2
|
I wouldn't say an idiot so much as not all that interested in seeing the books published as ebooks. A lot of times, the literary estate simply isn't actively marketing the books, but rather waiting for someone to do all the work for them. For an author, the books are their life. For the heirs, it's more just something that's kind of out there that might be worth some money, kind of like your grandfather's coin collection. If someone approaches them, they might be interested, but it has to be for the right price. Most of these books would barely make back what it cost to commercially produce the ebook.
|
01-07-2017, 12:08 AM | #276 |
Gentleman and scholar
Posts: 10,971
Karma: 108309641
Join Date: Jun 2015
Location: Space City, Texas
Device: Clara HD; Nook ST w/Glowlight, (2015) Glowlight Plus, Paperwhite 3
|
A good thing about old sci-fi and fandom is that lots of the old books have already been fan-scanned, So if some publisher does decide to bring out legitimate editions, there's at least a base to start from.
|
01-07-2017, 12:15 AM | #277 |
Gentleman and scholar
Posts: 10,971
Karma: 108309641
Join Date: Jun 2015
Location: Space City, Texas
Device: Clara HD; Nook ST w/Glowlight, (2015) Glowlight Plus, Paperwhite 3
|
I was about to say I'd like to see the rest of John Irving's books released as e-books. But checking Amazon UK shows that for whatever reason, we Americans are just being screwed over. At the moment, we can't even get The World According to Garp
Last edited by ZodWallop; 01-07-2017 at 12:17 AM. |
01-07-2017, 04:38 AM | #278 |
Writer guy
Posts: 38
Karma: 725824
Join Date: Apr 2011
Location: Northern Beaches, Sydney, Australia
Device: iPad
|
There a book I read yonks ago that I can't even find as dead tree format -- "Stealing Lillian". Hilarious book. I'd love to see it re-released.
|
01-07-2017, 04:43 AM | #279 | |
The Grand Mouse 高貴的老鼠
Posts: 71,491
Karma: 306214458
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Norfolk, England
Device: Kindle Voyage
|
Quote:
|
|
01-07-2017, 09:41 AM | #280 |
Grand Sorcerer
Posts: 44,734
Karma: 55645321
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Peru
Device: Kindle: Oasis 3, Voyage WiFi; Kobo: Libra 2, Aura One
|
|
01-08-2017, 01:38 AM | #281 | ||
Evangelist
Posts: 417
Karma: 6913952
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: Hamden, CT
Device: Kindle Paperwhite (11th gen), Scribe
|
Quote:
Quote:
Put it up at Amazon for $5, and you make a profit at 600 copies with the 70% royalty rate, and you only need to sell 1200 copies at the 35% rate. Do you really think the first eBook release of any Asimov fiction won't sell 1000 copies worldwide? Basically, eBooks are the one format that an author's estate can make money on without having to pay somebody else a large percentage of the profits, because it can be done by any moderately skilled person. For authors like Asimov, there's a bit of work because there isn't an electronic copy of the original for many of the books, but for more modern authors, most worked with some kind of word processor, and if you've got the files, you're really only a few hours away from an ePub. This is one reason I feel that large publishers are basically criminals as far as eBooks are concerned. They have access to those electronic originals for pretty much every book published since 1995, yet instead they use a printed book as a source and OCR it. Just today I fixed up a book that was originally published in 1997, yet Berkley couldn't even find a copy that used proper typographic quotes when they did the OCR. |
||
01-08-2017, 08:02 AM | #282 | |
Grand Sorcerer
Posts: 7,195
Karma: 70314280
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Atlanta, GA
Device: iPad Pro, iPad mini, Kobo Aura, Amazon paperwhite, Sony PRS-T2
|
Quote:
Second, what ever makes you think that publishers keep an electric copy of every book they have published since 1995? If you check out the manuscript requirements, you will see that as late as 2015, publishers where still requiring manuscripts on paper, not electronic format. [ (http://www.writersdigest.com/online-...g-a-manuscript) note the last requirement, Use 20-lb bond paper]. Some authors might keep copies, though there are still some authors who prefer to write long hand. But then you run into format issues (with the various formats of Word, Word Perfect and numerous other programs) and the standard failure to back up. Those floppy disk that people use to back up to tend to go bad. It's really not as straight forward and simplistic as you think. |
|
01-08-2017, 11:46 AM | #283 | |
Gentleman and scholar
Posts: 10,971
Karma: 108309641
Join Date: Jun 2015
Location: Space City, Texas
Device: Clara HD; Nook ST w/Glowlight, (2015) Glowlight Plus, Paperwhite 3
|
Quote:
Not that those shouldn't be scanned. But be realistic in your discussions. |
|
01-08-2017, 12:15 PM | #284 | |
Gentleman and scholar
Posts: 10,971
Karma: 108309641
Join Date: Jun 2015
Location: Space City, Texas
Device: Clara HD; Nook ST w/Glowlight, (2015) Glowlight Plus, Paperwhite 3
|
Quote:
Because of the nature of those books, all he has to work with is an old mass market paperback and ABBYY FineReader. Yet he turns out very fine, professional grade scans. Plus there's all the small-press and self-published reissues of books from the sixties, seventies and eighties, where there definitely weren't electronic manuscripts, possibly no manuscript at all. Creating a good, quality e-book isn't the Herculean effort you make it out to be. |
|
01-08-2017, 12:36 PM | #285 |
Guru
Posts: 992
Karma: 12000001
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Seattle Wahington U.S.
Device: kindle
|
It also doesn't need to be perfect. Just run the scan through spellcheck to get most of the errors and a quick read of the output to catch most of the rest. Sell it fairly cheaply and without DRM and if there are any remaining problems the purchaser can fix it if they want. You can always release an updated version later for re-downloading if the sales warrant it. A not perfect version is better than nothing at least for me.
|
Thread Tools | Search this Thread |
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Touch Why I Gave Up On 2.3.1 | voidoid | Kobo Reader | 24 | 01-14-2013 12:48 AM |
PRS-T1 I Gave Up... | MooseFam5 | Sony Reader | 18 | 11-20-2011 05:28 AM |
who gave me karmas? | maggievnc | General Discussions | 15 | 06-24-2011 11:42 AM |