Backlist, anthologies and publishers & authors making money

CenturionFive · 10-13-2011, 07:39 PM

ok, I am a ebook junkie. i am trying to get as many of my favorite books in epub format and not having much luck finding sci-fi/fantasy books older than a yead or so in any format other than pirated pdf.

i can understand publishers reluctance to invest in making paper backs available for the prices they could get for them but what about making backlist paperback fiction available as anthologies. similar to what they did with Roger Zelanzeny's Amber series in a trade paperback anthology or Gene Wolfe's fiction. I would pay 7.99 to 10.99 for such an antholgy in kindle or nook format. Publishers and authors should be able to make $ on books that are no longer available in paper format....

Cen5

elcreative · 10-13-2011, 07:59 PM

And, as has been discussed many times in other threads, where do these backlist books magically appear from... most of them either predate electronic files or were only kept in print controlling electronic files... at least the files used to print need redoing for ebook format and at worst, it's a scan, OCR and proof job... these things take time, cost money and need people capable of doing the work... overall the pubs are getting backlist stuff into eformat but everything isn't going to suddenly materialise over night... or even over some years to come...

JeremyR · 10-13-2011, 08:47 PM

Considering there are companies that will scan a book for $1, I don't think that is a good excuse.

Granted, I believe they just turn it into a PDF, no OCRing. But still, it's something.

And I also know at least one author that simply pirated the pirate versions of his books

CenturionFive · 10-13-2011, 09:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JeremyR

Considering there are companies that will scan a book for $1, I don't think that is a good excuse.

Granted, I believe they just turn it into a PDF, no OCRing. But still, it's something.

And I also know at least one author that simply pirated the pirate versions of his books

I agree. It won't be free for publishers but they won't be giving it away either. They will have to work out royalty deals with authors too.

Turning the tables on the pirates is a good idea too.

Cen5

elcreative · 10-13-2011, 10:30 PM

Wondered if you'd dig them up... a whole dollar - then you find that's just for the first 100 pages then there's another fee, and another and... oh, yes try loading the resulting so-called pdf in an ereader and see how it chokes on the individual page sizes - putting a bunch of jpgs into a pdf file doesn't make a readable txt-based file for ereading... and for most people it isn't something other than a waste of space... so now you OCR it and then you have to proof it, but that's easy, anyone can do it, right... wrong, proofing is a time consuming and skilled task...

Still, all that's a load of old rubbish, anyone can do a scan and OCR and proof, see the pirate web... well, a few people have done superb jobs purely out of love for a work and more have done an OK job just to get the book in ereadable format but that's fine if you don't mind the errors, and there's a lot more that have just been OCR'd and are full of errors that then interfere with your reading but, hey who cares because that proves it doesn't cost anything... and who needs to worry about the fact that most publishers do not have separately delineated rights to e-formats of books...

And anyone who hangs round here knows of one author who grabbed a pirate scan of one of his books... and they also know that he used that as the basis of producing it in e-format, not just copying it for use...

But you know better than all the publishers, authors and editors...

andyh2000 · 10-14-2011, 05:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CenturionFive

ok, I am a ebook junkie. i am trying to get as many of my favorite books in epub format and not having much luck finding sci-fi/fantasy books older than a yead or so in any format other than pirated pdf.
Cen5

You might want to look here: http://www.sfgateway.com/

Andrew

Pinecone · 10-14-2011, 05:59 AM

Baen is also putting out older SciFi.

And some of it for FREE.

kennyc · 10-14-2011, 07:14 AM

I'd love to re-read Roger Zelazny's Amber books as ebooks.

like this: http://www.amazon.com/Great-Book-Amb...8590961&sr=8-1

CenturionFive · 10-14-2011, 07:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kennyc

I'd love to re-read Roger Zelazny's Amber books as ebooks.

like this: http://www.amazon.com/Great-Book-Amb...8590961&sr=8-1

I found a torrent of that book. I had purchased the books as they came out and I bought the 'Great Book of Amber' so I felt justified downloading the torrent. Had the publisher made it available in epub format I would have bought it.

cen5

kennyc · 10-14-2011, 07:30 AM

I'm unwilling to steal it even though I own the pbooks. Just not ethically right in my mind. But yes if it were available I'd buy it, and probably most of his other work as well.

I really think the publishers are missing the boat by not bundling backlists into ebooks and offering them at reasonable prices.

Apache · 10-14-2011, 08:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kennyc

I'm unwilling to steal it even though I own the pbooks. Just not ethically right in my mind. But yes if it were available I'd buy it, and probably most of his other work as well.

I really think the publishers are missing the boat by not bundling backlists into ebooks and offering them at reasonable prices.

So true. I would buy his works again in an ebook format. Especially Lord of Light and Doorways in the Sand.
Apache

taustin · 10-14-2011, 12:51 PM

If it's not handy in an electronic format, and it's probably not, it's more work to scan and proof an old book than it is a new book. Even if it is available in an electronic format, it's still as much work to convert it to a saleable ebook format as to do so for a new book.

And new books sell better.

Even so, all publishers are working through their back catalog, slowly. Figure out who it is, and let them know what you'd like to see done first. Doesn't Amazon and/or Barnes & Noble have a "I'd like to see this as an ebook" thingie?

Keryl Raist · 10-14-2011, 04:57 PM

Amazon has the 'let the publisher know I'd like a kindle version of this' button.

My guess is, for most of the books, the hold up is tracking down who has the rights to the book and then negotiating them.

Zelazny is famous enough and still selling well enough, that his rights are probably easy to locate, if not so easy to negotiate.

But that's not true for a lot of authors. Tracking down who owns the rights to a series of modestly successful books from the mid-80's is probably a whole lot more expensive than getting the books ready for production. And if the original author is dead... that's even trickier.

starrigger · 10-16-2011, 02:42 AM

In many cases, for book contracts more than a few years old, the publisher does not have the ebook rights. Authors and agents aren't necessarily going to jump to sign new contracts at a time when standard ebook royalties from publishers pretty much stink and the whole business is in a state of flux. On the other hand, there's a growing number of publishers like E-reads that specialize in putting backlist into ebook (usually with better royalties). And of course, there's a rapidly growing number of authors who decide to do it themselves: considerably more upfront work, but definitely better payoff.

As one of the latter group (at least for some of my backlist), I'm part of several groups of authors giving each other support in getting their backlist books out as indie publications. (Backlist eBooks being a chief example.) One thing that's surprised me is the way romance writers have left science fiction writers in the dust in getting into this business. Sure, there are some terrific SF/F writers getting their books out, but as a group, they've been remarkably slow to jump on this train.

emellaich · 10-16-2011, 05:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by andyh2000

You might want to look here: http://www.sfgateway.com/

Andrew

How are the prices there? I'm on a slow connection and didn't want to follow all of the links, but the one I sampled was nine dollars for a backlist ebook with no cover art.

10-13-2011, 07:39 PM	#1
CenturionFive Junior Member Posts: 5 Karma: 10 Join Date: Apr 2011 Location: St. Louis Metro Area Device: Nook Color	Backlist, anthologies and publishers & authors making money ok, I am a ebook junkie. i am trying to get as many of my favorite books in epub format and not having much luck finding sci-fi/fantasy books older than a yead or so in any format other than pirated pdf. i can understand publishers reluctance to invest in making paper backs available for the prices they could get for them but what about making backlist paperback fiction available as anthologies. similar to what they did with Roger Zelanzeny's Amber series in a trade paperback anthology or Gene Wolfe's fiction. I would pay 7.99 to 10.99 for such an antholgy in kindle or nook format. Publishers and authors should be able to make $ on books that are no longer available in paper format.... Cen5

10-14-2011, 07:14 AM	#8
kennyc The Dank Side of the Moon Posts: 35,872 Karma: 118716293 Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Denver, CO Device: Kindle2; Kindle Fire	I'd love to re-read Roger Zelazny's Amber books as ebooks. like this: http://www.amazon.com/Great-Book-Amb...8590961&sr=8-1 Last edited by kennyc; 10-14-2011 at 07:16 AM.

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10-13-2011, 07:59 PM	#2
elcreative Wizard Posts: 2,888 Karma: 5875940 Join Date: Dec 2007 Device: PRS505, 600, 350, 650, Nexus 7, Note III, iPad 4 etc	And, as has been discussed many times in other threads, where do these backlist books magically appear from... most of them either predate electronic files or were only kept in print controlling electronic files... at least the files used to print need redoing for ebook format and at worst, it's a scan, OCR and proof job... these things take time, cost money and need people capable of doing the work... overall the pubs are getting backlist stuff into eformat but everything isn't going to suddenly materialise over night... or even over some years to come...

10-13-2011, 08:47 PM	#3
JeremyR Guru Posts: 973 Karma: 2458402 Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: St. Louis Device: Kindle Keyboard, Nook HD+	Considering there are companies that will scan a book for $1, I don't think that is a good excuse. Granted, I believe they just turn it into a PDF, no OCRing. But still, it's something. And I also know at least one author that simply pirated the pirate versions of his books

10-13-2011, 10:30 PM	#5
elcreative Wizard Posts: 2,888 Karma: 5875940 Join Date: Dec 2007 Device: PRS505, 600, 350, 650, Nexus 7, Note III, iPad 4 etc	Wondered if you'd dig them up... a whole dollar - then you find that's just for the first 100 pages then there's another fee, and another and... oh, yes try loading the resulting so-called pdf in an ereader and see how it chokes on the individual page sizes - putting a bunch of jpgs into a pdf file doesn't make a readable txt-based file for ereading... and for most people it isn't something other than a waste of space... so now you OCR it and then you have to proof it, but that's easy, anyone can do it, right... wrong, proofing is a time consuming and skilled task... Still, all that's a load of old rubbish, anyone can do a scan and OCR and proof, see the pirate web... well, a few people have done superb jobs purely out of love for a work and more have done an OK job just to get the book in ereadable format but that's fine if you don't mind the errors, and there's a lot more that have just been OCR'd and are full of errors that then interfere with your reading but, hey who cares because that proves it doesn't cost anything... and who needs to worry about the fact that most publishers do not have separately delineated rights to e-formats of books... And anyone who hangs round here knows of one author who grabbed a pirate scan of one of his books... and they also know that he used that as the basis of producing it in e-format, not just copying it for use... But you know better than all the publishers, authors and editors...

10-14-2011, 05:59 AM	#7
Pinecone Guru Posts: 902 Karma: 1660722 Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Maryland Device: PRS-650, PRS-600, PRS-350	Baen is also putting out older SciFi. And some of it for FREE.

10-14-2011, 07:30 AM	#10
kennyc The Dank Side of the Moon Posts: 35,872 Karma: 118716293 Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Denver, CO Device: Kindle2; Kindle Fire	I'm unwilling to steal it even though I own the pbooks. Just not ethically right in my mind. But yes if it were available I'd buy it, and probably most of his other work as well. I really think the publishers are missing the boat by not bundling backlists into ebooks and offering them at reasonable prices.

10-14-2011, 12:51 PM	#12
taustin Wizard Posts: 1,358 Karma: 5766642 Join Date: Aug 2010 Device: Nook	If it's not handy in an electronic format, and it's probably not, it's more work to scan and proof an old book than it is a new book. Even if it is available in an electronic format, it's still as much work to convert it to a saleable ebook format as to do so for a new book. And new books sell better. Even so, all publishers are working through their back catalog, slowly. Figure out who it is, and let them know what you'd like to see done first. Doesn't Amazon and/or Barnes & Noble have a "I'd like to see this as an ebook" thingie?

10-14-2011, 04:57 PM	#13
Keryl Raist Zealot Posts: 140 Karma: 379182 Join Date: Jan 2011 Location: Charleston, SC Device: Kindle for PC	Amazon has the 'let the publisher know I'd like a kindle version of this' button. My guess is, for most of the books, the hold up is tracking down who has the rights to the book and then negotiating them. Zelazny is famous enough and still selling well enough, that his rights are probably easy to locate, if not so easy to negotiate. But that's not true for a lot of authors. Tracking down who owns the rights to a series of modestly successful books from the mid-80's is probably a whole lot more expensive than getting the books ready for production. And if the original author is dead... that's even trickier.

10-16-2011, 02:42 AM	#14
starrigger Jeffrey A. Carver Posts: 1,355 Karma: 1107383 Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Massachusetts, USA Device: Lenovo Yoga Tab Plus, Droid phone, Nook HD+	In many cases, for book contracts more than a few years old, the publisher does not have the ebook rights. Authors and agents aren't necessarily going to jump to sign new contracts at a time when standard ebook royalties from publishers pretty much stink and the whole business is in a state of flux. On the other hand, there's a growing number of publishers like E-reads that specialize in putting backlist into ebook (usually with better royalties). And of course, there's a rapidly growing number of authors who decide to do it themselves: considerably more upfront work, but definitely better payoff. As one of the latter group (at least for some of my backlist), I'm part of several groups of authors giving each other support in getting their backlist books out as indie publications. (Backlist eBooks being a chief example.) One thing that's surprised me is the way romance writers have left science fiction writers in the dust in getting into this business. Sure, there are some terrific SF/F writers getting their books out, but as a group, they've been remarkably slow to jump on this train.

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