Books you gave up on ever being ebooks

[ottdmk]

I hadn't heard they were available in North America. Annoyingly enough, they appear to be Kindle exclusives. I hate Kindle exclusives.

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by ottdmk

I hadn't heard they were available in North America. Annoyingly enough, they appear to be Kindle exclusives. I hate Kindle exclusives.

Count me in on that (the hating part).

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by ottdmk

I hadn't heard they were available in North America. Annoyingly enough, they appear to be Kindle exclusives. I hate Kindle exclusives.

They're on B&N too. Probably has something to do with them being published through a traditional literary agent (Spectrum Literary Agency) who probably mainly pays attention to traditional book sources. They've done the same with the Bujold stuff they've put out.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by ottdmk

I hadn't heard they were available in North America. Annoyingly enough, they appear to be Kindle exclusives. I hate Kindle exclusives.

Calibre and Apprentice Alf/Harper are your friends in that regard.

[ottdmk]

Oh, I know all about the Apprentices. Still annoys me. I hate ebooks that are tied to any particular platform; I should be able to buy ebooks from any retailer, same as I can buy paperbacks from any retailer.

It's interesting that they're available from B&N. Makes me hopeful they'll eventually be available from Kobo and Google Play Books.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by ottdmk

It's interesting that they're available from B&N. Makes me hopeful they'll eventually be available from Kobo and Google Play Books.

Like I said, probably on B&N because it's someone a traditional publishing agency (the one who's publishing them) sees it as a traditional book outlet and they don't see Kobo that way. I doubt anything will change unless they (or authors they rep & publish for) start getting requests. As for Google unless they got setup years ago I don't think Google has been accepting any more self-pub (which this essentially is) for a few years now.

[ZodWallop]

I'd love to see some of the old Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Weird Tales anthologies in e-book form. I doubt either will be released as re-licensing the stories is probably a nightmare and the audience for them is likely negligible.

[4691mls]

Originally Posted by rkomar

Count me in on that (the hating part).

Me too. There's a series where I had read a couple of books from the library and bought the rest in epub format, until the most recent book was published only in paper books and Kindle format. At this point I'm waiting to find a cheap paperback copy.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I'd love to see some of the old Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Weird Tales anthologies in e-book form. I doubt either will be released as re-licensing the stories is probably a nightmare and the audience for them is likely negligible.

One series that I would really like to see is Asimov's Black Widowers mystery series. I have a couple of the books in hard back, but the odds of them coming out as ebooks is pretty small. To a great extent, his literary estate points to what is wrong with the copyright system. By the time they come out of copyright and enter the public domain, few will remember most of his books.

[issybird]

The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann, in either the Lowe-Porter or Woods translation. I'd love to re-read this, but dread hefting the colossal hardcover of the latter or reading the teeny print in my paperback of the former.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

One series that I would really like to see is Asimov's Black Widowers mystery series. I have a couple of the books in hard back, but the odds of them coming out as ebooks is pretty small. To a great extent, his literary estate points to what is wrong with the copyright system. By the time they come out of copyright and enter the public domain, few will remember most of his books.

What's the story with his literary estate? His classics at least are available as e-books. Maybe someone like open Road could pick up the Black Widowers, though I admit those are pretty niche.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

What's the story with his literary estate? His classics at least are available as e-books. Maybe someone like open Road could pick up the Black Widowers, though I admit those are pretty niche.

He was a very prolific writer, so he has a ton of niche books that he wrote. Very few of them are really commercially viable to convert to ebook, but in a situation like Guttenberg, someone would care enough to convert them. To a certain extent, like a lot of the books from the time period, they are a bit dated. For the vast majority of writers and books, by the time they come into public domain, the books and authors are forgotten. The Black Widower stories won't go into public domain until after 2070. Those stories will be long forgotten by that point. If you stop and think about writers who were writing in 1917, there is really only a handful that people remember and read.

To a great extent, the reason works go into public domain is so they can be copied and remembered.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

He was a very prolific writer, so he has a ton of niche books that he wrote. Very few of them are really commercially viable to convert to ebook, but in a situation like Guttenberg, someone would care enough to convert them. To a certain extent, like a lot of the books from the time period, they are a bit dated. For the vast majority of writers and books, by the time they come into public domain, the books and authors are forgotten. The Black Widower stories won't go into public domain until after 2070. Those stories will be long forgotten by that point. If you stop and think about writers who were writing in 1917, there is really only a handful that people remember and read.

To a great extent, the reason works go into public domain is so they can be copied and remembered.

There's always Open Road Media or some other indie that could reprint them.

[sufue]

I second this...

I have my own scanned pdf versions, but would love to see in a "real" ebook...they are a bit dated, but still very enjoyable, IMO.

Originally Posted by pwalker8

One series that I would really like to see is Asimov's Black Widowers mystery series. I have a couple of the books in hard back, but the odds of them coming out as ebooks is pretty small. To a great extent, his literary estate points to what is wrong with the copyright system. By the time they come out of copyright and enter the public domain, few will remember most of his books.

[haydnfan]

Originally Posted by issybird

The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann, in either the Lowe-Porter or Woods translation. I'd love to re-read this, but dread hefting the colossal hardcover of the latter or reading the teeny print in my paperback of the former.

Me too. A few months ago I tried to buy the ebook to discover that I could not.