where can I find...

[ownedbycats]

a copy of Heinlein's "Farmer in the Sky" as an ebook? Buyable in Canada, because that is where I live.

Audiobooks are no good to me but that's all I can find on either Kobo or Amazon.

I found the ebook at https://www.baen.com/farmer-in-the-sky.html but it's not available anymore.

[ownedbycats]

Also I laughed at this on the Amazon page

[pwalker8]

Odd, Baen use to have it, that's where I bought it. I guess their contract expired.

It seems like only yesterday when the assumption that once an ebook was made, it would always be available because there was no logical reason to pull it. Well, that's why it's a good idea to buy ebooks as soon as you see it.

[ownedbycats]

I searched MobileRead and an older thread said that Baen had that book so that's why I looked.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

a copy of Heinlein's "Farmer in the Sky" as an ebook? Buyable in Canada, because that is where I live.

Audiobooks are no good to me but that's all I can find on either Kobo or Amazon.

I found the ebook at https://www.baen.com/farmer-in-the-sky.html but it's not available anymore.

Oooo. Someone must have pulled the rights (thus the note about prior purchase) from Baen.

[crossi]

Far too common. Eddings books have been published and then pulled at least 4 times. The first 5 books of the Belgariad are now back at Amazon but I still can't get the Elenium series. And at Barnes and Noble ebook store Louise Cooper's Time's Master ebooks were once available but no longer. Amazon has the 3rd in the trilogy but not the first two for some reason. Weird.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by crossi

Far too common. Eddings books have been published and then pulled at least 4 times. The first 5 books of the Belgariad are now back at Amazon but I still can't get the Elenium series. And at Barnes and Noble ebook store Louise Cooper's Time's Master ebooks were once available but no longer. Amazon has the 3rd in the trilogy but not the first two for some reason. Weird.

The 3rd is not in the kindle store anymore. She died in 2009. I tend to suspect that it was an unauthorized version that the copyright holder (I think her husband is still alive) noticed and got taken down. That's frequently the case when dealing with back list books by dead authors.

Farmer in the Sky was written back in 1950 and was never one of Heinlien's more popular books. Looking through the Heinlein offerings on Amazon, a large number are by Penguin, some are by Spectrum Literary Agency, and some do not list a publisher. Since several of the ones that don't list a publisher are listed as being published in the last year, I would guess they are unauthorized versions. I would not be surprised if Farmer in the Sky joins that list at some point in the next year, at least until whoever holds the copyright notices and issues a take down notice.

[crossi]

Why don't the holders of the copyright get off the ball and get them published? A book that isn't being sold isn't making any money and even if they didn't want to self publish surely they could farm it out to someone like spectrum. After all it's already written and edited so half the work's been done already. I have a long list of books I've been waiting for for 10 years and it's not as if they were obscure, unpopular books by unknown authors either.

[ownedbycats]

That's especially what strikes me as weird: unlike paper books (which have the cost of printing + shipping + storing them), you can't print too many copies of an eBook. You're just losing money if it's not available for sale, because people aren't buying them (and potentially also pirating them which may lose future sales).

[theducks]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

That's especially what strikes me as weird: unlike paper books (which have the cost of printing + shipping + storing them), you can't print too many copies of an eBook. You're just losing money if it's not available for sale, because people aren't buying them (and potentially also pirating them which may lose future sales).

In many cases the Copyright (or performance rights) is Inherited by a family or group who can't agree (on how much greed to do) .

In this case, IIRC Eddings wife was an uncredited co-author. Both are now gone. Who knows what the estate is doing to the rights?

Why are Copyrights not like Patents? They are BOTH creative work protections. Why are Actors just paid by contract terms, but the FILM is almost forever paying the studio Copyright fees. The Actors PERFOMANCE is as creative as all the rest, which is why MoCap is needed even in live action types.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

The 3rd is not in the kindle store anymore. She died in 2009. I tend to suspect that it was an unauthorized version that the copyright holder (I think her husband is still alive) noticed and got taken down. That's frequently the case when dealing with back list books by dead authors.

Louise Cooper's website gives a link where to go to get her eBook and the store it links to is closed. It seems nobody has then put her eBooks up for sale at other online shops.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by theducks

In many cases the Copyright (or performance rights) is Inherited by a family or group who can't agree (on how much greed to do) .

In this case, IIRC Eddings wife was an uncredited co-author. Both are now gone. Who knows what the estate is doing to the rights?

Why are Copyrights not like Patents? They are BOTH creative work protections. Why are Actors just paid by contract terms, but the FILM is almost forever paying the studio Copyright fees. The Actors PERFOMANCE is as creative as all the rest, which is why MoCap is needed even in live action types.

If I recall correctly, Eddings had no children but did have some siblings. I would guess they have the copyright now.

The basic answer for is a combination of publishing contracts, lack of clarity on who actually holds the copyrights and an unrealistic expectation of how much the rights to publish the books are worth. Some people expect to get paid lots of money upfront. They don't want to simply put it out there and get a small royalty check every 3 months. This is especially true of someone who isn't in the field and doesn't know how it normally works. Books that were written 30+ years ago generally aren't worth all that much money unless actively marketed, especially after the author dies and is no longer putting out new books. There are exceptions, but not many.

[crossi]

How does it work when an author dies? I thought the author sells the book to the publisher who pays upfront and then gives the author royalties after the upfront payment is recovered. Wouldn't the author's heirs simply continue to get the royalties and the publisher continue publishing the book? Does it really matter for publishing if the author has died or not? Is the copyright held by the author or the publisher?

[jhowell]

The contract with a publisher is usually for a limited time after which the rights revert to the author.

[ownedbycats]

Also, another thing that is very confusing is when some entries of a series are available as eBook, but others are not.