Kevin's Watch

J.A. Frank: Will it be possible to obtain all SRD publications in e-book format some day? The Runes of Earth was the first e-book I bothered to read on my Treo650 and was amazed that I actually read in under two weeks! Since waiting around for the next in the series is... not pleasant, I would like to tote around the rest of his works in ebook format to revisit the other six books until the next in the series is completed. I have hardbacks of most of SRD's works, and I have found it increasingly difficult to read a book for pleasure due to their size, availability. I passed on the complete paperback collection to other interested readers (who are now hooked) so I do not have another portable version lying around. If you send this stuff to SRD, "... hey, man! E-books work - suprisingly well."

I suspect that the transmission of books in various forms through electronic media is the wave of the future. But at present, there simply isn't enough money in e-books for publishers to invest much time and effort in them. And my books, in particularly, don't sell well enough to inspire extra time and effort from my publishers.

In addition, most people who are comfortable in the world of the Internet, e-mail, iPods, and PDAs don't realize that they are still a rather small segment of the general population. The last figures I saw indicated that only 10% of US homes have computers. The larger population isn't *ready* for e-books.

And just to give you a bit of context: when "The Runes of the Earth" was high on ereader.com's bestseller list, it had sold somewhere between 20 and 25 copies. From a book publisher's perspective, that's chump change.

So in the foreseeable future, no publisher is going to expend the time and effort to make my "back list" available in e-formats. (You may be interested to know, however, the DEL REY/Ballantine *does* want to release e-books for the first six "Chronicles". But DR/B doesn't own those rights: I do. And DR/B is unwilling to *pay* me for those rights. Well, as a career move, it's suicidal for an author to give away his/her work for free. I don't have the time, expertise, or money to become an e-publisher myself. And if I did, DR/B might sue me under the "competing publication" clause of my contract.) And that won't change unless I somehow become one or two orders of magnitude more successful than I am now.

(04/16/2006)

Devany wrote:Hello (World)

For I am new, I post here.

Where may I buy/download ebooks for all the Thomas Covenant series?

I have the original (first and second) but I don't read paper anymore. I'd like to read the series(es) again before reading the third. But I can't find them in ebook form.

Also, as far as I can see, the ebook for "Runes of the Earth" retails at $16 (ebooks), but the paper copy is $4.15 (amazon) - a more sane recommedation would be welcome.

Thanks.

Savor Dam wrote:Why are we welcoming a member who joined the Watch three-and-a-quarter years ago?