Snail-Mail Your Favorite Author For eBook Publication

[Ed Hansberry]

Many of you have probably received your <a href="http://www.palmdigitalmedia.com/subscribe.cgi">Palm Digital Media Weekend Specials</a> email by now, but for those that don't subscribe, they had a request of ebook enthusiasts in it that I'll now reprint, without their permission. ;) I don't think they will mind though. :D<br /><br />The single most common question we get here at PDM is "Why don't you have..." and you can fill in your favorite candidate. Tom Clancy, John Grisham, The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, etc. We all know that those books will sell really well. Just look at how fast The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy jumped onto our best-seller list last weekend.<br /><br />And so do the publishers. They hear it from us almost constantly. The thing that's needed to make this happen is for you to write your favorite author and ask him to make his books available as Palm Reader eBooks. And as much as we depend on email and technology, you need to do this the old fashioned paper and snail mail way. Send him or her a letter, care of the publisher and tell him/her how much you enjoy his/her books and how much you'd like to see the next one made available as a Palm Reader eBook.<br /><br />And just to let you know that it can work, some good news. Next month we will be putting on sale books from two of the all-time best-selling authors in the world - Louis L'Amour, with the Sacketts series, and a handful of titles from a mystery writer whom we're sure you'll all recognize - stay tuned for more news!<br />So, fire up those ink pens and get on Google to find those publisher addresses.

[qmrq]

Pen...? How... quaint. 8)

[dh]

I would think it was in every publishers interest to make all their titles available in one or more of the ebook formats. They are just going to lose business otherwise.

As an example I was looking for some books by John Steinbeck earlier in the week and was intending to buy them in MS Reader format. As it turned out, I couldn't find them in any format.

So instead of buying them, I now have them for free, thanks to some of the nice people here. I'm sure I'm not the only person who is going to make the effort to find the titles anyway, so the publishers are simply giving business away.

On another book related issue, what's happened to the free MS ones. They seem to get less interesting each week. The first week was great with the Bill Bryson book, then the Hitchhikers Guide the following week. I didn't want any of this weeks books, even for free.

[disconnected]

I've emailed a few authors that I could find email addresses for, but I'm not sure how much is their decision and how much is the publisher's. The ones I can remember (all mystery writers) --

Tim Cockey -- his first couple were released as ebooks, but the third wasn't. He wrote back, a very nice letter, but said he hadn't even known his first two were ebooks until someone mentioned to him that they'd seen them....I don't think that can really be true. Anyway, after that, his fourth book was released as an ebook.

Stephen Booth -- I'd never even heard of him until I saw his first two books as ebooks. I really enjoyed the books, so I wrote and asked him about his third book. He wrote back and said his publisher had decided not to release his next book(s) as ebooks.

Elizabeth George -- I didn't get any answer, but her latest book was released as an ebook (none of her others had been).

I think there were a few more, but I can't remember which ones.

I also wrote to at least one publisher (again, can't remember which), because they had just released ebooks by several authors whose books had not previously been released as ebooks. In each case, the book was one that had been out for a while in paperback; if it was an experiment, I didn't think it was a very good one, because most of the people who would buy the books (me, for instance) had already bought them. I almost bought some of them anyway, just to encourage them, but I decided that was a bit much.

I guess maybe it's time to write to a few more authors.

[Weyoun6]

Anyone up for a Farenheit 451 petition?

[rubberdemon]

This Palm email is a bit misleading, as Disconnected writes, because I bet few authors have control over digital rights to their work. In most cases, the publishers will purchase these along with regular print rights (especially if they sell ebooks) and sometimes radio/tv/film etc. A good agent or savvy author might hold these back and try and sell them separately, but the market is still so small that it may not be on a lot of writers' radar and they might just have them included in their contracts and not give them much thought.

My first book was published almost 2 years ago, and I specifically held back digital rights as I had vague but ambitious plans for them and my publisher wasn't particularly aggressive in wanting them. After seeing the impact of the Napsters & Kazaas of the world on digital intellectual property I still haven't done anything with the digital rights and the book remains resolutely in paper form only. I'm definitely a geek through and through, but I am skeptical about ebooks and the market for them. From what I know of the industry, things ain't going to change very fast either, so there may be a long long wait for some of these authors to appear on your PocketPC...

[Ed Hansberry]

This Palm email is a bit misleading, as Disconnected writes, because I bet few authors have control over digital rights to their work.
More often than not, I am hearing it is the author holding back. I know it is the Tolkien family that doesn't want ebook distribution. Even when it is the publisher, if the author is big enough (Clancy, Grisham, etc.) they have enough power over the publisher to persuade them to epublish.

Bottom line is this. Ebooks of popular authors will be done. The question is, will it be authorized and will the publishers and authors get paid? They are the ones that decide. Yes means they get paid. No means they don't, not that epublication doesn't happen.

[Talldog]

I'd love to help, but my favorite candidates for ebooks are classic murder mysteries (Nero Wolfe, Poirot, Perry Mason, Charlie Chan, Auguste Dupin, etc.), and the authors are all dead, and are expected to remain that way. The only one who is widely available is Sherlock Holmes, but I've read every Homes story multiple times.

[dh]

More often than not, I am hearing it is the author holding back. I know it is the Tolkien family that doesn't want ebook distribution. Even when it is the publisher, if the author is big enough (Clancy, Grisham, etc.) they have enough power over the publisher to persuade them to epublish.

It makes no sense to not hold back on ebook distribution. It's easy to get all Tolkien's books in .lit format anyway.
Yet another case where customers get for free, what they would have happily paid for. Strange business.

[Crystal Eitle]

It makes no sense to hold back on ebook distribution. It's easy to get all Tolkien's books in .lit format anyway.
Yet another case where customers get for free, what they would have happily paid for. Strange business.
Totally. I have .lit copies of Order of the Phoenix and also the Lord of the Rings trilogy (don't ask how I got them). I would gladly have paid for these books in eBook format, were they available. I'm really not comfortable with pirating, but on the other hand, I'm just not going to haul that big behemoth of a Harry Potter book around. I've considered purchasing a paper copy of Order of the Phoenix just to make good on having my eBook copy. Maybe I might. And as for the LOTR books, I already own them in paperbook form, so I don't feel the least bit guilty about having them in my Pocket PC. (I haven't even read them on my PPC yet, but it's just a nice feeling knowing they're there, should I ever want to read them).

But the point is, were these legitimately available in eBook form, I would have gladly paid for them.

Also, I had an onion tied to my belt, which was the style at the time.