Richard McGowan's Blog: Smashed-Rat-On-Press - Posts Tagged "lather"
More Zombification of Recently Deceased Authors
(Yes, Virginia, this is just another rant you can skip...)
The author was dead: to begin with. Dead. Dead. Dead...
She passed beyond mortal ken in 1973, which is more than forty years ago, so that isn't really very recent. In other words, she has no longer any demonstrable need to pay rent, eat, keep a roof over her head, raise her children, entertain herself by reading, or take part in any of the other myriad activities in which living people engage.
That is why I was so disappointed when, having just read that Miss Buncle's Book was one of someone's comfort books for cozy re-reading, I jumped up right away and went out to look for a copy.
Formerly, of course, the book was published in the dark ages--the 1930s, that is--in England, in hard cover, and if you could find one, the blogger assured me, it would cost you hundreds of dollars.
(I'm sorry to disappoint any authors out there, but if I'm going to spend hundreds of dollars for a single book, it had better be a limited edition and have the author's signature and thumb-print on the title page, in blood. Luckily these days even first editions of Miss Buncle's Book are going for merely $10 to $20, possibly because it's been re-published.)
Even if the book is as comfy as the blogger assures me it is, I have to wonder at the mentality of the publisher, who apparently must have inherited and thus own the copyright to the book, in putting it up for sale at $9.25 for the Kindle edition. Others in the series are similarly priced.
That's a lot for a pile of electrons, the mere ghost of the physical objects of decades past. I suppose it's true that someone had to (probably) scan a printed copy of the thing and produce the e-book edition, and I'm willing to pay for all that, of course. But for goodness sake, they didn't have to edit it. It was already published and went through that mill in the '30s. They did obviously pay a swanky cover designer, but they don't have to stock inventory, or deal with shipping, market heavily, or do any of the other publisher-like activities that are required for new books.
Maybe I'm a cheapskate, but: why on Earth would I pay $9.25 for the e-book edition of a book by a dead person when I could get a used paperback copy of the book for only $1.99?
The author, who is Dead you'll recall, will be just as well-served in her grave by me buying a used copy as she will if I buy a new e-book for $9.25.
That's why, if I were going out to buy a comfortable e-book for $9.25, I would probably just buy two e-books by a living author who could still use the cash. (Like L.B. Hathaway, as a random example.) Or I might pick up a couple of Lyn Hamilton titles; she's dead, too. (And I know someone scanned, not typed, at least the first of the Lara McClintoch mysteries because I've seen first-hand evidence of uncorrected OCR failures.)
Or I could buy a couple of cappucinos, pour one of those on the ground in honor of Seshat, then read something from Project Gutenberg. Or I could snag one of the gazillion free Kindle books by living authors who are so desperate to sell anything at all that they're giving away free samples on street corners, and then pour two cappucinos on the ground (because Saraswati likes coffee, too).
Nine or ten dollars for the electronic edition of a book published in 1936 by an author now dead? I don't think so. It just feels like somebody is trying to make out like a bandit by riding on her (now skeletal) coat-tails. One thing I will say for it: the cover of the new edition is rather beautiful and makes Miss Buncle look a lot more chic than one of the original covers did, so I hope the artist is being fairly compensated.
Rising from a mist within the door knocker, I can almost hear Marley's eerie voice wailing: "At least it's cheaper than an epipen!"
The author was dead: to begin with. Dead. Dead. Dead...She passed beyond mortal ken in 1973, which is more than forty years ago, so that isn't really very recent. In other words, she has no longer any demonstrable need to pay rent, eat, keep a roof over her head, raise her children, entertain herself by reading, or take part in any of the other myriad activities in which living people engage.
That is why I was so disappointed when, having just read that Miss Buncle's Book was one of someone's comfort books for cozy re-reading, I jumped up right away and went out to look for a copy.
Formerly, of course, the book was published in the dark ages--the 1930s, that is--in England, in hard cover, and if you could find one, the blogger assured me, it would cost you hundreds of dollars.
(I'm sorry to disappoint any authors out there, but if I'm going to spend hundreds of dollars for a single book, it had better be a limited edition and have the author's signature and thumb-print on the title page, in blood. Luckily these days even first editions of Miss Buncle's Book are going for merely $10 to $20, possibly because it's been re-published.)
Even if the book is as comfy as the blogger assures me it is, I have to wonder at the mentality of the publisher, who apparently must have inherited and thus own the copyright to the book, in putting it up for sale at $9.25 for the Kindle edition. Others in the series are similarly priced.
That's a lot for a pile of electrons, the mere ghost of the physical objects of decades past. I suppose it's true that someone had to (probably) scan a printed copy of the thing and produce the e-book edition, and I'm willing to pay for all that, of course. But for goodness sake, they didn't have to edit it. It was already published and went through that mill in the '30s. They did obviously pay a swanky cover designer, but they don't have to stock inventory, or deal with shipping, market heavily, or do any of the other publisher-like activities that are required for new books.
Maybe I'm a cheapskate, but: why on Earth would I pay $9.25 for the e-book edition of a book by a dead person when I could get a used paperback copy of the book for only $1.99?
The author, who is Dead you'll recall, will be just as well-served in her grave by me buying a used copy as she will if I buy a new e-book for $9.25.
That's why, if I were going out to buy a comfortable e-book for $9.25, I would probably just buy two e-books by a living author who could still use the cash. (Like L.B. Hathaway, as a random example.) Or I might pick up a couple of Lyn Hamilton titles; she's dead, too. (And I know someone scanned, not typed, at least the first of the Lara McClintoch mysteries because I've seen first-hand evidence of uncorrected OCR failures.)
Or I could buy a couple of cappucinos, pour one of those on the ground in honor of Seshat, then read something from Project Gutenberg. Or I could snag one of the gazillion free Kindle books by living authors who are so desperate to sell anything at all that they're giving away free samples on street corners, and then pour two cappucinos on the ground (because Saraswati likes coffee, too).
Nine or ten dollars for the electronic edition of a book published in 1936 by an author now dead? I don't think so. It just feels like somebody is trying to make out like a bandit by riding on her (now skeletal) coat-tails. One thing I will say for it: the cover of the new edition is rather beautiful and makes Miss Buncle look a lot more chic than one of the original covers did, so I hope the artist is being fairly compensated.
Rising from a mist within the door knocker, I can almost hear Marley's eerie voice wailing: "At least it's cheaper than an epipen!"
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