Richard McGowan's Blog: Smashed-Rat-On-Press - Posts Tagged "lobotomy"
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!"
Winter is Coming and It Will Be Warm!
[Another in our ongoing series of NaNoMaMo postings for November]
One side effect of this year's magnum exercise in re-proofreading so many SROP books in the vain hope of selling more corrected books than last year is that our tiny, cramped office ended up with excess archival copies that are known to be imperfect and no longer perfectly current, hence are no longer needed and have already been replaced.* Here's a bad cell-phone photograph of them, which you may click to enlarge.
Like many unfortunate books before them, these will all be tossed onto the Winter Solstice Bonfire in downtown Santa Banana on December 21, 2019 (at 20:19 Pacific Time), unless they can possibly be given away** to good homes before then. Knowing the company track record of annual sales at SROP, the rodents here anticipate a marvelous, but unnecessary, blaze to light the year's longest northern night. (It's promising to be yet another warm winter and we really don't want a Yule conflagration at all so we might resort to recycling or composting.)
Please let the Head Rodent know by private message, e-mail, or carrier pigeon if you think you can find a decent home for one or more of these pathetic orphans before their deadline!
________________
* Sanguinity wrote that last sentence, by the way, in case you were wondering why it was so long. The three books pictured on the left without spine text are How the Feather Sisters Came to Rule the Night, The Maiden Who Turned to Water, and The Girl Who Grew Crutches From Seeds.
** That is, free within the USA, including slow shipping, and no strings attached. To be perfectly transparent: the books all have minor known typos, and are marked on their bottoms with a bold scarlet stripe, but are otherwise in fine condition.
One side effect of this year's magnum exercise in re-proofreading so many SROP books in the vain hope of selling more corrected books than last year is that our tiny, cramped office ended up with excess archival copies that are known to be imperfect and no longer perfectly current, hence are no longer needed and have already been replaced.* Here's a bad cell-phone photograph of them, which you may click to enlarge.
Like many unfortunate books before them, these will all be tossed onto the Winter Solstice Bonfire in downtown Santa Banana on December 21, 2019 (at 20:19 Pacific Time), unless they can possibly be given away** to good homes before then. Knowing the company track record of annual sales at SROP, the rodents here anticipate a marvelous, but unnecessary, blaze to light the year's longest northern night. (It's promising to be yet another warm winter and we really don't want a Yule conflagration at all so we might resort to recycling or composting.)
Please let the Head Rodent know by private message, e-mail, or carrier pigeon if you think you can find a decent home for one or more of these pathetic orphans before their deadline!
________________
* Sanguinity wrote that last sentence, by the way, in case you were wondering why it was so long. The three books pictured on the left without spine text are How the Feather Sisters Came to Rule the Night, The Maiden Who Turned to Water, and The Girl Who Grew Crutches From Seeds.
** That is, free within the USA, including slow shipping, and no strings attached. To be perfectly transparent: the books all have minor known typos, and are marked on their bottoms with a bold scarlet stripe, but are otherwise in fine condition.
Smashed-Rat-On-Press
The main purpose of this blog is to announce occasional additions and changes to the SROP catalog or the site. And it doubles as a soap-box from which to gesticulate and babble...
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