Cody asked Michael J. Sullivan:

if i buy a hardback / paperback copy of a book, is there a reason i can not get a copy of the digital version? presumably most authors send digital copies to the publisher and so not much effort goes into 'kindleising' it. i would have bought the hardback of AOS (amazing and reviewed) if this was the case money was lost. so i am not sure why this doesnt happen, afaik the paperback costs more than the kindle

Michael J. Sullivan So, first off I should say, that for the books that I control the ebook rights to (Hollow World, The Disappearance of Winter's Daughter, The Death of Dulgath, and several books that will be coming out soon) I do send digital versions to anyone who has bought the print or audio version. But I can do that ONLY because I still maintain that right.

For the vast majority of my books, the contracts I signed with Orbit and Del Rey give them the ebook rights -- and in fact all major publishers require this. And yes, in those cases there is a very good reason why the author doesn't make that available to readers...it's because we can't. Only the publisher is allowed to distribute the ebooks for these titles and if we were to do that we'd be violating our contract and making our publishers very unhappy.

All that said, I continue to "lobby" my publishers to allow me to send ebooks if they have a print or audio. No movement yet, but that doesn't mean I'm not continuing to try.

flag