The Grand Illusion
Will you be publishing maps of the entire world of Terahnar?
There are currently maps of the city of L’Excelsis and Lydar/Solidar. Unless I write another Imager Portfolio book dealing extensively with continents other than Lydar/Solidar, it’s highly unlikely that there will be any additional maps.
Why don’t publishers allow purchasers of print books to obtain an electronic copy that is included in the price of the print edition?
At present, I know of no movement among publishers toward such a possibility, and I seriously doubt that publishers will ever allow such a mechanism with regard to mass market paperbacks. Given the economics of publishing, some publishers might theoretically consider providing an electronic copy with the purchase of a hardcover, if there were some way to ensure that the electronic copy remained with the purchasers, but the problem with that is that there’s no way to do it, and given the current tendencies of all too many readers, a sizable fraction of purchasers who obtained both might simply transfer the electronic copy — or the hardcover — to someone else, thus further cannibalizing already declining sales numbers… and that’s something that no publisher wants.
Hmm.
One of Bujold’s recent-ish hardcovers came with a CD consisting of *all* of the “Miles-iverse” (with the seeming inexplicable omission of _Mirror Dance_). Hmm. _Cryoburn_ was the volume that included the CD.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryoburn
It seems as though at least one counterexample has been implemented…
That’s not surprising. Baen has often made CDs of already released books available for free, and they’re likely to be the leader in this.
Baen are pretty much the only publisher who do this, and they have done for years now. It’s really only the hardcover editions of certain series that tend to contain them, though – Honorverse being the other major example.
Baen are very much the leaders in how they handle ebooks. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – almost every major publisher can learn from Baen when it comes to ebooks and e-distribution.
Perhaps publishers who are not ready to follow Baen’s lead might be willing to sell the hardcover edition with an electronic copy at a slightly higher price, but perhaps a little less than the price of hardcover + paperback.
If I like a book enough that it’s a “keeper”, I generally want both print (for reading at home) and e-book (for reading on the go). For an author who always writes things I like, I’d like to be able to get both at once.
I’m sure I saw a post on this where you can purchase copies of the book in e-book format for a reduced price. I’ve spent the past half hour searching for that post and still haven’t found it. I wanted to get an e-book of “Forever Hero”.
The outfit that will do that is Shelfie [ http://www.shelfie.com ].