Because people keep asking, and I need to get off Twitter to make word count, one last run at Velveteen for the day:
WHY CAN'T I GET THESE AS EBOOKS?: A PRIMER ON THE WAY RIGHTS SOMETIMES WORK IN AN IMPERFECT WORLD.
WHY CAN'T I GET THESE AS EBOOKS?: A PRIMER ON THE WAY RIGHTS SOMETIMES WORK IN AN IMPERFECT WORLD.
So I am a traditionally published author. This means that, under ideal circumstances, someone else assumes the risk of printing, storage, distribution, etc., and I am paid a percentage of whatever they make when they sell a book.
Most of my publishers (DAW, Tor.com, Orbit, Marvel) are Quite Large, and very equipped to assume this risk. I never become involved with the supply chain and, to date, none of my books with these publishers have gone out of print/reverted to me.
I do have a few works with smaller publishers, usually under an intentionally limited contract. @SubPress, for example, structures their contracts to allow for a certain number of print editions and a certain time period for sale of electronic editions.
When the physical edition sells out, that's it, we're done, game over...but the electronic edition can and often will remain available for some time afterward, because the contract allows the publisher to continue selling it.
(This is, by the way, part of why I push people toward the physical edition of limited edition books. There's more time to consider whether you want the electronic edition: the physical is artifact and investment, as much as reading copy.)
Now here's the fun part: once the contract expires, the publisher has to remove the ebook edition for sale, because THEY NO LONGER HAVE THE LEGAL RIGHT TO SELL IT. All rights have reverted to me, and I get to decide what happens to it next.
Remember that whole "traditionally published author" thing? Well, that decision is as much practicality as arrogance: I'm not being a total Tahani here. While I technically could post the ebook editions of reverted work for sale, I know my own limits.
I don't own the ebook files my publisher generated/sold; I don't own the covers. All I own is the text. I would need to invest money I don't currently have in preparing the files for sale--and then I would need to find out how to set myself up as a retailer.
I have deadlines, I have publisher commitments, and I have an extreme aversion to customer service having done it for more than a decade. So selling my own stuff is a last-ditch effort for me, always.
In the long term, I'm hoping we can sell the physical copies of the first three books, getting them into the world and onto shelves as the collector's items they are, and then find a traditional publisher to repackage/reprint the first three volumes, as well as volume four.
This will be easier and more painless if the ebooks are not available for sale when we go looking for a larger publisher, more equipped to handle the kind of volume we tend to do.
So yes, right now, for legal contract reasons, the ebooks are out of print. This isn't a casual or frivolous decision: it's based on practicality and capacity. I hope you can understand.
