I’ve been a big fan of the Kindle app on my iPhone for the last few months. The interface works great and I love the convenience.
Having lived through 4 weeks of plague recently, my fondness for it and the written word has increased. For the first time in a while I’ve been reading and enjoying new titles rather than revisiting old friends. I’ve discovered some writers I hadn’t read before and new things from authors I’ve always enjoyed.
Today, I’m annoyed.
I’ve looked up several different series. These aren’t books, I mean whole series of three books or more. I had the intention of treating myself to something new.
So why the hell is it that every series I found was incomplete in the most non-sensical way possible?
I mean, there was the common, book 2 and 3 are available for download, but book 1 is not.
Then there was a series where I could happily purchase book 2 and book 4 as an ebook, book 1 was availabe on Audible.com (I am not interested in audio books right now and I doubt I’ll ever get to the point where I want to purchase any) and book 3 wasn’t available anywhere at all.
I won’t even talk about the prices.
I lied, let’s talk about the prices.
I saw compilations that were more expensive than buying the individual books. Stupid, but not a big deal.
I saw books priced way above a physical paperback (sometimes more than the hardcover). That’s ok. I understand this phenomenon a bit more.
I ended up saving my money (which I should do anyway).
Books such as these, I will go looking for them the next time I hit the used bookstore. I might even purchase the paperback.
Seriously though, I wonder if the publishers of these books realize how much money they are leaving on the table here? I know there’s license issues, contract negotiations and whatever. These are obstacles that can be overcome and have been overcome when the incentive was there. Why not now? Why leave these catalogs willy nilly?
Why leave money on the table?
