Quiet War Offer
To celebrate next week's publication of Evening's Empires, the fourth novel set in the Quiet War universe, my publishers have temporarily slashed the price of the ebook of the first, The Quiet War. It's available on Kindle, iTunes, and hopefully elsewhere.
EDIT: My fault for not making this clear - this is an offer by Gollancz, associated with the publication of Evening's Empires in the UK next week. Unfortunately, the Gollancz ebook doesn't appear to be available in the US, where The Quiet War has a different publisher. Sorry about that. But if you follow me on Twitter there will be a competition next week, and anyone can enter.
posted by Paul McAuley at 5:49 pm
17 Comments:
I'm guessing only in the UK though, based on the $8.69 price on most of your books on US Amazon.
I wish your publisher would make Mouth of the Whale available in the US on kindle. I was waiting for the kindle version and then the hard copy went out of print, and still no kindle. Hardly does your work, or your readers, justice.
Al - The price for the Kindle edition of The Quiet War is currently $2.96, reduced from $7.43. The price should be reduced on iTunes, too. And I'm given to understand it has been reduced in other territories - Australia and New Zealand, for instance.
David D - From my pov over in the UK, there seems to be a US Kindle edition of In The Mouth of the Whale. Sorry if it isn't actually accessible. Meanwhile, outwith a US publishing deal, five titles in my UK backlist have been made available is ebooks in the US by Gollancz, along with The Quiet War and Gardens of the Sun...
The only US editions on Amazon are the Pyr editions (Kindle or otherwise).
They are full price. See http://i.imgur.com/57M3rTw.png.
I own the paper editions of the first two books too so I noticed the difference in cover. I see no access to Gollancz on Amazon except as imported hardcovers or paperbacks.
Nothing that I expect that you can do much about but perhaps something to bring up with your publishers.
The lack of a US edition of In the Mouth of the Whale was annoying but I worked around it. You're one of the few authors of whom I have to import British editions if I want to read in a timely way (as I used to do for you, Reynolds, Banks, and many others before simultaneous, or reasonably so, releases).
Hi Al,
Many thanks for the info. Greatly appreciated.
Amazon.com pages for the Gollancz editions of The Quiet War and Gardens of the Sun are visible from here in the UK, but perhaps not from the US. Curiously, they aren't redirects to the UK pages.
I'm afraid it is probably down to a) Amazon tracking the locations from where customers are accessing its site and b) rights and territories - Pyr purchased rights to publish those two title in the US and Canada before ebooks became a thing, so there's been a bit of to and fro about which ebooks appear where.
In short: I appreciate your frustration!
The five backlist titles published by Gollancz I mentioned should be available on Kindle (and other platforms) in the US as they are OOP with the original US publishers. They are:
Four Hundred Billion Stars
Eternal light
Red Dust
Pasquale's Angel
Fairyland
Hmm. Maybe I should do a proper post about this.
Yes, those seem to be available in Kindle editions from "Gateway", which I assume is a Gollancz imprint or partner. All for $8.6-something (it seems to vary on the exact number of cents).
If you want details or screenshots, feel free to ask and I can grab them.
I agree that region sniffing is going on. I've more than once thought of using a VPN that comes out in the UK and an Amazon gift card to buy UK Kindle books to avoid these issues.
I can only imagine how frustrating this is as an author!
Hi Al - thanks for checking. It's good to know they can be reached from that side, as well as this. Gateway is the Gollancz ebook hub with (I think) links to the SF Encyclopedia.
The ebook availability is of course an extension of the rights and territories deal that has long applied to deadtree books produced by big publishers. As with DVDs/BluRays, different editions appear at different times at different prices. But while people don't expect to see US editions of deadtree books in UK bookshops and vice versa, ebooks are visible from everywhere on the WWW, which can generate expectations that can't, because of rights and territories, be satisfied. Which, yes, makes things complicated for both readers and authors. And of course, five or ten years ago we wouldn't have had this conversation. But while there are now various direct channels between authors and readers (a good thing), authors don't control availability: publishers do. All we can do, as authors, is try to make sure we know what's available where, and to nudge publishers where appropriate. My fault in this was thinking that UK The Quiet War ebook may have been still accessible from the US - which at one point it was. Again, thanks for checking from your end. It's really helpful.
Hi Paul,
Will you be signing Evening's Empires for your local bookshop? If so, which is it, that I may order from them?
Thank you!
Martin
Hi Martin, I might be able to get to Forbidden planet in London next week - if I do I'll sign anything of mine they have in stock.
Thank you very much Paul.
I have emailed Forbidden Planet, to see if they will send me a copy.
Are there no small independent bookshops near you? I do like to support them too, and I can justify the higher costs (than Amazon say) if there is a signed copy, and even more so if I can say "please sign to Martin"!
Martin - there are a couple of good independents nearish (there used to be more, of course), but they do literary fiction, not genre stuff. Wish it were otherwise. Completely with you on paying a higher price to support independents (or even Waterstones, sometimes). It is a Good Thing. I will try to get to FP early next week. Maybe hold off ordering until then...?
Forbidden Planet emailed back, and unfortunately they said:
"If it is not an organised signing then i'm afraid we won't be offering any products online and they will only be available in the store. "
...which is sub-optimal - seeing as I live down in Somerset.
Perhaps it is not to be!
Thank you very much anyway, and I am sure I will enjoy regardless. All the others have been highly solid works.
Damn - not that it'll be worth much, but I'll see what I can find out when I go in to sign stock on Monday. If you would like to get bookplates signed, let me know; we can sort something out.
Martin - The nice people at Forbidden Planet tell me that while they can't reserve copies for mail order, all stock for their mail-order side of the business comes from the London branch. And since I just signed all the Evening's Empires stock in the shop, mail-ordered copies will be signed, until that stock runs out and they reorder. Probably too late to help you, but I've put it up here for future reference.
Much appreciated - I have ordered a copy!
Signed copy arrived - excellent, thank you.
I like the "Part" homage headings!
Martin
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