Kudos (and a rant)

Kudos to Kim Harrison, author of the Rachel Morgan "The Hollows" series.  This is one of my favorite paranormal series.  Kim is one of the many authors struggling with how to balance what her fans want, and what her publishers decide in regards to timelines for releasing ebook versions of her books.  Unfortunately, Harper-Collins made the decision to delay the ebook release of her newest title, "Black Magic Sanction" for two months after the hardback release.

So, why kudos to Kim, you ask?  Because she's set up a whole page on her blog for comments from her fans who want to share their opinions on that decision by her publisher.   Kim had less than no say in the publisher's decision, although I'd be willing to bet she'd have preferred her fans that choose to read in electronic formats to be able to have the book at the same time as the hardback release.  But she's willing to listen to the ranting from her fans, like me, who can't get their hands on the book until April 6th, even though she had nothing to do with the decision process, and is taking the flak that should rightfully be directed at Harper-Collins.

My own opinion?  Harper-Collins would have gotten the same money from me for an ebook version priced the same as the hardback if they'd released it on the same day.  To be blunt about it, they screwed Kim out of sales in that critical first week that might cost her a spot on the bestseller lists.

Macmillan did the same to Heather Webber during the "late unpleasantness" with Amazon.  Those Kindle "buy" buttons for Heather's new release, "Truly, Madly", were gone during that crucial first week, and to add insult to injury, Macmillan didn't distribute the book to any other online retailer so her fans could have gotten it elsewhere.  They screwed Heather out of sales figures that might make the difference on whether the series is continued or not.  And I'm betting they aren't going to take their own actions into consideration when making that decision, either.

The other issue here is:  I choose to read books in electronic format (ebooks).  I see the delayed release of ebooks to be nothing less than discrimination by publishers because of my preferred delivery method for reading material.   I wonder if  a lawyer might want to look at it in that light?  There'd be a hell of a lot of participation in a class-action lawsuit on those grounds...