Books Back on Amazon (But Not Kindle)
Posted on February 5, 2010 Posted by John Scalzi 26 Comments
I was alerted via Twitter and e-mail that my Tor books were back on Amazon, but as I was out of pocket at the time (I was hanging about with my friends Mykal Burns and Wil Wheaton), I only just now got back to my browser to confirm with my own eyes. My eyes say: Yup, looks like they’re back. The physical books at least; the Kindle version still seem to have gone missing. Sorry Kindle folks. I am told reliably that it’s possible to buy them elsewhere and have them ported into your Kindle, so that might be the ticket for you, although I’m sure it’s probably a pain in the ass to do so.
I’d note that the reappearance of the physical books on Amazon happened this Friday just about the say time they disappeared the previous Friday; I’d be guessing that’s not a coincidence. But in any event I’m glad the author-hurting portion of the Amazon/Macmillan negotiations appears to be largely done with. Wish it had happened sooner.
Well, that’s good. I’m glad Amazon shoppers can buy your books again.
I’m not one of them. It will be a long time before I buy anything from Amazon again, if I ever do.
Yeah, I’m torn. I paid my Amazon Prime dues only two months ago but I’m seriously torn as to whether to actually use it again.
That was nice of them. I’ll be sure to restore the links to my Amazon listings on my pages. At some point. Maybe next week. I’ll put it on my To Do list.
Yeah, Brust’s Iorich and the Windling/Datlow Faery Reel are also both available again.
My 11 pages of wishlists, however, aren’t. There are other booksellers; I just have to get enough spoons to re-list all those lovely, lovely books and CDs and movies…
The timing of this irritates me; my birthday is in two days, and normally friends buy me goodies from my Amazon lists. This year, well, if they’ll wait a week or so, there’ll be lists elsenet. And one local friend is taking me to the National Theatre’s not-quite-simulcast HD version of PTerry’s _Nation_ next Thursday, so there’s that to look forward to…
Anyway, am tired and rambling and am glad to see the books by authors I like are back up, but it doesn’t mean I’ll buy those books from Amazon, nor will I want someone else to buy them for me from Amazon. Powell’s first, I think. :)
Been enjoying your posts on this thing, John. I’m glad our buy buttons are back up for the print stuff, but would like the ebooks back too. Sigh.
Glad your books are back (I have been checking and it looks like they are all back in print form)
I can wait until they’re available on the Kindle. Or the iPad. And if they have the text-to-speech disabled, I can wait longer.
If you can legally download the ebook versions in an unencrypted format, then there are several ways to convert them to formats the kindle will read. My favorite program is called Calibre and they’ve got it for Mac, Windows, and Linux.
I am glad to see you books are back up on Amazon. I read somewhere that the affected books were also removed from Wish Lists. I went and checked and sure enough one of your books I was going to purchase was gone. I just wonder how many other books I might be missing now. I have a kind of long wish list that I only purchase in small groups otherwise it gets to expensive. It keeps track so I don’t have to. Now I will have to keep a list of books myself if they can be pulled off like that.
“the Kindle version still seem to have gone missing”
Given that the dispute appears to be ongoing, the lack of Kindle versions is somewhat unsurprising – if Amazon puts them up at Amazon’s preferred price, it damages their position with MacMillan even more than it already was (unilateral action, that oh-so-popular negotiating trick, not once but twice?); if they put them up at MacMillan’s preferred price, it’s capitulation in the negotiations, and there’s no evidence that Amazon are (as of yet) willing to so capitulate.
So kindle readers will likely be waiting a while longer to lay “hands” on your, and other MacMillan authors’, books in kindle format, sadly.
I was just checking my kindle wish list and it looks like the Scalzi books I had added are once again available. HOORAY!
@11: Jonathan – That’s interesting, because I’m not seeing any Kindle links when I look up John’s books.
I remain glad I got a Sony.
Not sure why ppl would stop buying books and other items from Amazon. They’re still the price leader for most items, free s/h, no sales tax (unless you’re unlucky enough to live in one of those “greedy” states that mandated online sales tax collection). So Amazon acted like a corporation? So, too, did Macmillan, IMO. Boycott them both if you like. I’ll be buying from Amazon and Macmillan as usual (except I won’t be buying eBooks priced higher than $7 or so, but that was always the case).
I found Zoe’s Tale in the Kindle edition, but it’s disconnected from the print editions — probably why others haven’t seen it and certainly making it more annoying for a customer to find.
I’m glad too. But I’m still not paying more than $9.99 for an ebook. Thankfully yours aren’t.
I’m definitely seeing your Kindle books on Amazon. Just picked up Android’s Dream for $5.19
I searched for Scalzi on Kindle (one of the pop-up suggestions) and all of your books came up, available on Kindle.
Whew!
I’ll be purchasing the kindle editions at whatever price they happen to be at. Seriously, do you refuse to go to a movie because it costs $20 to get into the door (and god forbid you purchase food/drink)? So a particular book cost $15; that’s still significantly less than a movie and you will almost certainly enjoy it a lot longer.
I think many people have screwed up value propositions when it comes to books. Just because they are electronic does’t make them any less valuable than the print version (Amazon’s policy of “renting” you the ebook is a whole different story).
Wil Wheaton holla!!!
But seriously, after this debacle, why WOULDN’T someone just switch all their online book business to one of Amazon’s competitors? bn.com, powells.com, daedalusbooks.com, et a metric asston of altera.
ps: Stanza on iPhone is more than good enough for me. What I’d like to see on Apple though would be integrated, unabridged audiobooks, which include full text of the print book, and will flip pages as it ‘speaks’, let you flip pages to seek thru the audio, let you use chapters/index/glossary/search to navigate the book, etc. I think that would be great also for education and improving adult literacy. Having a “highlight-tap-dictionary” that displays and speaks definitions of words would also be wicked cool.
Time for cocoa.
@Tim Actually Tim, I do refuse to go to a movie if it costs $20. That’s the capitalist society we live in. If I don’t think a movie is worth $20 then, I’m not going to give that theater my money and support.
Following the same logic, if I don’t think a book is worth $15 dollars, I’m not going to buy it in print or e-book form and support that author or system. That’s just capitalism.
I will say though that I haven’t found a single book by Mr. Scalzi not worth it’s price.
You and Wil Wheaton together. I thought the world felt a little sillier today.
A fact that corporate America and unions need to learn. In a pissing match everbody gets pissed on.
NFL is talking strike.
The whole CART, IRL mess. How do you think NASCAR got so dominant?
F1
Yes I likes me some motorsport.
MLB
The big three and UAW
And now we can add Amazon and McMillin.
Everybody is greedy, we all know it. We can pretend it’s not that bad until we get our noses rubbed in it.
This may be alot to ask since you do this blog for free, but is there anyway you can create an index by categories? So we can go to the index to find different topics. I have seen other blogs do this. Subjects such as
Publishing
Books
My books
Pets
other
I am going back and reading alot of your older entries. I really like the publishing posts.
Did this blog start in March 2002 or is that just how far back this goes?
This is a GREAT blog. I had never heard of you before someone sent me. I will definitely check out your books.
I, too, have a Sony ebook reader. Smaller and more manageable than a Kindle, NOT tied to a major wireless carrier, and the fact that it JUST became available here in Canada makes it all better for me. Did I mantion the lack of DRM on the Sony site? Thank goodness many of JS’s ebooks are available on Sony’s reader store…
@aaron #24
I, too, have a Sony ebook reader.
How is the glare?
@kejia #25
No glare on mine, I have a PRS 505, the non-touch-screen version.