(no subject)

[nonelvis]

I was buying myself a copy of Game Change today, and after reading the glowing review the book got from Entertainment Weekly, I was shocked to see the book had only two stars on Amazon. Turns out this is due to people giving it one-star reviews to protest the one-month delay of a Kindle edition -- presumably a delay made at the publisher's request, because this new-fangled Internet doohickey is kind of scary, you know. And I can certainly understand why that would piss off potential readers, but some of them might want to back away from the computer and check out this fresh air thingy I've heard so much about:



Yes, not being able to buy a copy of a book for the Kindle when you want it is exactly like living in a totalitarian society.

Comments

[iko.livejournal.com]

Such lack of perspective makes my eyes bleed.

Also, isn't this like killing what you love? "I'm going to give this book that I want to read that I heard is really good a negative review because I can't get it in the format I want?" LAME. People like that don't deserve to read a book that they would love.

[nonelvis]

There should be a word for this kind of not-quite-Godwinning. Well, there's "stupid," but that's not quite the same.

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

I would like to protest their refusal to sell it to Australian book stores. If I have one more customer asking for "that book about McCain and Clinton and the election", I may have to cry.

[nonelvis]

Now, that is a legitimate complaint. Any idea why they aren't selling it to you?

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

None at all. There's no Australian distributor for it, which is not unusual with an American new release (local distributors usually wait and see how successful it is before they commit), but the American wholesalers just have a note up saying "Not for sale outside of the US".

[kalleah.livejournal.com]

It's exactly like protesting that there's not an immediate paperback version of the book. Would it be better to have a Kindle version upon release? I think so, but I am not a publisher.

[nonelvis]

Someone made that exact point in a reply to this moron, but another person pointed out there's an important difference: a paperback is only ever released long after hardback sales are essentially complete. There's no reason not to release a Kindle version simultaneous with the hardback one unless you are an idiot publisher afraid that someone, somewhere will pirate your ebook. Not that people can't read the book for free from their local libraries anyway, but when did logic ever enter into the digital download equation?

[mmancuso.livejournal.com]

In old country we had to read books in the snow, backwards and forwards. In the daylight.

Channeling Jacov Smirnov

[profrobert.livejournal.com]

In 2010 America, idiot always finds you.

[nonelvis]

And our Kindles, they ran on squirrels!

Re: Channeling Jacov Smirnov

[nonelvis]

Sadly, I don't think that's a problem isolated to 2010.

[(Anonymous)]

People asked Neil Gaiman to complain about the Kindle delays and he declined, also using the paperback analogy.

[syzygy-lj.livejournal.com]

"Is this out in paperback?" is the most annoying question you could possibly ask a bookseller. Followed closely by "Why is this cheaper on Amazon?"

I am so glad I no longer work in the bookstore, because now that the Kindle is The Next Big Thing, I would have to fend off its fans, too. "Why don't you sell ebooks?"