What bugs me about HFQ

pokermind wrote:

Assuming a solar flare or Nuclear EMP terrorism does not throw us back to the dark ages where you have to wait for the monks to copy your book in the scriptorium

Oh, that would be terrible! I'm using my scriptorium for something else just now.

~Tonto

NervousEnergy wrote:

SWM wrote:Let me clarify what I meant--no publisher in the world would sell an e-book before the print book comes out IF there is going to be a print book. If they intend to do both versions, both versions come out at the same time.

You mean other than Baen? They've been selling ebooks ahead of the print version for years. They also consistently hit a ~6 month turnaround on submission to shelf for the print version with high editorial standards.


I should have noted above that Sanderson does his own editing, and he spent 4 months on editing the draft of Words of Radiance before the December turn in. I personally thought the book was a tour de force of fantasy writing, with great flow, characterization, and consistency. 12 months for a writer like David that knows his stuff just shouldn't be necessary.

Baen sells eARCs ahead of the print publication--that's not the same thing. An earc is not the same as the published version (print or electronic published version), and should never be confused with it. An earc is not a published version--it has not gone through editing.

SWM wrote:Let me clarify what I meant--no publisher in the world would sell an e-book before the print book comes out IF there is going to be a print book.

<snip>

Baen sells eARCs ahead of the print publication--that's not the same thing. An earc is not the same as the published version (print or electronic published version), and should never be confused with it. An earc is not a published version--it has not gone through editing.

Baen sells monthly bundles of electronic versions of the final published version of all the paper books that are going to come out in a particular month.

They describe it like this

Each novel is published in three segments, one month apart, beginning three months before the actual publication date. Each month, several books are available. For each month purchased, you receive access to a directory containing these books.

Four months before publication, the Ebook is listed as Forthcoming.

Three months before publication, you gain access to the first Half of the books in HTML format.

Two months before publication, you gain access to the first Three Quarters of the books in HTML format.

One month before publication, you receive full access to the final quarter in all seven DRM-free formats, completing the books. I.e. you now get access to the whole of each book in each of these formats.

About two weeks after the last quarter is delivered to that month's Monthly Baen Ebook subscribers, bookstores around the country will begin to stock these titles (if the book is new).

Once the final version of the monthly bundle is delivered others can buy the individual ebooks off the Baen website. (usually 16th of the month before the publishing date.) These are available before the printed version. Especially since the publishing dates refer to the US release and I live in the UK where the dead tree version is often a bit later.

Why wouldn't they publish the ebook first? Selling it direct they probably make more money off each copy than selling paper versions through wholesalers to stores to readers.

SWM wrote:Baen sells eARCs ahead of the print publication--that's not the same thing. An earc is not the same as the published version (print or electronic published version), and should never be confused with it. An earc is not a published version--it has not gone through editing.

Randomiser beat me to it, but I was referring to Webscriptions. Though I find the above statement to be pretty hyperbolic... "should never be confused with it?" You make it sound like the eARC is a bundle of margin scratches, not to be taken seriously. I bought the ARC of SoSag (eBay, and was lucky enough to get it signed by Himself at ConDFW), which was the last Weber book published before they started selling eARCs, and have compared every ARC and eARC I've gotten since to the final hardcover version, and differences have always been utterly miniscule. Stating that the eARC isn't an eBook is pure semantics.

But even with that dubious distinction granted, you've been able to buy Webscriptions and get the final compilation at least a month or more before dead trees hit the shelf. They promise two weeks, but they're almost always way earlier than that. One notable exception was Torch of Freedom... it was late enough that they almost didn't make the 4th section.

NervousEnergy wrote:

SWM wrote:Baen sells eARCs ahead of the print publication--that's not the same thing. An earc is not the same as the published version (print or electronic published version), and should never be confused with it. An earc is not a published version--it has not gone through editing.

Randomiser beat me to it, but I was referring to Webscriptions. Though I find the above statement to be pretty hyperbolic... "should never be confused with it?" You make it sound like the eARC is a bundle of margin scratches, not to be taken seriously. I bought the ARC of SoSag (eBay, and was lucky enough to get it signed by Himself at ConDFW), which was the last Weber book published before they started selling eARCs, and have compared every ARC and eARC I've gotten since to the final hardcover version, and differences have always been utterly miniscule. Stating that the eARC isn't an eBook is pure semantics.

But even with that dubious distinction granted, you've been able to buy Webscriptions and get the final compilation at least a month or more before dead trees hit the shelf. They promise two weeks, but they're almost always way earlier than that. One notable exception was Torch of Freedom... it was late enough that they almost didn't make the 4th section.

There have been a number of cases on this forum where people claimed that the books said certain things which turned out not to be true, because they were relying on eARCs. People should not confuse eARCs with the published books, because there can be significant differences.

Duckk wrote:Yeah, but once you get done with the EARC, you just have the much longer of a wait till the next book.

yeah, the life of a reader really really sucks sometimes. I just wish that authors could write 'em as fast as I can read 'em.

I thought TOR didn't publish EARCs.

evilauthor wrote:I thought TOR didn't publish EARCs.

They don't. They do send out traditional ARCs, and I'm sure quite a few on this forum will have an eBay search on quicklink later this year / early next when a few will likely appear there.

The contention was that nobody publishes ebooks ahead of physical copies, which was refuted by Baen Webscriptions, and to a lesser extent (due to not going through the full editing process) eARCs. I don't know if Baen has ever published any statistics supporting or refuting the idea that eARCs or 3-4 week early Webscription finals affect shelf sales one way or the other.

Keith_w wrote:yeah, the life of a reader really really sucks sometimes. I just wish that authors could write 'em as fast as I can read 'em.

So do I. But personally, if I have a entire day off from work it is no problem for me to read a book (even if it is very long) in a single day. And if they are shorter novels, I can knock out 2 in a day without really trying. Now consider that there are 2 weekend days per week. So RFC would have to bang out 2 books per week to keep up with me. I'm not a writer, but I do realize that this is an impossible pace.

I read at 1,600 words a minute for most purposes. Double or treble that if I'm skimming to find a reference, or to get past a boring bit. So I reckon on one page a minute for a good book. But though I'm retired with plenty of time to read, I still manage to make a 500 + page book last at least four days by putting it down to do something else in between reading sessions. That's non-essential little things like eating meals, sleeping, and making coffee or tea, not to mention taking our dogs for their walks, going shopping and working in my garden.

Cheers

John

Henry Brown wrote:

Keith_w wrote:yeah, the life of a reader really really sucks sometimes. I just wish that authors could write 'em as fast as I can read 'em.

So do I. But personally, if I have a entire day off from work it is no problem for me to read a book (even if it is very long) in a single day. And if they are shorter novels, I can knock out 2 in a day without really trying. Now consider that there are 2 weekend days per week. So RFC would have to bang out 2 books per week to keep up with me. I'm not a writer, but I do realize that this is an impossible pace.