Nine Princes Nowhere to Be Found

[swan_tower]

I am croggled to discover that Zelazny’s Nine Princes in Amber is apparently not available as an ebook (not commercially, anyway — my library seems to only have it in electronic format). Furthermore, if I wish to purchase the dead tree edition new, my only option seems to be buying an enormous honkin’ omnibus of all ten main novels.

I would welcome evidence that I am wrong about this, likely on account of searching when it is nearly 3 a.m. here and I need sleep. But if it is indeed as it appears: what the heck? Why has the rights-holder not made the book more widely available? This is not some obscure novel nobody’s ever heard of except academics and three Yuletide fans; it’s a reasonably well-known classic. I want to give the rights-holder money, whoever they are. But they are making it annoying to do so. I don’t want a giant omnibus; I want the instant gratification of an ebook, which I can take with me to Wiscon, and then if I like the first one I’ll probably buy it and the rest in paper. I do not want to carry a brick on the plane.

Grrr. Argh.

Originally published at Swan Tower. You can comment here or there.

Comments

[starlady]

Wait, you're going to Wiscon?!

[swan_tower]

Yep! It was kind of a late decision, but I'll be there.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Worse, the honkin' omnibus is not only hard on the wrists, but the plastic starts to peel off the paper of the cover after two or three reads. I'm sort of used to ebooks being randomly and bafflingly unavailable--Lois Bujold was complaining about not being able to get Sarah Monette's Melusine literally just yesterday--but the combination of "ebook unavailable" and "hard copy unavailable or in deeply crappy edition" is just insult to injury.

[dr_whom]

I conjecture that the public library can lend you an edition suitable for carrying on the plane.

[maladaptive.livejournal.com]

It's like they want you to pirate books. It really bugs me how hard some books are to get, because don't we know by now that "if you give someone an easy means of buying something, they will, the vast majority of the time, pay you for it"?

If I had the rights to Zelazny's work I'd be milking that for all it was worth.

I've been hearing a lot about Nine Princes in Amber lately, from io9 and other sources. Is something up or is interest just springing up independently?

[vcmw]

The omnibus edition is sadly not good at all as a physical book-product. I had to use book glue and book grade tape to make our copy last more than a year.

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

one of the nice things about living in Portland OR is that we have Powells..

http://www.powells.com/s?kw=nine+princes+in+amber&class=

I do prefer dead trees to electrons.

[ckd]

Seriously. It's not like Baen provided an existence proof of this for SF books years ago, after all....

[alecaustin.livejournal.com]

My understanding is that Baen's success from giving away ebooks mostly preceded the mass adoption of smartphones and e-readers. Once the infrastructure for e-book sales was there, I gather that they started cannibalizing their own sales, which is why they've backed off on that front.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I really just don't get it. There is no framework in which I can imagine somebody thinking this is a good business decision; it's got to be an issue of neglect or something.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I can't find my library card, ergo can't explore the brave new world of ebook borrowing. And they don't have physical copies anywhere in the system.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I think it's independent interest -- I've been meaning to read it for years, and the thing that prodded me to (try to) do so now is completely random and individual to me.

As for the piracy thing, yes: I want to pay money to somebody for this. They do not want to take my cash. I don't understand.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Which is entirely fair.

Failing to make commercial editions available, though . . . that's less sensible. As maladaptive said, most people will happily fork over money for an easily-obtained, malware-free product. It's when I can't buy a thing that my thoughts turn to piracy.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I can get used copies, yeah. I just wish I could buy a new edition.

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

*nods in understanding*

[landofnowhere]

This gives me flashbacks to six years ago, when I was trying to get /The Guns of Avalon/ from my hometown library. The catalog only had it as part of volume of of a two-volume omnibus of the first five books, which was kept in storage. When I requested it, they gave me volume II. And so I had to explain to the (young, male) librarian, that this book with this embarrassingly dreadful cover was the wrong volume of what I wanted. At least he claimed to have read the books when he was younger, but was unable to locate volume I.

(And checking up on their catalog now, they don't seem to own any of the Amber books anymore.)


Possibly more helpfully, there is also this edition of the first 5 books for people who want a normal fantasy brick rather than a super-size fantasy brick.

I can sort of see why people might not want to sell the books individually they are really short by modern standards. When I read book 1, I didn't like it all that much, but I kept reading because my boyfriend was a big fan of the series, and things got a lot better around book 3 in ways that dealt with some of my problems with book 1. Also, the individual books are really short by modern standards, and have a tendency to end on cliffhangers. So I can see parsing books 1-5 as a single fantasy epic.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Yeah, they would work individually as ebooks, but maybe not as print. But yes: normal fantasy brick edition would be preferable to super-sized fantasy brick edition. (And, y'know, better quality printing.)

[landofnowhere]

Oops, for some reason I thought that was available new. :( (Also, presumably the listing for the "board book" edition is confused, but the idea still amuses me.)

[gelsey.livejournal.com]

My local library just looks me up in their catalogue and still lends to me, if that helps at all. Of course, we're a small town, and they literally know where to find me, so...

[landofnowhere]

It does seem to be available new in the UK (unless Amazon is just playing games with me.. ) But that may or may not be helpful...

(Also I just learned that "non-romantic" is a subgenre of fantasy and science fiction.)

But you're right, there's no reason not to split the e-book.

[maladaptive.livejournal.com]

Hmm. When I lost my card they just let me go in, give my name, and re-register for a new one. I'm guessing that's not possible?

[maladaptive.livejournal.com]

As a law school educated creator, I get that creators have the absolute right to decide how their work is consumed... but also as a creator, I don't understand how you can not want your product in people's hot little hands any way you can get them there. Especially since the ebook editions obviously exist so there is no cost to making them available!

That's a shame though, because it was also on my list, due to hearing about it.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Oh, it isn't that. Just that I cannot, from my computer, borrow the ebook, without having to first jump through the hoops of going to the library and replacing the card. So no instant gratification for me. :-P

[eve-prime.livejournal.com]

I wanted to buy the full set of Amber books last year and ended up with that omnibus. Truly a brick.

[ckd]

I can see the point about the Free Library and CD-ROM collections, but they were also very early adopters of "here are ebooks, cheap, without DRM, in useful formats; buy them!" Tor's first try at doing so got snuffed by higher-ups, but Jim Baen was his own higher-up....

[lowellboyslash.livejournal.com]

they started cannibalizing their own sales

Can you give more details about that?

[lowellboyslash.livejournal.com]

It's possible that the creator doesn't have the rights, isn't it? I could imagine this being held up because of a licensing issue, or because whatever company bought the e-book rights back when they were cheap is now keeping a tight leash on them.

[maladaptive.livejournal.com]

It is, but I imagine that the rightsholder also wants to make money off it. Then again there's all sorts of weird business/legal snafus that could hold things up to everybody's detriment, that's true. There's really no reason to sit on something if it's not being held up otherwise, though, other than bureaucratic inertia.

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

"I get that creators have the absolute right to decide how their work is consumed"

Well, legally. Morally-constitutionally, it's a privilege that society grants for a limited time for the purpose of rewarding creativity. It's meant more for authors getting some reward, not necessarily squeezing out every last drop, let alone keeping things off the market because someone can't be bothered to sort out the rights or to provide things in a decent form.

Things really went downhill when long terms became automatic, vs. having to be renewed every 14 years. Not that'd help here, where it's just in inconvenient print.

[orlacarey.livejournal.com]

I find it interesting that they are not even offering the omnibus as as ebook. The true weirdness is that a quick search on Amazon shows that you can get Nine Princes in Amber as an Audible book...selling it in audio without selling it in ebook? makes no sense to me

Don't know if you're still looking but...

[(Anonymous)]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Nine-Princes-In-Amber-/221436345425?pt=US_Fiction_Books&hash=item338ea27c51

I found this copy on eBay. It's a paperback, not omnibus. Not electronic, either, obviously, but might do.

Re: Don't know if you're still looking but...

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I ended up getting the Fantasy Masterworks omnibus of the first five. Thanks, though!