Ok, maybe three, but who’s counting?

Last night, I found myself at loose ends and wanting a new book to WOTF read. I cheap nfl jerseys was willing Dear to spend up Ulangan to $10, maybe a bit more.

The first book I considered was Throne of the Crescent Moon, by Saladin Ahmed. It’s gotten good reviews, and Arab worlds are one of my favorite alternate-history settings. CAPER Ahmed’s book is new, still in hardcover, and the $11.99 Kindle price is more than I wanted to pay. Gritting my teeth in frustration, I decided to see if other books I’d been watching might be cheaper.

Melanie Rawn is another favorite of mine, and I heard she had a new book out. Even better, the book is set in alternate-England and deals with a theatrical troupe. Score! Alas, no, Touchstone (The Glass Thorns) was a dollar more than Ahmed’s book at $12.99. Thank you, next?

Then I remembered Robin Hobb. I’d been waiting well over a year for a Refer new dragon book, so maybe hers was out in paperback and the ebook might be cheaper? No such luck. City of Dragons: Volume Three of the Rain Wilds Chronicles was released in February, and the Kindle version is a scream-inducing $14.99.

Here’s the thing. I like hardcovers, and I’ll happily pay hardcover prices for a book I really cheap mlb jerseys want. In ar fact, I’ll even buy two formats, hard and e-, if it’s something I like to have with me while traveling. But therein lies the rub. I’m traveling at the moment and specifically needed an ebook.

When one knows, as I wholesale nfl jerseys do, that the publisher gave up higher royalties for the ‘privilege’ of sticking me with a $15 price tag, the buying experience leaves one feeling a bit raw. In fact, it drives one to quips about sodomy, buggery and being bent over a fence rail without benefit of lube.

Even more ludicrous is knowing that insane price points on ebooks are throwing double or triple money at Amazon compared to what Amazon would get if the books were priced more reasonably. Using round numbers, Amazon gets nearly $10 out of a $15 sale wholesale mlb jerseys but only $3.50 out of $9.99.

So, yeah. Way to go Big 6. Pouring buckets of money into your competitor’s coffers looks like an *awesome* business strategy. Bet it took lots of MBAs to come up with that one.

If any one of the books above had been priced at $9.99, I’d have bought it. And I did buy an ebook last night, just not one of those three. I’ll wait for paper, get them used or wait for the ebook price to fall.

Instead, I checked out this book, by Anne Lyle:  The Alchemist of Souls: Night's Masque, Volume 1.  Great cover, 4.5 stars, alternate Elizabethan England with a troupe of actors, editorial reviews by Publishers Weekly and Aliette de Bodard. Sold!

And of assuming this is a trilogy, I can buy all three books for the price of the least expensive New York offering above. At first I thought this was an indie book, and for fairly transparent reasons, I’m indie friendly. Instead, this looks like a small press book, and more power to ’em for offering the courtship equivalent of wine, dinner and roses instead of the back-alley manhandling I’ve come to expect out of New York.

Final note: I still want the books by Ahmed, Rawn and Hobb – just not at those prices. My ire lies with the publishers, not the authors.