Monday, October 1, 2012

Books not on Kindle but should be

One of my favorite things about ebooks is seeing old, forgotten, and previously out of print books given a new life. Ideally this should be done at a cheaper price so it becomes an opportunity to expose readers to some really great works.

Some of my favorite e-book re-issues are:

Tarantula - Thierry Jonquet
Judas Pig - Horace Silver
Dark Paradise - Lono Waiwaiole
Box Nine; Wireless; Word Made Flesh; and The Skin Palace - Jack O'Connell
23 Shades of Black - Ken Wishnia
The Wait - Frank Turner Hollon

Publisher's should be devoting time and energy to creating in house ebook departments that work on pumping out quality ebooks for all titles that they hold the electronic rights to. I had an editor tell me on Twitter that they had no plans for e-book versions of a crop of, at that time, new releases. Hell, I need a job, hire me and I'll do it for you. Publishers should continue to seek out older, out of print titles that can be brought to the medium. And authors should make sure that any back list titles that they own the electronic rights to should be out there.

I was a kid when CD's first came out. Until then records had been the predominant format. There are tons of titles that were released as a record that were never issued as CD's. These recording are lost to all except the most ardent of collectors. They didn't survive the transition and I don't want to see that happen to some great books.

Here are some really great books that are not available as ebooks but should be.

High Life - Matthew Stokoe
Saguaro Riptide - Norman Partridge
The Ten-Ounce Siesta - Norman Partridge
They Don't Dance Much - James Ross
Cutter and Bone - Newton Thornburg*
Blackburn - Bradley Denton*
The Death of the Detective - Mark Smith
Nothing Burns in Hell - Philip Jose Farmer
My Brothers Gun - Ray Loriga
The Gift - Patrick O'Leary
Door Number Three - Patrick O'Leary
Dead City - Shane Stevens*

In an effort to walk the walk I actually contacted a couple of the authors on this list in the hopes of getting an ebook version of their titles out through Snubnose. One said no, and the other hasn't responded to the offer that I made.

*Newton Thornburg, Bradley Denton, and Shane Stevens don't have a single title available for the Kindle.

What books are not available as e-books but should be?

Current Read: Dope Sick: A Love Story by j.a. kazimer; Lonely No More by Seymour Shubin

Current Listen: Babel by Mumford & Sons

2 comments:

MysteriousPress.com said...

Funny you should mention THEY DON'T DANCE MUCH...

Unknown said...

Hi Guys,
High Life was available as an ebook until very recently - taken down as a result of changes with the publisher - it will be up again in two months.
Matthew Stokoe.