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| The Hazards Of Walking Into A Bookstore; Especially to Your Credit Card | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jan 23 2016, 05:05 AM (569 Views) | |
| joekc6nlx | Jan 23 2016, 05:05 AM Post #1 |
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kendo bain sidhe
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Walked into a used book store tonight before the dance, since I'd arrived early, and the place wasn't open yet to help them set up. I wandered around, looking for Science Fiction, and finally asked the man who ran the store. Oh, it's upstairs (note, I do NOT wander up stairs unless I know that the store encourages it. I didn't see the stairs, so didn't go up them, and wouldn't have unless I saw a sign that said more books upstairs. No sign, so I asked.) Anyway, I walked into the room (each genre is in a separate room), and looked for CJC's books. One whole shelf of her books, mostly Foreigner series, but also Faded Sun and some Chanur books. But the prizes I found there were "Sunfall", "Rider at the Gate" and "Cloud's Rider". Yes, I walked out of there several tens of dollars poorer, but richer in my library by so much more. I mentioned to the man that the books were out of print. The lady who was sitting at the desk behind the counter said, "That doesn't mean anything." I said, "Yes, I know. But when she (CJC) gets the publishing rights, she plans to re-issue the books in electronic format." You have thought I'd smacked the lady, she got up on her high horse, "What do you mean 'get the publishing rights'? How does she get the publishing rights? I've been in this business 25 years, no writer gets the publishing rights." "Ma'am, I'm not arguing with you, I'm stating what SHE told me. SHE is a friend, and this is what she has said to me." "Oh, well, maybe she's got a different contract or something, but most writers don't get the publishing rights to the books." Nothing like walking in, being friendly and nice, and then getting your head taken off because someone thought their knowledge of the business was empirical.......she DID apologize, though, when I told her that CJC had mentioned this fact. I just said, "You're all right, ma'am. No problem." She probably thought I'm an idiot, but I've already read CJC's take on that on her own blog when it comes to her books, and regaining them for Closed Circle, and apparently, this lady has not read it. |
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| hrhspence | Jan 23 2016, 05:56 AM Post #2 |
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Hani Assassin
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Some people just have to prove how much they "know". |
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| starexplorer | Jan 23 2016, 07:24 AM Post #3 |
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First Contact Assassin
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Sheesh. It's nice to buy books from a friendly proprietor. But at least there's still a functioning used bookstore. That's something. |
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| BlueCatShip | Jan 23 2016, 03:13 PM Post #4 |
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Unlabelled Browncoat Scaper
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Well, the problem from the shop woman's side is that it does go counter to most usual publishing practices. Once a publisher has the rights to the work from an author, that's usually it. However, if there are options for the author to buy / get back rights after some time period, or for some amount of money, or for some other consideration in negotiations, then an author could conceivably exploit that. Especially a sought-after writer like Herself. But even so, it's generally not done / not possible. Or it was formerly. There's been a seismic upheaval in the publishing industry, and digital rights were a new thing, unheard of back when many / most of those old contracts were done, so...there are points of entry. Still, in days of yore (only a few years ago) it would've been unlikely, even for the most sought-after living writers. But Herself likely put in some interesting custom options for her contracts. Or it's simply a matter of, the digital rights or backlist rights return to her. I've heard stories, but I don't know that end of things. So I'm "armchair quarterbacking" there. Some people get highly defensive when confronted with something that defies All That They Know of Their Field. It either gets to them as an attack on their personal expertise, or is an affront to their worldview, as impossible as saying the world is round or the world revolves around the sun was to the old world church and scholars, rather than the scientific facts. If you'd said she was descended from apes, it might have gotten much the same reaction. ;) When my mom and I were first going into desktop publishing, my mom would go out to make sales calls to get clients. Most people back then, especially printers, reacted as though she were a heretic. Really, it was about that strong sometimes. It would be 10 to 15 years before what we were doing became the new "old guard" traditiona, standard business practice. It wasn't simply print quality or any of the valid early criticisms. It was as though all they knew was being challenged...because in a way, it was. The old ways of doing things, even in the 1980's and 1990's, weren't all that different from how they'd been done, mostly by hand, in the past 100 to 200 years. In the past few years, ebooks have taken off and are transforming the whole industry as much or more than the computer publishing and design revolution did in the 1980's and 1990's. So the shop woman's experiencing (like most in the business) in part a threat to her worldview, as well as a threat, as she sees it, to her business and income and way of life. Joe-nadi, in a used bookstore, that thrives on the "old" print media, you said that dreaded heretical word, "ebooks," that she sees as, "those things that are putting bookstores and (dear) printed media out of existence." Hah, note she did not stop to think that you were there to *buy* some of those books and therefore *value* printed media as she does, as most booklovers and avid readers do. Poor woman. Good thing she was sitting down, eh? ;) -- But yes, the main point is, you knew directly from what CJC herself had said about the rights to her work. It's *really* good CJC is taking advantage of this while she can, for herself and Jane and whoever comes after them, estate-wise. The shop owner, bless her, has likely never heard of such, and will likely dismiss it as "that impossible, confusing thing that crazy man could not possibly have got right, he must not know what the author said." It'd be surprising if she (the shop woman) researches it and finds out what's happening. At this point, there's an old Southernism that's most appropriate: "Well, bless her heart!" :D |
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| joekc6nlx | Jan 23 2016, 03:54 PM Post #5 |
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kendo bain sidhe
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I just found it amusing that she finally said, "Well, I'll just mind my own business. I'm sorry." Appropriate since I had not addressed my original remark to her, anyway. Not that I was ignoring her, but she was working, and I was dealing directly with the gentleman who was ringing up my sales. I don't like to bother people who are involved in something else when there is a person there already helping me. So, when she heard my remark, she chimed in....yes, she probably DOES know her business. No, I'm not there to put her out of business, or else I wouldn't have walked into her shop. BUT, HERSELF as an author is also a businessperson, and as such, I believe should have the right to determine the way her intellectual property is disseminated. Whether that be through a printing house such as DAW, or an electronic store such as Closed Circle. In some ways, it reminds me of real estate, where I buy a plot of land, say 5 acres. Well, according to real estate law, there can be all sorts of restrictions on my use of that property, even though I "own" it. Mineral rights, for example, or I can't build a 2-car garage on it (even if it's zoned as residential and the zoning commission has no problem with the garage), or put up an amateur radio antenna tower. Maybe there are similar restrictions in the publishing business? I don't know, nothing I've ever written has been publisher-worthy, since they're mostly term papers, point papers, etc., and nobody but a small circle of people are interested in the paper, anyway. Side note: The house my ex- and I bought in Virginia Beach had a restriction that we couldn't build a doghouse on the property unless we got written permission from someone 3 or 4 owners back.....yes, those restrictions carry through unless a whole new deed is written and signed by those owners who placed those restrictions on the land. It's one reason why I asked my cousin (who owns a real estate brokerage) to find me a house that had no such restrictions, and NO homeowners associations, either. :HB: |
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| 82Eridani | Jan 28 2016, 03:09 AM Post #6 |
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Bu'Javid Master Gardener
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Hooray for finding a treasure trove of books. I'll have to search for Sunfall, haven't heard of it before. If it's a short story, I have to admit I'm not one for brief reading encounters, except for fazbook. I wouldn't have known about publishing rights reverting back to authors either, except for CJC's blog. I hope the intrusive person does some homework and learns something based on your encounter. |
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| joekc6nlx | Jan 28 2016, 12:55 PM Post #7 |
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kendo bain sidhe
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Sunfall is a book of short stories, (IIRC, six in all) set in the far future, kind of apocalyptic. According to Herself, it's a series of dying earth stories. |
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| Reading_fox | Feb 4 2016, 09:32 AM Post #8 |
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the Sunfall collection is included in the recent(ish a few years now) Collected short stories of CJC, which is one of my favourites. A lot of variety! (and not all that short either!) It's probably the easiest way to get hold of any early short stories that you might have missed. |
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| BlueCatShip | Feb 6 2016, 05:29 AM Post #9 |
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Unlabelled Browncoat Scaper
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There's also the old Visible Light collection of short stories, which are great. I have the Collected Short Stories of CJC and think I'll reread. Great stuff. Big, thick HB book, handsomely made. What's better than a book?! |
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