I've noticed a trend that worries me lately. I can't find new releases at the bookstores. So, I finally got annoyed enough to strike up a conversation with a bookstore manager. The book I was looking for was The Demon's Covenant by Sarah Rees Brennan. This is the third book in a trilogy about magicians, demons, brothers, sisters, and how far you will go for the ones you love. Its an incredible series with a very interesting world, action, snark, humor, and deep emotion. I was under the impression that the series did well here in the US and I didn't think I would have so much trouble finding this last book.
Here's what I learned....
The publisher did a small batch and B&N only had 30 copies in their warehouse which meant that no stores would carry it.
As far as I'm concerned that's not good. If this person is to be believed, publishers are cutting back on the number of books that they publish - which means bookstores are buying less books, and that books are not readily available at those bookstores. The reasoning is that people are buying e-books, so they don't need to publish as many copies. Of course, this conversation was followed up by the store manager encouraging me to check out their e-reader for purchase.
We're being pushed into becoming an e-reader society, people.
Now, I love my e-reader but I want my books in a tangible form, so this bums me out severely.
And if this person was fibbing about the size of books published, that means that B&N is buying less books in order to force people to invest in their e-reader. That's just plain sleazy any way you look at it.
I ended up ordering The Demon's Surrender from Amazon, and I'm about 300 pages in. It's wonderful. I can't wait to blog about it.
(I know I haven't posted my June books. I think I might lump them in with the July books. My reading speed is severely hampered these days...)
No comments:
Post a Comment