TUYO, NIKOLES, and TARASHANA are now available in hardcover.
A couple of months ago, Amazon rolled out a hardcover option. Ooh! I said. I know just the books I’d like to do in hardcover!
Now, this option is still in beta testing, and I will say, it was just IMPOSSIBLE to get any size but 6×9 to work. I mean, other size options were supposedly enabled, but getting them to work proved too difficult to deal with. No doubt that will be smoothed out eventually. In the meantime, I revised Nikoles into a 6×9 format. I did that by fiddling around with the font and adding the entire first chapter of Tarashana as a teaser in order to make sure the story, a mere, what is it? 75,000 words or so? would not produce too thin a book. The other two just moved right into the hardcover format with no trouble, since they were already at 6×9.
The cover artist kindly redid the pdf covers to accommodate the new format, and poof! Here they are. I will certainly get hardcover versions for myself.
I don’t know whether I will do hardcover editions of anything else, except I will most likely do a hardcover omnibus for the Death’s Lady trilogy. That seems reasonable, doesn’t it? All put together, that will be a long sucker.
So I do have questions for readers.
a) If you’ve already decided to buy a paper edition, and both are available, would you personally prefer paper or hardcover? The hardcovers will cost more. There’s no way around that. Amazon sets the minimum prices. I just set the prices of paperbacks and now these new hardcovers so that each version gives me about the same royalty as an ebook. A little less, actually, but pretty close.
b) Do you think it seems reasonable to bring out individual books as paperback only, but an omnibus as both paperback and hardcover because the omnibus is so big? To me, it seems better to have hardcover for a book that’s 800 pages long or whatever, because I don’t think paperback covers hold up well for books that size. For books with fewer pages, it doesn’t seem like it would be necessarily worth the extra cost. But maybe that’s just me. What do you think?
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Wow, these are so pretty.
I would love to have hardcovers for display when I have bookshelf space again, but I find that paperback tends to read a bit easier. (I try not to get omnibus editions anyway as the spines break no matter what.)
Hmm. I’ve just realized my dad might really like Tuyo as there are some fundamental similarities to the Western novels he shared with me growing up. Maybe now I know what to get him for Father’s Day!
Mary Beth, there really are! One of the funny and accurate comments made on the Good Story podcast about Tuyo was that the next episode would be a review of the movie True Grit … in which they would go out West, to a world actually rather similar to the world of Tuyo.
Personally, I find all big books, paperback or hardcover, are just rather difficult to hold because I have both a problem with my left wrist, and a problem with my right thumb. These are both minor issues, but one way I keep them minor is avoiding stress to those joints, and there’s just no comfortable way to hold a book like that. Thus, yay for ebooks! I’m happy to get an omnibus edition in ebook format.
I do almost all my reading on Kindle app for phone these days, but the paper book is nice as an art object. Deeply grateful for ebooks (and to have the options for both!)
My rule of thumb is to get it electronically if I can. If I can’t, then get it in the cheapest physical version.
The three books look lovely together, but nowadays I buy almost everything as an ebook. Only if I want to give it to dad for his birthday I’ll buy a hardcover, and he doesn’t read many new books anymore, only a very few favorite authors – he’s mostly rereading old books from his younger years, or religious and mysticism books.
The weight of big omnibus editions becomes a problem to hold in my hands as a hardcover, though they do get spine problems as a paperback. I think the hardcover omnibus might be good to have available as an option, and people might be more likely to consider it at the hardcover price range than a thinner book like Nicoles.
Yes, I think that’s about right. It just seems more reasonable to get a bigger book as a hardcover, if you’re going to get anything at all in that format.
Now, I want the Tuyo series for display, so that’s one thing. Let me see. I get the Foreigner books in hardcover because I have the whole series in that format. There are a few other series I’m continuing to get in hardcover. But by and large, ebooks are SO superior in SO many ways, particularly the ease with which I can physically hold my phone or kindle.
Yes, the new Foreigner book generally comes out near Dad’s birthday, and he still reads those, so that is the one I most often get him as a hardcover, which he prefers. I have the paperbacks and ebooks, as with all these favorite series, but nowadays I regard the paper books as backups in case of digital emergencies.
At the moment he’s finishing the Sharing Knife series, which he is rather rapturous about, so I got him those in hardcover too, including the new Knife Children addition.
Megan Whalen Turner is the third hardcover current series I’ve bought him, and the last is the Touchstone trilogy plus its sequels, but those are paperbacks which are officially mine, even if they are in his bookcase because I have the ebooks as well, and the three audiobooks. I’m not risking losing those if something should ever happen to my digital library!
Occasionally I try something new on him, but he’s sticking with those four, some Terry Pratchett, and his old favorites.
I’m not sure my dad had read the Foreigner series. Huh. Maybe I will take him the first one. That’s certainly a series that would keep him going for a while!