I agree with much of what Jeff has written. I trust Hard Case
Crime to deliver quality novels, and I would definitely
purchase a Hard Case edition over a public-domain edition any
day. I remember when I was in high school I always bought the
"Authorised Editions" of Tolkien's books, rather than the
cheaper Ace editions.
I've read authors I've never considered buying before, just
because I trust the Hard Case Crime brand name. (And I love
the covers!)
pax/paz/shalom/salaam/mir, Darrell
Blog of the Grateful Bear: http://wildfaith.blogspot.com/
----- Original Message -----
From: Jeff Vorzimmer
To:
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, April 24, 2006 12:22 AM
Subject: Re: RARA-AVIS: Re: Legal, but is it
ethical?
Charles,
While your intentions seem to be noble, I think
you're overlooking some
points and glossing over others. To turn a
profit, any profit, after only a
year or so in a niche market such as this is
fantastic. And in order to do
this you've admitted that you have had to select
titles you think will sell
and with which you have exclusivity by contract.
That business model seems
to automatically exclude works in the public
domain, which is unfortunate
since there are a lot of works in the public
domain that deserve reprinting.
It is also unfortunate for the heirs of these
writers, who I'm sure would
rather have their deceased fathers or husbands or
grandfathers remembered
than receiving small checks from you every six
months.
It seems as though you're doing a greater
disservice to Mary Chaze by not
giving "Black Wings" a legitimate paperback
reissue than Moynihan is with
his POD reissue. Your reasoning also sounds
somewhat disingenuous. If you
were actually to the point of negotiating a deal
with Mary Chaze and you ran
across the Blackmask edition, wouldn't your
reaction have been--A) She's
made a deal with someone else or B) It's in the
public domain and I don't
want to have to compete with lots of other
potential publishers. Are you
telling us that you got to that point with Mary
Chaze and it never came up
that the copyright had lapsed? You still seem to
be unsure about it.
Let me say, Charles, that you are underestimating
your readership. They are
a large, but in some ways, a tightly-knit group,
who are shopping not only
for certain writers, but also for certain
publishers. You have built up some
brand loyalty and there are a lot of people who
are introduced to writers
because you republished them. Given the choice,
most readers on the list,
I'm sure, would buy your paperback of Black
Wings, rather than the Blackmask
edition, especially if we knew some of the
proceeds were going to the
author's widow and we could get it at our local
bookstore.
I hope you're not ruling out books simply because
they're in the public
domain. I for one would like to see more Charles
Williams, for example, and
a lot of his early Gold Medal books are in the
PD.
Jeff
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
RARA-AVIS home page: http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rara-avis-l/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email
to:
rara-avis-l-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 24 Apr 2006 EDT