Amazon and Penguin are bickering, and the Kindle edition of “Changes” has been caught up in the crossfire. Fans around the world are getting email notifications from Amazon that their “Changes” preorders have been canceled.
Jim had no say in this decision, and he’s already received an outpouring of mail from fans perplexed and angered at this chain of events. We know many of you were relying on this being available on release day, and we’re every bit as frustrated as you are. We’re confident the conflict will not be drawn out much longer, but we have no way of knowing if it will be resolved in time for the book’s Tuesday release. We have no doubt that “Changes” will be available for the Kindle at some point, but whether that’s tomorrow, next week, or next month is anyone’s guess.
We hope this doesn’t unduly inconvenience you guys, and we thank you for bearing with us in this exceptionally annoying time.
Try typing “codex alera map” in the “Search News Items” box at the upper left of the page.
Anyone fronting for Mr. Butcher have any new news on this ridiculous situation? Been a couple of days now….
Mr. Butcher,
I enjoy your books, and will purchase Changes once it becomes available on the Kindle. If it becomes available at the full hardcover price, I may wait until the price comes down. (Don’t know if that means waiting until the softbound edition hits the street.) As the customer, I’ve preferred paperback as a format. Now I prefer the e-reader, both for it’s price, and the actual physical format. (The ability to carry my library without a 40 pound pack.)
I’ve understood that hardback is where publishers make a ton of their money, so I’ve been grudgingly understanding and waited for the book to become available in my preferred format, for my preferred price, which used to be paperback. (Purchasing at hardbound prices would mean purchasing less than 1/2 the books, even today.)
Amazon and Penguin,
I realize that the whole e-book thing is new, and that there’s bound to be some fighting before the whole price point thing is decided – and who gets to decide it.
One thing I’d like to point out to both of you. I’d be a paying customer right now, had I the choice to purchase it in my preferred format. It’s dismaying to me that the very first thing I see in a search for this book in mobi is a link to torrent it for free.
I’m not doing that, I’ll wait, but as a customer who purchases his works, I sometimes feel like a sucker. I wonder if publishers and rights holding companies “get it.” This includes the MPAA, RIAA, games publishers, and now book and print publishers.
The Kindle – or choose your electronic format – version of this book is going to be locked down in some form of DRM. It has no physical media – which I realize is only about 10-20% of the cost of the book, but still. The hardback version of the book is an artificially high priced item, for those of us who are impatient for our author’s books. (Some actually like hard bound books, I’m referring to us that would purchase soft bound, traditionally.) I have my credit card, right here, and I cannot pickup this work in the format I choose because of infighting.
Every time something like this happens, or I open up a work and the first thing I see, AFTER I’ve purchased it, is some big warning about unauthorized copies, or I see the work in one format but not the other – think blue ray vs HD DVD or Nook vs Kindle, I feel like I don’t matter to the publishing companies. That I’m just some number to be pushed around until somebody “wins”, but the whole time I lose, and I don’t count.
And that damned torrent stares me in the face, taunting me because it won’t come with any restrictions. If I want to switch to the Nook down the road, I’ll be able to. I feel crushed that the people who want my money would treat me like this, and that the book and/or media I want is easier to get from the Pirates, and has less restrictions. I’ll wait, but maybe it’s time to start considering your paying customers rather than worrying about those who aren’t paying for your content.
Frustrated,
Austin
I wont buy it if its not on kindle…I love Jim’s work…but I will stick to my guns here, I even have a friend who wants to lend me the book.
No kindle no money from me…I will not be jerked around by people who are so stupid they can’t see the forest for the trees. Digital content is here now and its here to stay, to make me and all who feel like me wait for something that i enjoy so much is something that I will not soon forget.
I’ll wait for the kindle edition without complaint. If I have to wait a bit, so be it. Both the Book and the Kindle are worth it. It’s at the top of my list when it arrives, but I doubt I’ll run out of things to read until then.
Keep writing Jim. I find myself anticipating the next book even as I read the final pages of the latest.
E-reader.com (a Barnes and Noble company) has pulled ALL of Jim Butcher’s books. I went to buy Changes from them- not caring about prices- and typed in his name and nothing came up. I know they had his books in the past because I have the entire Dresden Files series in the e-reader format. I can only assume what is happening with Amazon and Kindle is happening to all formats of the book.
I bought the book for my Nook from Barnes & Noble, finished it, enjoyed it.
But I feel for you Kindle people, mostly because I was a VERY early adopter of ebooks. Anyone who’s been reading the things for awhile knows the publishers cannot be trusted. They just can’t. Prices are all over the place from ebook outlet to ebook outlet, most of them are set in stone by publishers. We get messed over on release dates, with publishers pushing them back further and further from the physical book. Publishers are very bad about changing prices after time passes, so we have instances where ebook formats are double the price of a paperback because the price of ebook format was set during the hardback cycle of the book. I have books I bought several years ago which I simply can’t read any more, they are on a now defunct format(and a defunct retailer), so if i want to read them again I have to rebuy them.
Trust me, no one, absolutely no one, wishes more than me that the publishers would hurry up and take ebooks seriously as its own business model. But until publishers figure out its the only future that makes sense(who buys CDs anymore?), we paying customers are going to keep getting the short end.
I purchased Changes for my Sony E-Reader on day 1. I honestly don’t remeber how much I paid for it and truthfully I don’t really care. I had no problems with the download and I just finished reading it. I only have one thing to say… I NEED to know what’s happening next! I love your work (both Dresden Files and the Codex Alera) I look forward to the next novel (some would say impatiently) and the continuation of the story.
I wonder if it’s Amazon being dumb. I say dumb because now I’m trying the Barnes and Noble app for my iPhone instead of the Kindle….
Jim,
We’re all Kindle users in my family. If this doesn’t get resolved, ultimately we’ll buy Changes in hardcover at Amazon or as (part of) an SFBC joiner’s bundle, but we’re really hoping that’s not necessary.
Ebooks make reading much easier for my wife, who has trouble walking downstairs to the bookshelf (she’s physically disabled), and for me (less weight in the backpack on the bus for the long commute to NYC).
I hope Amazon and Penguin pull their head out, because this is hurting both of them, and you. Not to mention us readers, who were looking forward to another excellent Harry yarn.
Dear Mr. Butcher,
I love your books, but I must echo the sentiments of other kindle users that could not get the download. It is so sad that publishers refuse to acknowledge that digital media will be an ongoing part of the arts. The music business tried to fight the same battle and lost.
Personally, I am very glad I was able to borrow this from a friend. I’d love to support you, but I just can’t afford the cover price for hardback books.
Thank you for your wonderful characters!
Eva
As Austin commented — the Kindle (mobi) version with a clickable TOC is available at torrent sites — Kick Ass Torrent is where I saw it.
The future is here and Penguin’s worst nightmare — simply if a product is not available at a reasonable price — people “make do.”
Again, I would suggest Jim’s website have a button for “Donations” — the donation button could be “we really like Jim’s work,” or, “Jim is a cool guy” donation. I would even suggest the donation be in the $10 range.
I am not advocating breaking a Federal law. But just like in Soviet times, when consumers couldn’t get their 501’s in Minsk through the state run stores, “people made do.”
I’m very upset that Changes is not available on Kindle. I thought that the Publisher might be “windowing” the book. The comments here seem to indicate otherwise. I am determined NOT to buy books that have been windowed. My plan is to get them from the library and then let the publisher know that, far from being compelled to buy the HC or wait, I read it for free. If this title is not being windowed, though, I’ll buy it even after I get it from the library.
I agree with the suggestion above that JB should put a donation button on his page. I’d be glad to make a donation for a book that I read from the library so long as the money went to the author.
I love the Dresden Files. I love my Kindle. I do not love how greedy company CEO’s get away with treating customers so badly. I bought a Kindle for many reasons – no place to keep storing all of the books I read, larger print for my “old”, tired eyes, convenience of having all my favorites at my fingertips when I travel. I will not buy the book first and then have to buy it for my Kindle. I’m not being silly or trying to punish anyone – I just don’t have the money or the storage space to buy a book twice. I’ll wait for Changes to come to Kindle – I have to, but I’m very disappointed in Penguin and Amazon. Shame on you for putting your loyal customers last instead of first where they belong.
I actually got a response to my email to Penguin, but once again they just don’t get it. Here is a quote from their e-mail:”Until we reach an agreement with them regarding our newly released eBooks – which we hope will be very soon – we want to assure you that the hardcover, trade paperback and mass market paperback editions of our books are currently available on Amazon.com, as well as in bookstores nationwide”. Oh wait you mean it’s available at bookstores? Quick let me run out and buy it. I’m sorry that publishers like Penguin are so far removed from reality.
I pre-ordered the Changes the day I ordered my Kindle. I have bought every Dresden book and because I live in a rural area looked forward to reading it the day it was released. I was told my order was canceled I took up there offer of a $9.99 hardback copy. the book shipped on the 9th and as of this time I still do not have it.
Yep – I got the same response verbatim from Penguin and I posted it in this forum. Like I said, we’re in the middle of a free trade battle.
I’d like to second (or third) the comment on a paypal donation to Mr. Butcher be put on his website. In the last two weeks, I paid for the kindle editions of the complete Dresden files series (even after owning paperback or hardback copies of each of the books). It was both a convenient way to have them all available at once, and being partially disabled now looking through over 100 boxes of books was simply too daunting of a task. I eagerly anticipated the kindle edition.
Instead, I borrowed it from a friend. This way, neither Jim, the publisher, or amazon will make any money over these highhanded actions. The only person I feel sorry for here is Mr. Butcher. The rest should get a visit from fungus demons. In their pants. Hence my original comment – I’d be glad to give Jim some money for his creative work, but Penguin won’t see a dime of my money at least.
I consider reading the dresden files on the kindle/ebook or other such items to be blasphemy, just blasphemy in general to use a kindle or similer to read a book anyway
The Kindle is so much more convenient than paper for those of us Soldiers who read constantly while deployed. Don’t knock it til you try it. Thanks, Jim, for wonderful adventures that keep me sane during mine.