Lost Books
I recently found a book from my childhood – an obscure book by an equally obscure author from the 1970s, but a copy found its way to Powell’s. Its arrival triggered my watch list and it was mine for twenty dollars. Curious about whether or not I had just overpaid for nostalgia, I ran an internet search for the book. The cheapest copy I found had an asking price of fifty-four dollars, followed by another over eighty dollars and several more beginning in the mid-nineties. None of these were signed, or even in anything better than a dubious “good” condition.
What the heck? I enjoy the book, but it is not exactly one of the great works of Western Civilization. I started looking up other titles by the same small publishing company. Several more tried to command similar prices, with the worst offender being a book that started at three hundred ten dollars.
These books are long out of print. The publishing company no longer exists. One of the authors is dead and the other is off the radar (or at least not easily found on the internet, where unconfirmed rumors abound).
The dead author’s daughter claims that, with his passing, she has inherited the rights to his books and plans to reprint them “soon.” Her website has had no updates in at least six months.
I dug a little deeper and found a forum, a Yahoo group, and a few assorted threads in other places dedicated to the study and discussion of these books. They have a dedicated following.
Here’s the kicker –the devoted fans have begun sharing scanned copies of these books among themselves. They don’t widely distribute them, or at least they pay lip service to not doing so. They all seem to buy copies of the books when they can find them for less than seventy dollars and celebrate their findings together.
So we have here a quirk of publishing: books long out of print (with no clear sign that they will ever be back in print) and a group of devotees who would happily pay a reasonable price for them. In fact, they’re already willing to pay an unreasonable price for them. These are people who would love to support the author, but have no way of doing so. In fact, some of them have spoken of buying a book by the dead author’s daughter because it’s as close as they can come. They settle for being gouged by those who know how badly they want the books.
Between the modern trend of electronic books and print-on-demand options*, a book should never fall through the cracks this way again. Of course, the author has to be savvy enough to keep one eye on his rights and take steps to keep a book available once its publishing run has ended and the rights have reverted. Or at the very least, have a web site with a tip jar.
*I’ve begun hearing some scary stories about print-on-demand publishers and rights, but I’d need to do more research before talking about them.
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In other news, I’m updating late this week. Sorry about that. I blame Spring Break and my mad attempt to really relax in the evenings.
Latest Rejection: Glimmer Train turned down one of my short short stories.
Latest Submissions: Crab Creek Review and Flash Fiction Online
