Completely meaningless given the habit here, but I “announce” I’ll not write about books coming from big publishers unless they are at least three years old.
I’m done supporting this shit.
Only mentioning here the recent Sanderson big book was out the 7th December. The American Tor edition, 10 days later, is completely unavailable in Europe. Not because the copies have been sold out due to demand, but because they were NEVER SHIPPED. Due to a market agreement with the UK publisher. Which is funny since the UK isn’t part of the EU, so why should it monopolize its market?
Not even touching how the cost of books hasn’t simply increased, but multiplied x3 in three years. Reading has become an hobby for the rich.
But still, it’s funny.
My order was just 26 euros at the time, and is currently suspended since no copies were shipped to Europe. Meanwhile the UK edition is available everywhere. In Italian online shops the American edition is delisted, it won’t come up even with specific searches using the ISBN.
I don’t really care, I’m still something like 150 pages into the second book, it’s quite probable I’ll never get to the point of reading the fifth. I just despise this whole situation.
Roll back a few years, I remember clearly I ordered the American hardback of Words of Radiance, it was shipped by Amazon early and arrived one day before even the American launch date. I wrote a post about it.
Years later, Oathbringer took a week to get delivered. Then Amazon killed The Book Depository, in order to better serve its own monopoly.
I’m sorry for the writers, obviously, but I hope these publishers go burn in hell. Bye.
(meanwhile, it took a full year but I got all 15 main books part of Michelle West giant saga, all bought as used copies with the exception of the most recent, that had to be self-published anyway. And so I had to go support her directly on Patreon)