Thank you all. I wish I could do something about the e-book availability, but Penguin insists on the rights—but won’t put the e-book out simultaneously. Sigh. Please support me anyway. It’s not DAW’s fault. They’re a passenger on that situation, not directing it.
This is Betrayer’s official release date: it should ship now, if it hasn’t before.
by CJ | Apr 5, 2011 | Journal | 59 comments
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Hope you’re feeling better soon—
Est arrivés aujour-d’hui (élas, j’ai oublié: -és avec des livres; l’ortho de “aujour-d’hui”? Pour oublier qqcs si simple… Euf!)
I see my French *must* get serious review. Not to rem. a basic word’s spelling or obj/verb agreement with m. Pl. For passé composé…. Not proud, here. I made only one B ever, throughout my French, college lit included.
—– But that aside —–
Conspirator, Deceiver, and Betrayer all arrived today! Wonderful reward after a productive but difficult day.
I put them in a box by my bed. I’m making progress in Foreigner 1, now around p. 200. I’m resolved to read the series in order first.
got my copy tonight, really looking forward to it !!
My review of Betrayer is up on Amazon US. Hope it helps…
I’ll probably buy the book as e-book as soon as it’s possible, but I have just been out to buy the hardcover.
I’m ever so much looking forward to reading the latest instalment.
The Foreigner series brought me through some very bad days last year. I was packing for a couple of days at hospital. I grabbed the nine books I had then and rushed out. I didn’t expect to get time for reading all of them, the expectation were three to five days at hospital and then a week off work at home.
Everything went wrong and after two operations and peritonitis I got to spend almost a month there.
To be able to lose myself with Bren and the Atevi saved my sanity if not my life.
(I’m quite well today, I had to have chemotherapy too, but everything is fine.)
Welcome, and I’m so glad this is a much better year!
Thanks for the response, CJ.
I should have been more specific.
What method of buying The Betrayer gives you the most return?
I guess I’m wondering if there’s any particular chain or independent bookstore that you would feel comfortable naming.
You’d mentioned last year that Amazon and Penguin had a spat that resulted in Amazon dropping Penguin book prices in half in retaliation.
I simply want to support a seller that has treated you right.
GGG: I’m going to stick my nose in here about where to buy the book to do Nand Cherryh the most good.
Your closest locally owned independent bookstore is your best choice. Purchasing it from either me or one of my fellow bookstore owners isn’t going to put extra money into CJ’s pocket immediately, but it will in the long run. Why? Because we small independents know a heck of a lot more about books in general than employees of the chains. We are also very passionate about books. If someone shows even the faintest interest in a book or an author, we will stand there and give that person 1001 reasons why he or she should instantly purchase that book. Then, we will take that person to another book and repeat that performance. If the potential customer asks questions, we have either read the book personally or have talked with other customers who have read it. We are also much more likely to have not just an author’s latest book in stock, but the entire backlist — or at least the first one or two in the series, ready to hand sell at the drop of a pin. And we are not fixated on the best seller list to the exclusion of everything else. In other words, booksellers like me are not going to sell just the latest book, we are going to push the entire series. Maybe that person will only buy one book that day, but if we have presented a good enough case, chances are pretty good that the person will come back and buy more in the series — not to mention other series books and stand alones. (I have had people who take my recommendations seriously enough to actually buy an entire series of books in one purchase without even trying a single title in that series.)
(CJ: Sorry to hijack your thread, but any more I take every opportunity I get to urge people to support us small bookstores. On the other hand, I do keep both Foreigner and <Inheritor in stock at all times, ready to handsell to anyone expressing an interest in SF.)
well-said, samsgran. We do need to keep indies in business!
We are losing the one Borders superstore here in their Chapter 11 kafuffle; a Borders Express is still open in the mall, but pickins are slim there. When the big box stores moved in, we lost our 3 independent bookstores on this side of the island. Now that the large stores are finding their business model is in error, maybe the small stores will be able to return.
Both our Borders have closed. There’s a couple of B&N’s but they’re in areas that have heavy traffic and are difficult to get in and out of (for me, at least). For Indies, the best is Steve’s Sundries. He will order anything but isn’t that speedy. We have a ginormous used book store which does a very good business.
It’d be nice if the former senior employees of the defunct store could organize the capital. They could start with a used store.
That would be a great idea except that even the used bookstores are in trouble. In Omaha, we’re in the process of losing our third used bookstore in a very short time. According to one owner I talked with, his sales just simply plummeted over the past year. Like us small indies, his problem seems to be the internet. It’s simply too easy for people to sit at home in front of the computer, browse ABE or Amazon and order what they want. And with gas pushing $4.00 a gallon or more, I think we’re going to see a lot more internet shopping.
It’s really, really scary when you read that Powell’s in Portland, Oregon is laying off 25 to 30 members of their staff. It’s even more scary to hear that City Lights in Los Angeles, which is so highly regarded in the book selling community, is skating on thin ice, too.
I know the guy who manages the bookstore out at the airport. His big problem is the people strolling through his store, Kindle in hand, downloading the books they’re interested in. (Personally, I think I’d give those people the bum’s rush, but Jim’s store is part of a chain and you just don’t do that sort of thing when you work for a chain!)When Borders brought out the color Nook, he really was unhappy because he’s afraid he’ll lose a lot of his magazine sales now, too.
The bookstores that are maintaining traction here are offering sit-and-read areas, usually with expresso/chai and bakery goods. People who want the atmosphere of an old bookstore with the easy chair, drinkables, and such, are going to resort there for quiet but entertained solitude on lunch break and maybe buy something. It’s a formula that has kept Spokane’s downtown bookstore going.
“Quiet” is an important part of this. Back ground music is OK, but several chain stores in this area have loud, obnoxious music that quickly drives me out of the store. And they wonder why I buy online …
Omaha’s only general independent is connected to somebody else’s coffee shop so there’s only a railing between the two. Another small bookstore, Soul Desires, which specializes in spiritual books — she’s a retired Methodist minister, I don’t know what he did — has a nice little coffee machine and some tables and chairs. I don’t know if that’s helping them or not.
My big problem with the coffee shop thing is that people have a tendency to drink coffee, read a few magazines or books, then leave without buying any of the magazines or books. Essentially, these people have stolen from the bookstore, the publishers and the writers. (Leafing through a magazine or book to decide whether or not you want to buy it is one thing; reading entire articles in magazines or taking notes from computer manuals you have no intention of buying is something else entirely different.)
Yes, I know I’m being hard-nosed about it, but after finding coffee- and food-stained, obviously read and reread books and magazines on a bookstore’s shelves instead of the brand new books and magazines I expected is depressing. Obviously, they can’t be sold in that condition, so they have to be returned. The bookstore is out the cost of shipping, the publisher the cost of publishing and the author’s royalty check gets dinged for the return.
Thank you CJ, samsgran and all for your responses.
Unfortunately, Oahu has very few independent book stores.
The ones that I know of are either religious, New Age or revolutionary wanna-be’s.
The remainder are focussed on used books and generally do not carry many new releases.
samsgran, I certinly do not consider it a hijack.
In fact, if you can ship to Hawaii, I would happily purchase through you !
The internet is indeed a two-edged sword when it comes to commerce.
On the one hand, even the smallest company can reach a larger demographic.
On the other, those stores that are primarily focussed on a physical presence face the challenges that you’ve all discussed.
I am somewhat with samsgran with regard to the issue of “patrons” using the bookstore/coffee shop enterprise as their version of the public library.
I guess, in the long run, one has to be able to determine whether or not they sell more books as a result of the coffee shop, and if that additional sales makes up for any material that has to be returned.
I’m not sure if it was a good thing, a bad thing, or just a thing when bookstores began offering coffee bars next to new releases. Big chains can afford to absorb a few bedraggled books and magazines, but independents and libraries can’t. And the patrons are shocked when we ask them not to bring their food and drink into the library.
GGG: Yes, I do ship to Hawaii. I have heard that Hawaii is short on book stores because shipping is prohibitive. Books are heavy!!!
Yes, I have said the same thing about the internet for several years. eBay is the great leveler. Items that sold for a big price in a certain area because there was a shortage of that particular thing in that particular area suddenly began selling for much less because the seller was competing against the entire rest of the world. On the other hand, if you had something really rare and wonderful to sell, eBay and the internet provided lots more eyes than just in your immediate neighborhood. That’s a big reason I don’t try to sell any of the jewelry I make on eBay; there’s just too many jewelry makers to count. And Etsy’s getting to be the same way.
samsgran,
If no one would object to you doing a little bit of advertising, please provide the name of your bookstore and I’ll take it from there.
CJ
If such exchanges are verboten, my apologies.
My copy seems to be taking a small side trip – across the entire US continent! Why on earth it is in Illinois this evening I have no idea. Sigh. Oh well – more time to go back and re-read the previous book. Or the previous three or four books….
My copy is here, I am so excited! Too bad it isn’t a weekend night; I would love to stay up all night reading and sleep in tomorrow morning.
The book is awesome. My husband and I have been fighting over it the last two days. Thankfully he just finished so I can have it all to myself now. =)
Well I just got my copy of Betrayer from the local library and I was the first person to lay hands on it! Gotta love that fresh hardcover smell! And nothing questionable on the pages, LOL. Can’t wait to tear through it! And as soon as they make it available on ebook Ill be buying it without hesitation!
It arrived today (Fri, 8 April) in NE England.
Who from? Are they UK based. I’m up in Scotland and Amazon.co.uk is advising me of dispatch dates between 18th-25th april for my preorder. I’ve been considering cancelling and ordering from Amazon.com using priority courier (total circa $45) for a three day delivery. So I’d be grateful if you could let me know. Thanks
With apologies to all who might be offended by commerce cheapening Nand Cherryh’s site: The Mystery Bookstore in Omaha, NE.
I assure one and all, blatant self promotion is not the reason I joined this list. I joined because the Foreigner series is one of my all time favorite series, and I jumped at the opportunity to be able to actually interact with the author of this series. (I also love the Faded Sun trilogy, which I recommend frequently.) This site also allows me to track the progress of Bren and his aishid.
When the opportunity arises, I do take advantage to present the viewpoint of the independent bookstores. I’m not all that plugged in to the greater bookselling community, but I am a member of the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association. IMBA has its own private listserve, and we discuss amongst ourselves our concerns, problems and successes at the present time and the broader trends we see further out on the horizon. But it’s a two-way street. I’ve mentioned some of CJ’s problems and concerns (not by name, though; I simply say “an author I know of”).
So many things in the bookselling world have changed over the years. My mother’s mother worked for a prominent department store in the late 40s and early 50s in their book department. In those days, “real” bookstores simply did not have anything whatsoever to do with paperbacks. Paperbacks were sold in drug stores, card shops, street kiosks and other disreputable locations. And the publishers were thoroughly ashamed of their best sellers, such as Peyton Place and Valley of the Dolls. They held their noses all the way to the bank because those sales supported their midlist authors such as Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and John Steinbeck. With the advent of the chains, the entire industry became best seller driven, and paperbacks became more respectable. (But hardbacks are still more prestigious than a mere paperback.) And now we’ve come to an era where bookstores are becoming obsolete — no matter what they sell. I read an article the other day about some guy who had made about $400,000 by self-publishing through Amazon’s Kindle and selling his book for only $1.00.