It’s been a couple of months since I checked the availability of my books as ebooks in Australia. I was hoping to find that missing books had finally been ‘fixed’ but didn’t really expect to see any changes. Well, it turned out there were changes, but almost none for the better.
Amazon – All books except Voice of the Gods
iBookstore – All books except The Black Magician Trilogy, Priestess of the White and Voice of the Gods
Kobo – All books except Voice of the Gods (but look under “Canavan” not “Trudi Canavan”)
Angus&Robertson – All books except Voice of the Gods
Borders – All books except Voice of the Gods
Dymocks – No books available
eBooks.com I have no idea what’s going on here. There are multiple listings of the same books, some in US dollars, some with ‘not available’. There doesn’t appear to be a way to tell it you’re an Australian customer.
In summary, Priestess of the White is now available on the Amazon US site, but that’s the only good news. The only book of mine published by HarperCollins Australia that’s still available in iBookstore is Last of the Wilds. All six books by HarperCollins have disappeared from Kobo. The eBooks.com site is so confusing that if there’s no improvement by the next time I do one of these checks, I’m going to remove it from the list to save customers a headache and disappointment. I’ve taken Amazon UK and Barnes and Noble Nook off the list because the sites won’t let you buy books from Australia. Which goes to prove that the ‘if it appears on the site it’s available’ advice is wrong.
Why has the situation has got worse, not better? Well, it could be any one of the reasons I dug up when researching this post.) Books ‘fall off the system’. Publishers are too busy to monitor every one of the thousands of titles they publish, especially when the book can be there one moment, and be gone the next. Ebook retailers are handling millions of titles as bulk stock and won’t notice (or care) if a couple slip off their site. Authors are too busy writing the next book to be monitoring their ebook titles and don’t want to take up too much of their publishers time – especially when they seem to be constantly under siege these days.
So if you’re in Australia or New Zealand and have been trying to get hold of my books as ebooks, I sympathise with your frustration. Be assured that the digital rights of all of my books in all english territories were sold years ago. All we can do is wait until someone sorts out whatever technical glitch is making them fall off the system.
Oh, and buy more books, so the publishers have the money to pay someone to chase these things up!
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Once again, I must add that I am not interested in a debate on pricing. That’s a topic for another place and time. To keep any feedback to this post on subject I won’t be approving whiny complaints about the cost of ebooks. The purpose of this post is to keep Australian readers informed on where they can buy my books as ebooks.
Finished the Black Magician Trilogy today (In paper form), and was looking if your other books are available as eBooks since I’ve bought a eBook reader recently. The problem I see (And probably many other people stops from buying an eBook version) is not the price, but the DRM-infection of the books – couldn’t find a version without (Neither the german version nor the english one). At least I would never buy a eBook with some DRM-protection, it’s completely useless anyway and does nothing except annoying fair-minded customers. The paper-version and (sorry, but it’s that way) any pirated version won’t have such crap.
Guess I will just buy the paper-version again as long as there’s no source for a eBook version that doesn’t treat the customer like criminal (Links welcome of course)… :/
Funny thing, this DRM. I’ve read all the usual arguments for and against and I still haven’t made my mind up about it. Have to say, though, as an ebook reader it hasn’t annoyed me one bit. The only time it was an issue was with a magazine subscription, but that was due to crazy the way the subscription service worked, automatically deleting the magazine from your phone and computer a few months after you bought it and forcing you to download it again.
Hi Trudi,
Can you add Audible to your ebook list even tho it’s not te hnically an E-Book?
I’ll consider it for next time.
I found BMT on Kobo, they’re just listed as “by Canavan” and they have plain Voyager purple/white covers. Less good, but at least they exist? I can also see Age of Five minus Voice of the Gods with normal covers there. (And Kobo knows I have an Australian credit card, so I assume it’s only showing (buy buttons for?) things I can in fact buy.)
Oops, I meant to include a link. This is Magician’s Guild on Kobo: http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/The-Magician-s-Guild/book-_ZmnuDqxxEW7Km83KE3wmQ/page1.html?s=mz3bfKg5Yk6AJj0pPgz6Mw&r=8
Thanks! Turns out that if you search for “Trudi Canavan” less books turn up than if you search for “Canavan”. Who knew?
It’s funny how, being in the UK, I could get all of them for my kindle. Gogo UK!
Also, international publishing is really weird.
That’s because they’re all published by Orbit in the UK. In the US and Australasia I have two publishing companies, and that seems to complicate things.
Happy you posted this – purchased Priestess of the White and other two in series -
Btw – The Traitor Queen is now available (for preorder) on amazon.
(And I just baught it
However, I’m wondering if there is a difference for you (payout) if i buy the book on amazon.co.uk or amazon.de (sometimes the pricing differs a lot).
I have no idea!
Hope you enjoy it
Wooooo Hoooooo!
Thanks for the heads up André, I have just pre-ordered the Ebook Version, just 95 Days to wait until its automatically delivered to my Kindle.
But should I get the hard copy as well….. such hard decisions at 7am in the uk.
have really enjoyed reading all of your books so far. Cannot wait until The Traitor Queen is released. Have you any plans to write more book in the Priestess of the White Series
I have read your Black Magic Trilogy and now Priestess of the White. Just downloaded the last two for that trilogy. Easy to do at Kobo. Have a fairly large library of ‘paper books (maybe about 4,000 (many over 100 years old). I have started the eBook journey only in the past year so only have about 70 or so. I worry that software compatibility may hamper their longevity. That would be a shame as I truly enjoyed reading your books. Thanks for the enjoyable quiet times.