Space Opera Fans discussion

The current rules for Reader nominations require books to be readily available in paper as well as ebook. The rules for Indy preclude traditionally published books which while available in ebook are no longer in print as paperbacks. More than one of us really like Hellspark for example, but it is only available as ebook.

I would like to suggest either relaxing the rules for one of the two categories, or else adding a third category. Not sure what we would call a third one, but perhaps "oldies" might do.

That's an interesting suggestion Teresa. I'll discuss it with the other moderators. I'd also be interested in other members' opinions.

Teresa wrote: "The current rules for Reader nominations require books to be readily available in paper as well as ebook. The rules for Indy preclude traditionally published books which while available in ebook ar..."

So If I read this right we would end up with a list where the books are in both physical and digital versions., a list that is digital only and a list that is physical only.

That's one possibility. Another is two lists, with oldie ebooks allowed in one of them. A third is trad published available in paper at least, previous trad published currently only in ebook, plus our usual Indy which is often only ebook. I'm sure there are others.

I don't really care how they are divided up, as long as we get to nominate great books, without some being excluded from the rules. And I'm sure some of us don't like reading ebooks, so we need to make sure one of our picks each month is available in paper. And some like me only read ebooks now.

Since Indies seems to be the usual one that isn't available in paperback, changing the rule on it would make sense. The other problem might be that a lot of young adult that is more modern may not be in paperback either, even though we have dropped that for now.

The simplest solution from which the group could then expand would be to require the readers pick to be in both formats and the Indie to be in ebook (even though it may be in paperback too).

I agree that the simplest solution is to just throw the Indy group open to any book available in ebook format. That would also include books that are available in hardback but not paperback. I'm not sure it will be fair to the true Indy category books to have more competition, and if we went that route I'd like the category renamed. Reader and EReader perhaps?

The indie category is designed to assist independent authors in obtaining a market for their books, since they don't have publishers to do their marketing for them. And keep in mind, we have a number of independent authors as members of our group. I don't think I would like to see the indie category expanded that way.

IMO we need three categories.

READER: as now. Traditionally published and easily found in paperback.

INDY: as now. Independently published, easily found in ebook, possibly available in paperback.

EREADER: Traditionally published, easily found in ebook, not currently available in paperback. So books that had been in paperback before but now only in ebook, plus books out in hardback but not paperback that are available as ebooks.

Remember there are actually two types of paperback. The mass market type and trade type. Are we talking both types here or just the pocket book type.

Frankly, I'm not sure I would support three or four (YA?) categories at this time. Right now it seems that I'm the only active moderator and it takes a lot of work to run the monthly book selection. Unless we could do something like one month Reader, the next month Indy, the next month EReader, the next month YA. And I'm not sure most members would be happy with that. Maybe I'll run a poll. If you have other ideas, please let me know.

Moderators are under appreciated.....

Perhaps we should just do one book a month, without any categories at all other than being space opera if you squint at it and being readily available as ebook? Random chance will give us Indy sometimes, traditional sometimes. And each of us just nominating a single book would make it less work too.

I've decided not to change things yet, so this month (May 2017) we'll still be choosing a Reader Pick and an Indy Pick just as we did the last couple months.

Sorry, Teresa, I understand your frustration about wanting to choose a backlist book like Hellspark, but there didn't seem to be very many people (other than me) who shared your concern. We might revisit the issue in the future.

Keep in mind that nothing prevents you from reading those books if you want, and if you want to discuss them, you can always set up a new thread under the Book Buddy folder: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/group...

My main concern was the possibility of missing a great book because I'd never heard of it. I'll just have to hope that someone mentions it in the What are you reading now? thread.

I often don't find the books for a given month interesting but I almost always find something in the nominations.

Thanks for at least considering the suggestion, and for all the work of moderating the group too.

FYI in France, books are never published with a hardcover ! Only paperback, big ones and pocket ones ...
How useful this information is ?!!!