Hard Case Crime discussion

What HCC books (mass-market paperback) are out of print?

That's a good question. I know I had to wait for a new printing of Baby Moll when I lost mine. I don't know about when Titan is reprinting them and in what order.

I'm trying to read as many as I can because I fear they will go OOP. Not looking forward to buying them for $20 a pop.

The ebook thing is going to result in so many books going out of print. One of the many reasons I dislike ebooks.

Dfordoom wrote: "The ebook thing is going to result in so many books going out of print. One of the many reasons I dislike ebooks."

Maybe more of the HCC books will be published electronically. We hope!

Dfordoom wrote: "The ebook thing is going to result in so many books going out of print. One of the many reasons I dislike ebooks."

I think it may do the opposite. Most paper books have a limited run, then go out of print. Then one is reduced to used books at a price often higher than the book sold new.

Authors can keep old books available in ebook form. Lee Goldberg is making "found" money on old novels that have been out of print for years.

All that said, while I do the ebook thing, I still prefer books. Holding an ereader in your hand is not the same thing as a book.

Still, I've gotten things that you can no longer get in book form. One in particular is at about eighty dollars for the cheapest price on the used book sites. I got it much cheaper as an ebook.

I'm really a fan of paperbacks. I love the covers & the size, but they seem to be reaching their end of life. I used to buy them new for $.75, but the last ones I got were $10 each & the quality on some isn't all that I could hope for. There's also a matter of space. I have book cases all over the house, including my bedroom where I built in shelves that cover an entire wall. I hate to get rid of them, though. I still have some that were my father's & grandfather's.

I have an ereader, a Sony, that I got a couple of years ago & I use it. There really is a lot of good public domain stuff. Due to weird copyright laws, not as much as there should be, unfortunately. If you look around some, other countries often have different stuff posted. For instance, there is only one story by Robert E. Howard at:
http://www.gutenberg.org
but you can find a bunch of his stories at:
http://gutenberg.net.au
Both Project Gutenberg, but different countries.
There are more stories here:
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Main_Page
but you have to copy & paste them into a document to read later. Still, it's a great way of finding some great older stories without breaking the bank.

A lot of publishers, such as Baen & Tor, are also offering free books & short stories. Smashwords & Amazon both have free books, too. Some authors like, J.A. Konrath are self-publishing now & they've found that sharing their earlier books out for free gets people interested, so they buy the newer ones. Baen books did that with David Weber's Honor Harrington series for just one book & I wound up buying a dozen. I understand they're all free now. I know that's SF & probably not really of interest to most of this group, but I use it as an example to look for & what to expect in the future.

One thing I'd hope for regarding ebooks is that it will make some of the old pulp/noir authors available again. I'm thinking of writers like Dan Marlowe, Charles Williams, Gil Brewer for examples. Yes, I'd much rather own the old paperbacks and will always be on the lookout for them. But I also believe these out-of-print writers deserve a new audience that would never know them otherwise.

I agree. Given a choice, I'll always read the physical book. The appeal of the e-reader for me is the hope that a lot of these older titles that aren't otherwise available will resurface. (Of course, that will simply mean that I have even that many more books that I've bought and haven't had a chance to read yet.)

I too want old noir books that is out of print. Thats what HCC is mostly to me. New authors are easier to find.