So, my 15-year-old son was heading off to summer camp. âDad, I need some books!â he said, waggling his iPod Touch.
He loves twisty plots. He loves action. He loves intellectual challenge. I knew just the thing: âThe Bourne Identity.â
I pulled up Amazon.com to buy the Kindle edition. âAnd once you're done with it, we can watch the movie together,â I told him as I searched.
Hm. That's weird. There's no electronic edition of âThe Bourne Identityâ on Amazon. Nor any of its sequels.
Barnes & Noble? Apple iBooks? Kobo? Sony? Nope. Nobody sells it.
I felt like I was in a Monty Python skit. âHello? Would anyone like some money? Anyone? I've got money here-no?â
I eventually learned that Robert Ludlum's estate can't agree on a royalty rate with its publisher.
Dudes: It's 2012. You're among the last big-name holdouts on the face of the earth. You're worried about the royalty rate? How about worry ing about the thousands of dollars a month you've been leaving on the table by not offering the books to the public who's willing to buy it?
Eventually, I did what I'm sure thousands of frustrated Ludlum fans wind up doing: I downloaded the book from a BitTorrent site.
I know this is wrong. I sure wish I could have paid for it. So I sent the publisher a check for $9.99 for the e-book.