Recently someone showed me an edition of DON'T DIE DRAGONFLY (#1 in THE SEER series 2004) that she'd ordered from Amazon. She wanted to know why the size was larger, so it didn't fit in on her shelf beside the other books and the book looked different, too, from the other paperbacks.
This puzzled me, reminding me of fairytales where someone finds a changling instead of their usual baby. My book baby had changed in size and texture. The larger cover wasn't smooth and shiny like usual. And it was listed as a first edition instead of the most recent 5th edition. Yet it also listed all of my books, including my March 2012 spin-off from THE SEER series, BURIED: A GOTH GIRL MYSTERY. So this had to be a recent change.
Now I already knew my publisher had been cleaning out the warehouse of some older titles, a few of mine included (all still avaiable as ebooks). But DON'T DIE DRAGONFLY is still in print, so I wondered what was going on.
Then I came up with a theory to explain this different edition and the reason Amazon can charge less than othe retailers for this series and even offer a 3 for 4 book deal. My guess is they didn't get this book from the publisher but printed it out themselves, a POD edition. Freeing up space in publisher warehouses while still offering paperbacks at low cost to readers. I wonder if this is happening with other paperback series, too.
I'm grateful that my books are available in mutliple formats. Still, I wonder what this means in the larger world of publishing. Any thoughts on this?
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