When news broke earlier this month that the publisher Gollancz had stepped up to sponsor an all-digital third edition of the “Encyclopedia of Science Fiction,” an executive hinted that it was part of a bigger, profit-minded plan to be announced soon. This week the publisher announced SF Gateway, which will launch in September with over 1,000 classic and out of print SFF novels in ebook form, with plans to offer 5,000 titles by 2014.

From The Guardian:

A complete list of the authors already signed up – they’re negotiating with many more – is here (warning: PDF). Tanith Lee is there, and deservedly so – I wrote here about how I couldn’t believe she was out of print. Harry Harrison, James P Blaylock, Theodore Sturgeon, EE “Doc” Smith, my beloved Tim Powers – it’s basically the great and the good of science fiction and fantasy, and they’re all going to be available at the click of a button (pricing is yet to be revealed, but will be “in line with prevailing market trend, but competitive and value for money”, apparently).

Ah, gaining control of a comprehensive, freely available online listing of science fiction authors and their works makes a lot more business sense now. A user performs a search for Marion Zimmer Bradley, ends up on the Encyclopedia page, and clicks through to SF Gateway to purchase her novels directly from Gollancz.

3 COMMENTS

  1. My first reaction was “Wow! I want to grab so many of those!”, but quickly I realized, like the two commenters below, that in order to buy these books I will have to crawl through the minefield of DRM and geolims. Going by current access, the chances of an Australian being “allowed” to hand over money for these books is vanishingly low. Still, I hope…

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