According to the contents of my mailbox, Amazon appear to be cancelling pre-orders of "The Fuller Memorandum".
Do not panic if you have pre-ordered this book. It's still due for publication on July 1st (in the UK, from Orbit) or July 6th (US, from Ace). Amazon are just having one of their periodic database glitches, and re-setting the title to "unavailable" rather than "due out on July 1st". It does not imply the book has been cancelled, or that Amazon won't be selling it when it's published. You might want to re-order it elsewhere, or wait until May/June (by which time Amazon's database might have realized that the book is, in fact, going to come into stock at some forseeable date).
That reminded me I needed to order it :).
I"ve gotten that kind of email from Amazon in the past, always for books or dvds I'd pre-ordered months and months in advance. I always figured it was because either the price had changed, or the availability date had changed so much that they needed to consider it a different order.
Might seem like a stupid question, but do you know who (if anyone) will be selling an ebook version of this in the UK when it comes out? I'd rather get it in that format, but if I'm going to have to wait for too long I'll just have to cope with an old fashioned hardcopy format :)
Thank you for the heads-up. Just got the email and it was about to add to my Sunday annoyances ;-)
Phew. I, too, was about to throw a wobbler on this. Can you let us know when you think it's back in stock on Amazon as they are reporting "Unavailable" with a July 2010 date! Idiots.
Came over to see what you're writing instead; glad to see it was just Amazon throwing a wobbly! (Mind, if you were writing something instead, I'd read that too, so don't let me put you off.)
Yet another reason (at least for USAans) to buy it from Powells. After the last Amazon-publisher snit-fit, I'm off Amazon for good.
Just got that email, and came here to check what was up with that.
You came up with some good US sites during the recent ebook kerfuffle. Any recommended UK sites?
Is this amazon.co.uk or amazon.com ? I just checked amazon.com ( http://www.amazon.com/Fuller-Memorandum-Laundry-Files-Novel/dp/044101867X/ref=pd_sim_b_1 ) and it's showing properly as July 6th.
Not enamoured with the cover :-)
As far as I know, it's just Amazon.co.uk.
My guess is that someone finally noticed that Ace have US rights, Orbit have UK/commonwealth rights, and decided to delete the orders they couldn't legally ship. Only they got it wrong.
Yeah, amazon.com, amazon.ca, and barnesandnoble.com all have it for pre-order; amazon.co.uk doesn't.
B&N has it for pre-order at US$16.83 (for members); this is only US$0.36 more than Amazon... http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Fuller-Memorandum/Charles-Stross/e/9780441018673
elderly-vrouw: Publication dates are set years in advance -- I wrote "The Fuller Memorandum" in late 2008 and it's been in my publisher's workflow since mid-2009.
Cheers Charlie
Had a momentary panic attack there - thought this was going the way of my amazon order for the remastering of My Bloody Valentine's 'Loveless'...
McG
For those wishing to avoid Amazon, the Book Depository site has the paperback for £5.99, free postage, 1st July 2010
http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/book/9781841497709/The-Fuller-Memorandum
I moved my order from amazon US to thebookdepository after Amazon's earlier tizzy.
Can I be cheeky and ask what's next after "The Fuller Memorandum" - I like to plan my book buying well in advance...
For some reason the British sterling £ has come up with an a in front of it...
This narked me too. I'm getting increasingly ticked with Amazon - fr'instance their "pre-order price promise" is a load of wossname. I pre-ordered Peter Hamilton's latest book (due out later this year) months ago...and it was around £16 (I can't recall the exact price)...and then Amazon changed distributors or something and it now costs £18.99 and so due to the distributor changing they cancelled the order. I can still re-order it (on pre-order at the higher price, obviously!), but I won't be doing that - I'll actually go into a book shop and buy it instead. I only use Amazon for the convenenience (and also, if the authors have a kick-back system with them like Charles does) - as I like to order as soon as possible and then forget about the books - and it is a nice suprise when the parcel dood brings me new books!
Mark,
If you'd tried bitching at them, there's a chance they'd have sorted that price for you out (they've certainly compensated people for similar before). Technically they've got to do it, they're just hoping people won't ask so they can get away with it.
When Amazon does this for lesser known authors, it's more than a nuisance. People have a way of believing Amazon when they say "out of print."
Amazon has done this more than once to us (USA) and I'm reasonably convinced it's in response to not getting the discount or other "deal" that Amazon wants from our niche publisher. The book in question has been in print continuously. I found out when potential customers emailed me looking for a place to buy the book--the answer is direct from the publisher who have it in their warehouse.
2011's novel is "Rule 34", a sort-of sequel to "Halting State".
(There may also be a short print-run non-fiction book of essays. Watch the
skiesblog for announcements.)I have no novels under contract after "Rule 34", but have discussed detailed proposals with my editors and will make a public announcement as and when a formal offer is made. Which will not happen until "Rule 34" is accepted (and it's not due on my editors' desks until August 1st).
That happened to me with Liz Williams' The Shadow Pavilion. Of course, her publisher took about a year after the announced release date to actually get copies out; after I ordered direct I checked in with them every few months to make sure they didn't lose my order. I trust your publisher's less likely to have such difficulties! It persuaded me not to pre-order from amazon; it's just a bit too chancy.
I've heard of similar issue with dozens of books in amazon.com, recently. Weird.
FWIW, I got an email from Amazon this morning with the subject line, "Amazon.com recommends 'The Fuller Memorandum (A Laundry Files Novel)'".
So, it appears they are trying to make good - or the glitch is on such a massive scale that Amazon is in the throes of a Stross-induced civil war. :-)
Herring @22 - Pretty sure those emails are script-generated per customer, rather than the same for everyone. Yours likely only mentioned TFM because you've bought Stross books before, not because they're doing some special promotion.
Amazon (UK) seems bit flaky at the moment. Just finished reading "Trade of Queens" but it still has it down as not released yet and I can't post my review...