Enjoying Breaking Dawn On Your Kindle Yet?

I’m not sure how many of you were affected by this.  I was, and it was a crushing blow to certain well laid plans.  Originally the E-book version of Breaking Dawn was scheduled to release simultaneously with the print version on August 2nd.  Just two days before the release Little Brown Books decided to push back the release of the e-book verison until the 3rd.  I didn’t hear about this until friday afternoon.  I thought it was very unprofessional of the publisher to change their minds so close to the final hour.  My friends and I were looking forward to a relaxing evening and party at home, but plans changed when discovered we’d have to trek out to the bookstore to pick up a copy at midnight.  

I bring this up not to yammer on about Breaking Dawn, but because this brings up an interesting problem with regards to e-books.  If other publishers follow this trend, I fear that the e-book revolution will take quite a hit.  I buy books in multiple formats, but most people want one or the other.  Twilight fans were given no choice in this case.  The message Little Brown sent by this action is that “if you want an e-book, you have to get in the back of the line.”

I understand the concern the publisher must have felt thinking that customers might be able to get their books ahead of time living in different time zones, but this does not make for an even playing field.  If e-books are going to make it, publishers have to be trust the infrastructure of online book retailers.  If the infrastructue doesn’t exist yet, then those retailers need to get on the ball with that. 

Here’s another article on the matter.