FAQ
Will the books be restricted by
geographical rights/territories?
Will the books be available outside the
major English-speaking territories (i.e. UK, US,
Aus)?
How will I know if a title is not available in
the USA or Canada?
I live in the USA and don't read
on a Kindle - why can't I buy your
eBooks?
Will the eBooks have DRM? If so, what
kind?
What formats will the Gateway eBooks be
available in?
What retailers will be selling SF
Gateway eBooks?
Will you be offering licences to libraries or
will you supply content through 3rd party library
vendors?
Why can't I buy direct from the site?
Why aren't you providing
Print-on-Demand versions?
Can I buy specific short stories?
If not, why not?
Is there an affiliate scheme?
Why Isn't
Author/Book X in the Gateway List? or Will Author/Book X Be
Published by Gateway?
Why aren't you publishing series in
order?
Why do you have some of Author X's
books, and not others?
Will the SF Gateway be open to new
and/or self-published authors?
How does one go about becoming a Gateway author?
Why have you not kept the original covers?
Why are the covers all yellow?
What is the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction?
What is the connection between the
two?
Will the
books be restricted by geographical rights/territories?
Yes, they will. We have acquired rights to the SF
Gateway titles from the authors or their estates, and in many cases
the rights they were willing or able to grant us were only for the
UK and Commonwealth countries (excluding Canada, which is usually
bundled with USA rights). It's not that we don't want to allow you
to buy the books; it's outside the terms of our contracts.
However, there are many titles - approximately
one-third - in which we have World English Rights, and these will
be available everywhere, subject to retailers' ability to sell
them.
Will
the books be available outside the major English-speaking
territories (i.e. UK, US, Aus)?
Yes. We have English language rights on all titles
everywhere in the world except for the USA, its dependencies,
Canada and the Philippines. And as noted above, we have English
language rights everywhere in the world in one third of our titles.
SF Gateway ebooks will be available from retailers in every country
provided they have established commercial terms with the Hachette
UK Group.
How will I know if a
title is not available in the USA or Canada?
Each title in which we only hold UK and
Commonwealth rights will be clearly marked on its title page on the
SF Gateway website.
I live in
the USA and don't read on a Kindle - why can't I buy your
eBooks?
Firstly, apologies for the frustration; we know
there are some aspects of digital publishing that are irritating to
consumers and we - as a company and as an industry - are working
hard to resolve them. At the moment, we have no direct trading
relationship with the major American retailers, such as Barnes
& Noble, and so we are unable to supply them with files. As
Amazon is a multinational, with a major operation in the UK where
we are based, we can supply Amazon with files, so our eBooks are
available to North American Kindle users. We're very sorry that
users of other devices are not, for the moment, able to buy our
titles, but we hope that the abundance of Kindle apps for a wide
variety of platforms will, temporarily at least, provide a usable
alternative until we are able to offer our books through all North
American retailers.
Will the eBooks have DRM? If
so, what kind?
Yes, they will. The SF Gateway is owned and
operated by the Orion Publishing Group, itself part of the Hachette
UK Group. Hachette policy is that DRM is applied to all eBooks
published by Hachette companies. Gateway titles are available from
the Amazon Kindle and Apple iBookstore platforms, which have their
own proprietary DRM schemes, or from a range of vendors using Adobe
DRM.
What formats will the
Gateway eBooks be available in?
SF Gateway eBooks will be available for the Amazon
Kindle and Apple iBookstore platforms, and as ePub files secured
with Adobe DRM from a range of digital partners.
What
retailers will be selling SF Gateway eBooks?
Notwithstanding the above, any retailer which has
satisfied Hachette UK's contractual and technical requirements and
reached commercial terms with us can sell our titles, provided we
have the appropriate territorial rights.
Will you be
offering licences to libraries or will you supply content through
3rd party library vendors?
The Hachette UK Group does not currently supply
ebooks into the library sector.
Why can't I
buy direct from the site?
We have built up very good relationships with our
retail partners over the years and see no reason to change that at
this time. Retailers specialise in selling and publishers
specialise in creating, and maintaining those roles currently gives
our readers the best possible user experience.
Why aren't you providing
Print-on-Demand versions?
Like other aspects of digital publishing,
print-on-demand is a technology that is developing all the time. We
will be experimenting with POD on a limited basis in the near
future, with a view to rolling it out across more titles. Keep an
eye on the website news for more details as they become
available.
Can I buy
specific short stories? If not, why not?
We are currently considering how best to make
available the significant short story output of the many classic
authors on our list, but it is unlikely that we will be able to
provide individual stories. Please keep an eye on the Gateway blog
for updates as and when we have them.
Is there an
affiliate scheme?
As SF Gateway is not selling directly, we cannot
offer any sort of affiliates scheme. Many of the major retailers do
so, but that is not something we are involved in, in any
way.
Why Isn't Author/Book X in the
Gateway List? | Will Author/Book X Be Published By Gateway?
There are many reasons an author might be absent
from the SF Gateway list. In some cases the rights are simply not
available. In others, an author or an author's estate has
decided that they don't wish to make eBooks available; in these
instances there is nothing we can do but move on and plan to
revisit that author in the future, in the hope they will
reconsider.
Sometimes, it's just a case of us not having had time
to approach an author. It's also often the case that we are still
speaking to an author or agent, and we obviously can't discuss
negotiations in progress. Given the scale of ambition for the SF
Gateway project, author acquisition is likely to be a continuing
process for some time; we announced SF Gateway with a list of
authors agreed to that point, have added more since the
announcement and will be adding even more authors over the coming
years - but we will not announce an author until we have an
agreement with their agent or estate.
If you are disappointed that certain authors are
missing from the SF Gateway list, please bear the above
explanations in mind, and be reassured that the least likely reason
an author isn't present is because we haven't thought of
them.
Why aren't
you publishing series in order?
After acquiring rights from the authors or their
estates, the main factor that determines what we can publish is
locating file copies from which to produce the eBooks. In many
instances we found (and continue to find) ourselves in situations
where we have some books in a series but not all; there are also
times when we send a complete series for conversion and when
the eBooks return, one of them fails quality control and has to be
sent back for correction. In those situations we have two
choices: to wait until we have a correct file for every book in a
series - or at least the first x books - or to publish as we locate
the files. In order to make as many eBooks as possible available
for readers and to avoid creating a backlog of titles in our
production processes, we choose to make books available as soon as
we are able to. We are aware of gaps in some of our series and we
are working diligently to fill them.
Why do you have some of Author X's
books, and not others?
We have endeavoured, in every instance, to acquire
authors' entire backlist. In some instances this has not been
possible owing to some rights already being spoken for.
Will
the SF Gateway be open to new and/or self-published authors?
No. The SF Gateway was established specifically to
rescue classic SF & Fantasy titles from their
mostly-out-of-print status and make them available again to a wider
audience. There are many sites and publishers whose raison d'être
is to facilitate the eBook publication of new and/or self-published
authors, and it is not in our plans to join them.
How
does one go about becoming a Gateway author?
Please see above, but if you happen to be an
established author of SF or Fantasy whose books were published by a
major house but have now fallen out of print, please ask your agent
to get in touch with us.
Why
have you not kept the original covers?
The SF Gateway will be publishing thousands of
titles over the course of the next few years, and it is neither
feasible nor economical to track down the original artists or
rights holders for every cover and, in many cases, pay permission
fees to use those covers. Our goal is to make as many titles as
possible available as quickly as we can and provide them at
reasonable prices - tracking down and using original cover art is
not compatible with either of those goals.
Why are
the covers all yellow?
The SF Gateway covers are designed to reflect, and
slightly update, the classic Gollancz 'yellow jacket' style that
holds an iconic place in the history of British SF
publishing.
What is the
Encyclopedia of Science Fiction?
The Encyclopedia of Science
Fiction (SFE) is the ultimate authority on all
aspects of Science Fiction. The current online iteration is the
third edition of the work; the previous two editions both won Hugo
Awards in the Non-Fiction category.
What is the
connection between the two?
Gollancz has facilitated and financed the
development of the SFE website and in return the SFE provides links
to the SF Gateway site whenever SF Gateway titles are referenced in
SFE entries. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction remains
editorially independent and neither SF Gateway nor Gollancz exert
any influence over how authors or books are covered in the
SFE.