Simon & Schuster is attempting to arrest the growing popularity of eBooks by delaying their release until four months after the hardback copy.

"The right place for the eBook is after the hardcover but before the paperback," Carolyn Reidy, CEO of Simon & Schuster, told the Wall Street Journal.

"We believe some people will be disappointed. But with new [electronic] readers coming and sales booming, we need to do this now, before the installed base of eBook reading devices gets to a size where doing it would be impossible."

The publisher will invoke the policy next year, beginning with 35 titles covering authors including Don DeLillo, Karl Rove, and Jodi Picoult.

If other publishers follow Simon & Schuster's lead, eBooks could become part of the traditional publishing cycle - preventing cheaper electronic copies from cannibalising hardback sales.

That policy may not wash in the UK, however, where eBooks tend to be the same price as hardbacks. In the US, Amazon has applied immense pressure on publishers to bring eBook prices down.

"We're doing this to preserve our industry," says David Young, chief executive of the Hachette Book Group, another publisher planning to delay eBook releases. "I can't sit back and watch years of building authors sold off at bargain-basement prices. It's about the future of the business," he concluded.

I guess you can't blame them. Why risk e-piracy damaging you initial sales.

Not only that, but in the case of the Kindle Amazon want a massive 50% cut.

Gosh, I so don't care about eBooks. They can make me wait for years, it's fine.

In general, I don't fall for the 'seeing/reading something sooner makes it better' con that people like Rupert Murdoch want you to believe. I don't see the point in going to a packed cinema on opening night when you can have the place to yourself a month later - similarly, why pay £18 for a book when you can pick up just as good/better books for 50p off ebay.

In general, I don't fall for the 'seeing/reading something sooner makes it better' con that people like Rupert Murdoch want you to believe. I don't see the point in going to a packed cinema on opening night when you can have the place to yourself a month later - similarly, why pay £18 for a book when you can pick up just as good/better books for 50p off ebay.

Edit to add - http://blogs.zdnet.com/perlow/?p=11753&tag=nl.e589

If TV shows and films are on torrents within hours after being broadcast, then with scanning and OCR I wouldn't expect anything less for ebooks. What the companies are proposing is to alienate legitimate users who might then be persuaded to get 'their' book earlier by illegitimate means. The people who are going to pirate the books from the outset will do so regardless of its release date.