Tuesday, August 07, 2012

Powys Media

I like the tv show The Prisoner. So, often, when I stroll the web, I find new stuff relating to my favorite show. I recently came across a new series of novels on my favorite show! It's sort of like the feeling a geek gets when his series becomes a movie, or gets a reboot.

But I can't get the books!

Powys Media stinks.

This is some kind of fan shop but they apparently don't want to sell any books.

My home IP address has been blocked from their website, by the way, apparently for asking these types of questions.

Powys also sells novels and books about the old show Space:1999. This summer, I just finished watching all 48 episodes of that show and I must say, while I liked them a tad, I am not a superfan or anything. I thought there was no characterization, that the situations could just as easily been presented through any number of science fiction television shows. I don't think it would be a stretch, at all, to carbon copy those episodes just exchanging Star Trek characters. The moon could be the Enterprise. It really wouldn't make a difference.  So Powys has several books (supposedly) in the Space: 1999 universe.

However, I just checked Amazon.com and many of those books sell for well over $100.

Used, of course. There must be such a limited print run that they disappear. The one called Forsaken is selling for $144.89 right now!

And The Prisoner  is like this too. There were other books on Amazon. For the life of me, I can't find them there now. I have The Prisoner's Dilemma which is the one that sells for $15. There used to be one called Miss Freedom but I know I saw that going for $50.

So my question to throw out there--especially to Powys, who must not care about the fans--why can't a fan buy the books??

And then, when a fan, a customer! tries to ask a simple question, he gets banned from the website. Now that's the irony of the whole situation--Big Brother-like Village, website in this case, suppresses dissenting opinions.

Powys media books. I just don't understand. And rather than discuss it, even if I am a bit irrational about the whole thing, Powys just chooses to ignore me.


6 comments:

Moonbase Alphan said...

I was searching for something else related to Powys and stumbled on your blog. While I understand your frustration at not being able to obtain Miss Freedom (it took me a couple years to track it down) myself, I recall your posts and your view of events and Powys is skewed and in parts flat out wrong.

Powys *does* want to sell books, and the majority of books they have produced are available to buy - right now! There are links on the book pages to purchase them. Print on demand, as many copies as you want.

While we could have endless debates on how 1999 year 1 is nothing like Star Trek, but actually much like 2001, it's clear you are not a big fan. And so with the 1999 books that you are probably not really interested in buying anyway, yes, 1 of the 11 Space 1999 titles is not currently available. 1. Out of 11. And because that 1 is not available, it goes for outrageous prices on Amazon. But just that 1. All the rest are for sale on Powys at regular cover price, with a simple 'buy now' button click.

While you say you posted just a 'simple question' and a 'note' to Powys on their forum, your posts actually came across as spite filled rants - re: "fans can't buy the damned things" and "you guys make me sick" - which is why you were blocked.

btw - despite your angry tone, your questions *were* answered, (Powys does read the forum), explaining the situation with The Prisoner license and the Powys book line - and posting news that might actually make you smile.

Matt Butcher said...

From my memory, there was no print on demand...There was no straight link to buy from them, otherwise I wouldn't have had this.

It took you two years to track down the book...does that sound like good business?

I only started getting uppity when they wouldn't respond--and they didn't.

Maybe I'm wrong...

Matt Butcher said...

And I just searched the site through the Wayback Machine at Archive.org and there simply aren't any buy now links--unless I have completely missed them. Send me a screen capture with a link then...

Moonbase Alphan said...

There is print on demand for a majority of the books on the Powys site - which is predominantly Space 1999. Although not currently available for Miss Freedom - that is expected soon.
The reason it took me a couple of years to track down that Miss Freedom was that it was an extremely limited edition - a situation forced on Powys by the license holder. For whatever reason they limited Powys to 100 copies at the Portmierion convention. Finding one of these sold out books on the secondary market after that convention took some time.
But the current Powys plan, that Mateo (the publisher) posted a couple weeks ago is to have Miss Freedom, and a new third Prisoner novel, available on print on demand by the end of the year.
And Mateo did respond to your posts. Not within minutes or hours, but eventually. He's got a fairly busy life outside of book publishing and doesn't visit the forum that often.

Matt Butcher said...

Then Powys shouldn't push selling the book online, if there were no copies and they knew that.
And I would love to see those answers I supposedly got--because I waited months and months--I kept coming back to see if anybody responded. A year passed. I understand them being busy but then that tells me that they don't monitor the site--only since I was negative did they do anything. My first comments were nice. I admit after a YEAR I got perturbed. And what do they do--delete me and my comments. Talk about a public forum. Answer the questions then, even if I was being a jackass. Deleting people makes it go away though, doesn't it.

Matt Butcher said...

Also, I find it kind of fascinating that like in the Orwellian world of The Prisoner that they deleted my comments rather than deal with them, even if I was being a jerk.