>I had a friend who worked barnes and noble and he told me that if the >bookstore put a book on the shelf before the release date they get fined by >the publisher, whatever that means. I do not know about being fined by the publisher, but as set forth in Naval Institute v. Charter Communications (1996?), they can be liable for damages resulting profits earned for early releases. In fact, the trial court in this case went as far as to say that early release was copyright infringement; however, the Court of Appeals overturned this. Before this case, which involved the paperback release of "Red October", it was common practice in the book trade to release books before the scheduled date (these facts come straight from the case itself). However, after this, I would think, though I do not know for sure, distributors started rethinking their practice of releasing books early. According to my contracts professor, however, distributors and book stores will still release books early IF they think that the liability(damages/money)they will incur (have to pay) will be less than the profits they will earn for releasing the book early. (Such in the case of Naval v. Charter, wherein they made something like $100,000 and were only forced to pay out around $30,000). Therefore, my logic is this: perhaps if everyone starts calling the bookstores and distributors like mad and somehow, someway, make them believe they will turn a larger profit for an early release than the liability they may/may not incur, they will release the book early. Just a thought. See what the first year of legal education can get you, the ability to b/s everything even better than you could before! Gee wowie! I can only guess what trivial junk my head will be filled with by the third year. On another note, or maybe not so much another note, PoD is wonderful, and for whoever said it is slower than the Vlad series though faster than TPG and FYA I completely disagree. So far, (as I am only 2 1/2 chapters into it) I think it is as fast paced as the most of the books of the Vlad series, but like TPG and FYA, it is more descriptive in nature as to its scenes, history, etc. Thank you Steve for writing something new and interesting to keep my mind off of this ever so boring stuff I probably should be keeping it on. _________________________________________________________________ The new MSN 8: advanced junk mail protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail