star_wars_poster_full.0.0What’s another way e-books are better than paper books? They can be more easily policed for spoiler protection. That’s the conclusion Disney has reached concerning the novelization of the new Star Wars movie, The Force Awakens. Even though the movie releases on December 17, Nasdaq reports that Disney has elected to forego the lucrative holiday gift-giving season by delaying printing of the paper-book tie-in to the forthcoming Star Wars movie until January.

Disney is concerned that there’s many a slip ‘twist printer and bookstore and demand is high enough that pre-printed copies of the novel could leak, spoiling important details for filmgoers. (And it’s a valid concern—it happened for the much-anticipated final Harry Potter book, after all.) A spokesman for publisher Del Rey notes that the publisher would have preferred to release the book simultaneously with the movie, but understands how important it is to keep the cloak of secrecy in place.

However, the e-book will come out on December 18, because e-book files don’t have to be printed and there aren’t so many opportunities for leakage—they just have to be uploaded and then they’re done. You generally can’t give them as gifts, though. But then, with a franchise as lucrative as Star Wars, the money they lose from Christmas gift-giving of the paper book might very well amount to a rounding error.

(Found via File770.)

8 COMMENTS

  1. Anyone who thinks that any new Star Wars movie won’t have an utterly insane first day simply, spoilers or no, because of two little words (“star” and “wars”) hasn’t been paying attention. If there’s a single day-one admission ticket anywhere that hasn’t been pre-sold by now, I’m the King of Siam. And the e-books will be available as of Day 2, when spoilers from the people who saw it on Day 1 would have been all over the Internet anyway.

    For that matter, by the same token they really don’t need those print books out there anyway, given that the number one reason for tie-in print books is to serve as additional mini-movie posters to help promote the film, rather than to be bought and read for their own sake. And if there’s any film this decade that needs no additional promotion whatsoever, the long-awaited Episode 7 is it.

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