So a couple of days ago I broke my blogging drypatch by noting how eHarlequin charges 3 wildly different prices for the same set of electrons depending on how you get there. Well I posted that on Baen's bar and then discovered that it is worse.
Firstly if you go for the print edition of the book as opposed to one of the electronic editions you get an excerpt. Not as good an excerpt as the Baen "we give you a quarter of the book so you really get hooked" but what looks like the first chapter more or less. I dunno whether it is just me, but to not make the excerpt available for the electronic version but yet make it available for the dead tree one seems pretty stupid.
And then there is the utter inconsistency of whether there is a link between the dead tree version and the electronic one. The print edition link above notes that the book is available as an Audiobook but not as an eBook. This is not an isolated error. One of the two dead tree editions states that the sequel is available as an eBook the other doesn't and the same applies to a number of other authors that I have looked at.
It seems possible that this is deliberate obscurantism and that the ebook link only shows up when it is cheaper than the paper version (although that isn't 100% correct seeing as one Poison Study ebook is less than the price of the dead tree book) but it looks to me more like a website which is in chaos and not properly thought out. An impression that is added to when you serch for a book (print or ebook) are are told that if you are interested in "this" version you might also be interested in "that" version - where that version is a different price or imprint.
So eHarlequin's ebook site has three problems
Price
high (mostly over $10 per book)
varied with the same book available at different prices
Lack of exceprts
Inconsistent/lack of links from print edition
Bizarre links between imprints and book types
It is clear to me that the problem is that eHarlequin essentially treats each item on its own without thinking clearly about whether they are related. Moreover the hierarchy goes
Print
Luna
Author1
Book1 (hardcover)
Book1 (MMPB)
Book2
Author2
Book
Mira
Author1
Book1
Other imprints
Ebook
Luna
Author1
Book2
Author2
Book
Mira
Author1
Book1
Other imprints
Whereas is should go
Author1
Book1
Print
Luna Imprint (hard cover)
Luna Imprint (MMPB)
Mira Imprint
Ebook
Audio
Book2
Author2
Book
Print
Luna Imprint (hard cover)
Luna Imprint (MMPB)
Mira Imprint
Ebook
Audio
Other author
Fuckwits. I see no reason to ever visit the site again even if they do have some Catherine Asaro fantasies that sounded vaguely interesting