Easton Press Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

April 2, 2025

Your millennial aunt's adventures in online shopping, chapter one.

Categorization: Science Fiction

Edition: Easton Press Ender's Game hardbound edition, signed by Orson Scott Card

In this previous post, I explained my journey through the internet and how I ended up buying this book - Easton Press's hardbound edition of Orson Scott Carc's classic Ender's Game. It was offered to me for something like USD 50.00 plus shipping, which is absurd considering it is leatherbound, signed, and comes with a Certificate of Authenticity. And yes, I was in raptures when the book was delivered to my house. I mean, who wouldn’t be, take a look at this baby here:

I showed it to my long-suffering husband and explained to him why I have basically won in life by purchasing this book for the price I did. He put on a reasonable show of asking to see it and pretending that he cared about the book being leatherbound, with gold-edged pages, signed by the author, and containing a Certificate of Authenticity. Once I was satisfied that he had admired it sufficiently, I placed it a place of honor in my library, aka beside the only other leatherbound book I own, Hyperion by Dan Simmons also from the Easton Press.

And I thought that was it.

A digression – as I said in my previous post, when I received the Easton Press email about a month and a half ago offering me this book, I initially thought that it was too good to be true and ignored it. It was only when I received my beautiful version of Hyperion that I could no longer resist the urge to collect Ender’s Game, as well. So I went back to the email from the Easton Press which said, and I reproduce below here:

Naturally, being both a n00b and a person who can’t pass up a good deal (there never was a more unfortunate combination), I thought this email meant that the Easton Press would include me in its mailing list of people to whom they would generously offer other signed books at a discounted price. Right? Count me in! I mean, the “opportunity – but not the obligation” - sounds pretty darn clear to me!

Until about a month later, when I received an email from the Easton Press that a new order had just been shipped to my address – when I had not placed any order. It informed me that this order was for something like USD 140.00 – more than I had paid for either Hyperion or Ender’s Game (silent scream) – for a book I have never even heard of (quick – my smelling salts).

Nothing strikes fear into the heart of a millennial aunt faster than the possibility that her credit card has been compromised.

(especially if it has happened already before… all I can say is, never go shoe shopping and give your credit card details to strange company websites as a way of trying to put yourself to sleep at 2 AM after your kid has woken you up in the middle of the night saying he needs to go to the bathroom)

So, having once been the victim of late-night-internet-shopping violence, I immediately panicked after receiving this email and sent the Easton Press an angry response saying that I did not order the book and demanding that it cancel my order immediately. Then I proceeded to sulk and make an increasingly spirally rant to my husband, who was decidedly not-panicked and rather unsympathetic, if you ask me. Men, honestly. 

To my surprise, the Easton Press replied within an hour with a very brief apology and a return label for the book that it had shipped. I was still mad, though, because I still had to call and argue with my credit card company about the transaction, and I was not expecting this to go well i.e., if my past experience with a similar complaint with the credit card people was anything to go by, I was about to be summarily informed that if you are stupid enough to feed your credit card details into a scam Chinese website to buy shoes that were obviously too cheap for the brand they purportedly carried, then that is entirely on you.

This time, however, to my utmost relief, the credit card people told me that the Easton Press had not actually charged my card for the USD140.00 book yet. I kept asking them to triple check, just to be sure, as this goes against everything this millennial goblin has ever learned of e-commerce transactions – but there was no mistake. It appears that Easton Press had shipped to me the book I had not ordered before making me pay for it.

I know. Your guess is as good as mine.

After some disgruntled searching through the Easton Press site to quadruple check that I had not inadvertently signed up for any subscription of signed books when I purchased Ender’s Game (a really odd concept, by the way, as they don’t tell you what the books are in advance), I did see that they had a PRODUCT called “Signed Modern Classics” in their website, which, if you read the product description carefully, sounds like a monthly subscription.

 I therefore concluded that Easton Press used the totality of my actions vis-à-vis their ambiguous emails to me to consider my purchase of Ender’s Game as consent to their “Signed Modern Classics” subscription product.

And well, I guess I really was given the “opportunity – but not the obligation” to buy that other signed book, as it was… given? shown?... to me before I had to pay for it. Goddamn it, my internet savvy has deteriorated so much in these modern days that now I can’t even tell if I’d been had.

I did cancel my credit card (fool me twice, shame on me!), and ship the book back to the Easton Press, which was really annoying, but I am coming out of this experience more puzzled than angry.

 Some questions:

1.        What is the value of these signed books really if the Easton Press thinks nothing of shipping them off willy-nilly without their having been paid for?

2.        Doesn’t this sort of honor system (i.e., Easton Press will give you the book in advance of payment and if you like it, you keep it and pay for it, and if you don’t, you just send it back) result in their losing good merchandise without ever seeing payment for them?

3.        And now more out of curiosity, does this business model actually work? Do lots of people react without anger at being unwittingly enrolled in a monthly book subscription service, and just feel happy whenever they receive the surprise signed book shipped to them, and then gladly pay for it? Really?

And now, as there was no harm, no foul and I am quite in a forgiving mood, I just feel sad. Specialty providers that have to resort to this sort of weird business practice to drive up sales are probably not long for this world, but I still need their products to be available in the future to me to purchase on a whim, like when I am someday rich enough to buy the USD 400 dollar The Lord of the Rings set without batting an eye.

So, while I cannot condone this unpleasant experience which has colored my perception of the Easton Press (I am going to have to read all their fine print about five times now before making another purchase), I still think that having special leatherbound editions of your favorite books is a joy. I can’t really call it an investment as I honestly have zero idea what the appreciation rate for these books is. But for me it is more like… to love and value a book so much that you would spend a not-insignificant amount of money to buy a beautifully crafted version of it to keep like a treasured thing in your library or bedside table, is like making your own personal and sincere ode to the writer of that book. And when others (most importantly, your kids) see that book in your house, in all its leatherbound, gilded-edge glory, they will inevitably internalize that the writer’s work in the book must be something special, for someone to give it as much love as that.

Life update after receiving my credit card billing statement: So my bank was wrong and Easton Press did charge my card for the book that I didn't order. However, once they received the book back, they confirmed that they immediately reversed the transaction. LOL I just feel like a huge idiot at this point.