Showing posts with label ebooks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ebooks. Show all posts

Sunday, 17 May 2015

New SF ebooks from Open Road Media

My 19th Open Road Media will be publishing 27 SF books from several authors.  These are books available in hard copy but available for the first time in ebook format.  I've linked to the Indigo website so you can read what each book is about (I find they're better with plot synopses than Amazon).

By Brian W. Aldiss

Hothouse
An Island Called Moreau
Dracula Unbound
Enemies of the System
Frankenstein Unbound
Report on Probability A
Super-State
The Malacia Tapestry
The Salvia Tree and Other Strange Growths
White Mars Or, the Mind Set Free

By Allen Steele

Wednesday, 6 August 2014

StoryBundle's Steampunk Bundle

StoryBundle's got a new DRM-free package of ebooks, this time focusing on steampunk.  You get the 4 ebooks pictured on top as pay-what-you-want and the 3 pictured below if pay over $10.  Head to their site to see what the books are about.


Tuesday, 29 April 2014

Amazing Stories teams up with FuturesPast Editions to publish classic stories

From the press release:

Amazing Stories is pleased to announce the licensing of it's iconic trademark – Amazing Stories – to FuturesPast Editions Ebooks Publisher for the creation of a new imprint that will publish classics of science fiction, fantasy and horror, works drawn from Amazing Stories and it's companion magazines Amazing Stories Quarterly and Amazing Stories Annual.

The new imprint will be titled AMAZING STORIES CLASSIC REPRINTS. The imprint will feature the comet tail Amazing Stories logo, made famous by the magazine in the 1940s and 50s. Works will be published in both electronic and print formats.

FuturesPast Editions publisher and editor Jean Marie Stine will be selecting works of historical importance as well as works that should be commonly available but haven't been for one reason or another. The series is expected to launch with two anthology volumes featuring stories from past Amazing Stories anniversary issues. (Readers looking for particular works are encouraged to let their desires be known!)

Amazing Stories is very excited about opening up this new collaboration with a respected and experienced publisher. We're looking forward to helping to bring back a lot of the classics of the genre and to provide yet another dimension to the world's first science fiction magazine."

About this new partnership, Jean Marie Stine says, "Amazing Stories has a long and storied history. It was the first science fiction magazine. Its pages were open to women writers from the beginning. It introduced Buck Rogers to the world. It published the first stories by Jack Williamson, Isaac Asimov, Walter M. Miller, Jr, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Howard Fast, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Roger Zelazny. Over the years it has published virtually every major writer in the field. We at FuturesPast Editions are thrilled to be associated with Amazing Stories, Experimenter Publishing and Steve Davidson. We look forward to a long and successful association."

Additionally, Amazing Stories online magazine will feature a regularly monthly classic reprint, branded under the FuturesPast Editions name; the first such classic reprint – Don Wilcox's The Voyage That Lasted 600 Years – was featured in the Amazing Stories 88th Anniversary Edition, currently being published on the Amazing Stories website.

Friday, 7 March 2014

Gollancz's Debut Offer

I got an email about this and went to their website to find out more

We will publish a number of exciting debuts over the course of 2014 and we’re confident that all of them are wonderful new talents that you should read. We’re so confident, in fact, that we’re prepared to put our money where our mouth is and make it possible for you to try these books for less than the price of a cup of coffee.
We have decided to reduce the price of the eBook editions of Gollancz debuts this year to £1.99 for the week of publication. What’s more, we’ll make this price available for pre-order as well, so, in effect, if you decide to purchase one of these books at any time up to a week after it’s been published, you’ll do so for less money than a Saturday newspaper.

The first book this affects is The Boy With the Porcelain Blade by Den Patrick.

Lucien de Fontein has grown up different. One of the mysterious and misshapen Orfano who appear around the Kingdom of Landfall, he is a talented fighter yet constantly lonely, tormented by his deformity, and well aware that he is a mere pawn in a political game. Ruled by an insane King and the venomous Majordomo, it is a world where corruption and decay are deeply rooted - but to a degree Lucien never dreams possible when he first discovers the plight of the 'insane' women kept in the haunting Sanatoria.




They've also listed all the debuts they have coming out this year that will be affected by this first week deal:

March 20: The Boy With The Porcelain Blade by Den Patrick

May 15: In Dark Service by Stephen Hunt

June 19: Barricade by Jon Wallace

July 17: The Seventh Miss Hatfield by Anna Caltabiano

August 14: The Incorruptibles by John Hornor Jacobs

Sept 18: The Relic Guild by Edward Cox

They also advise that you confirm the price as retailers may take a day to reflect the sale.

Thursday, 6 February 2014

Adobe to update their DRM programs this July

Good E Reader is reporting that Adobe is updating their digital rights management programs this July, meaning a lot of older ebook readers won't be able to read new books come this summer.

Here's a video explaining what this means (or go to their article if you'd prefer to read it).

I'll also point out that someone from Adobe commented on the article/video stating that some of the information is wrong - there won't be an 'always connected to the internet' feature and older books will still work with their devices, but new books won't.



My position is that if I'm buying something, I should own it and be able to read it on whatever device I choose.  It's one reason I haven't been buying many ebooks (beyond SF bundles and kickstarter books that come DRM free).  I'd love to buy more ebooks, but not if I'm crippled by technology so that I can't share my books over all the devices I own.

You can find more information about this at The Digital Reader (which also mentions the July deadline for stores to upgrade has been softened)

Wednesday, 3 July 2013

Ebook Anthologies and the new Story Bundle

I'm developing quite a stack of books I've bought via special deals/kickstarters online, that I haven't had time to read yet.  But there are always more deals and more books to buy and (not) read.  :P

Here are a few you might find interesting:

1. Story Bundle has their new package up and it's packed full of science fiction.

The bundle includes:
  • Hopscotch by Kevin J. Anderson
  • In Hero Years...I'm Dead by Michael A. Stackpole
  • On My Way to Paradise by David Farland
  • Santiago by Mike Resnick
  • Swarm by B. V. Larson
  • The Disappeared by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
You can pay what you want for the books, but if you pay over $10 you get these as well:
  • The Stars in Shroud by Gregory Benfore
  • High-Opp by Frank Herbert
They're calling High-Opp "an edgy dystopia of class warfare", which not only forces me to buy this bundle, but to get the upgrade.  Definitely worth it!

2. Long Hidden, an anthology by Crossed Genres, had a successful kickstarter campaign.  They're leaving a paypal option up until the end of July if you didn't sign up before and are interested in getting it.  What's it about?  From their website:

Most written chronicles of history, and most speculative stories, put rulers, conquerors, and invaders front and center. People with less power, money, or status—enslaved people, indigenous people, people of color, queer people, laborers, women, people with disabilities, the very young and very old, and religious minorities, among others—are relegated to the margins. Today, mainstream history continues to perpetuate one-sided versions of the past while mistelling or erasing the stories of the rest of the world. 
There is a long and honorable legacy of literary resistance to erasure. This anthology partakes of that legacy. It will feature stories from the margins of speculative history, each taking place between 1400 and the early 1900s and putting a speculative twist—an element of science fiction, fantasy, horror, or the unclassifiably strange—on real past events.


There is a long and honorable legacy of literary resistance to erasure. This anthology partakes of that legacy. It will feature stories from the margins of speculative history, each taking place between 1400 and the early 1900s and putting a speculative twist—an element of science fiction, fantasy, horror, or the unclassifiably strange—on real past events.
- See more at: http://longhidden.com/#sthash.AhryUbze.dpuf
Most written chronicles of history, and most speculative stories, put rulers, conquerors, and invaders front and center. People with less power, money, or status—enslaved people, indigenous people, people of color, queer people, laborers, women, people with disabilities, the very young and very old, and religious minorities, among others—are relegated to the margins. Today, mainstream history continues to perpetuate one-sided versions of the past while mistelling or erasing the stories of the rest of the world.
There is a long and honorable legacy of literary resistance to erasure. This anthology partakes of that legacy. It will feature stories from the margins of speculative history, each taking place between 1400 and the early 1900s and putting a speculative twist—an element of science fiction, fantasy, horror, or the unclassifiably strange—on real past events.
- See more at: http://longhidden.com/#sthash.AhryUbze.dpuf
Most written chronicles of history, and most speculative stories, put rulers, conquerors, and invaders front and center. People with less power, money, or status—enslaved people, indigenous people, people of color, queer people, laborers, women, people with disabilities, the very young and very old, and religious minorities, among others—are relegated to the margins. Today, mainstream history continues to perpetuate one-sided versions of the past while mistelling or erasing the stories of the rest of the world.
There is a long and honorable legacy of literary resistance to erasure. This anthology partakes of that legacy. It will feature stories from the margins of speculative history, each taking place between 1400 and the early 1900s and putting a speculative twist—an element of science fiction, fantasy, horror, or the unclassifiably strange—on real past events.
- See more at: http://longhidden.com/#sthash.AhryUbze.dpuf
Most written chronicles of history, and most speculative stories, put rulers, conquerors, and invaders front and center. People with less power, money, or status—enslaved people, indigenous people, people of color, queer people, laborers, women, people with disabilities, the very young and very old, and religious minorities, among others—are relegated to the margins. Today, mainstream history continues to perpetuate one-sided versions of the past while mistelling or erasing the stories of the rest of the world.
There is a long and honorable legacy of literary resistance to erasure. This anthology partakes of that legacy. It will feature stories from the margins of speculative history, each taking place between 1400 and the early 1900s and putting a speculative twist—an element of science fiction, fantasy, horror, or the unclassifiably strange—on real past events.
- See more at: http://longhidden.com/#sthash.AhryUbze.dpuf
Most written chronicles of history, and most speculative stories, put rulers, conquerors, and invaders front and center. People with less power, money, or status—enslaved people, indigenous people, people of color, queer people, laborers, women, people with disabilities, the very young and very old, and religious minorities, among others—are relegated to the margins. Today, mainstream history continues to perpetuate one-sided versions of the past while mistelling or erasing the stories of the rest of the world.
There is a long and honorable legacy of literary resistance to erasure. This anthology partakes of that legacy. It will feature stories from the margins of speculative history, each taking place between 1400 and the early 1900s and putting a speculative twist—an element of science fiction, fantasy, horror, or the unclassifiably strange—on real past events.
- See more at: http://longhidden.com/#sthash.AhryUbze.
The ebook (in multiple formats) is $10, if you want the paperback as well it's $25 (for US), $32 (international). They're still accepting submissions for the anthology until the end of the month.

3. Finally there's Upgraded, "an original science fiction anthology for the cyborg age. Edited by a cyborg. Stronger. Better. Faster. We will rebuild you."

Edited by Hugo nominated Clarksworld Magazine editor Neil Clarke, the collection boasts stories by:
  • Elizabeth Bear 
  • Helena Bell 
  • Tobias S. Buckell 
  • Xia Jia 
  • Yoon Ha Lee 
  • Ken Liu 
  • Chen Qiufan 
  • Robert Reed 
  • E. Catherine Tobler 
  • Genevieve Valentine 
  • Peter Watts 
  • E. Lily Yu
This has already reached its funding goal, so it's going to be made.  But if you want in there are still a few days left on its kickstarter campaign.  Again, ebook copies start at $10.

Thursday, 21 February 2013

Reselling 'used' ebooks?

Nathan Bransford has a great rundown of the used ebook kerfuffle started by the filing and granting to Amazon of a patent that will:

"let customers sell their previously read eBooks, audiobooks, music and movies the same way that consumers can now sell print books, DVDs and CDs, ..." (source

(where I originally read about this)

Redigi is a site that's already trying for legal resale of digital music, with the assurance that the song is properly removed from the original owner's devices when sold.  It's not much of a stretch to extend this to ebooks.

I highly recommend Nathan's article, which goes over some of the pros/cons of such a service as well as links to some very interesting responses.  

In reading the comments on one of the pages he links to (John Scalzi's blog) I also came across this tidbit of info, that Valve is being sued in Germany because it won't allow the resale of video games.  I find this especially interesting given that the new XBox 720 has been designed to not allow gamers to use second hand games on their systems (and the assumption is the PlayStation 4 will have a similar lockdown when it comes out later this year).

So what do you think?  Should people have the right to actually own (rather than license) their digital content, including the right to first resale (as they do with physical products)?  What do you think that would do to the sales of new content (which won't be any different from the used version, just more expensive)?  How do you think this would affect authors (or other artists) since they make no money from resales of their works?  

I'm curious how well the software checking for backups of the files would do, since for this to work they'd have to ensure you're not making/keeping a copy and then selling your files.

 

Wednesday, 19 September 2012

Angry Robot Ebook Sale

If you've had your eye on an Angry Robot titles from their store, today's the day to pick them up.  They're having a sale for Talk Like a Pirate Day.

From their press release (including the terms/conditions at the bottom):

Arrrrrr! Today be International Talk Like a Pirate Day

To mark the occasion, for today (September 19th 2012) only, Angry Robot are making you a very special offer, via the Robot Trading Company
Buy any two novel-length Angry Robot ebooks and we’ll let you “plunder” one of them, absolutely free!
That’s right: for every two Angry Robot ebooks you add to your shopping basket, you’ll only be asked to pay for one when you check out.
You'll have to be quick though: this ship sails just as soon as we get into the office tomorrow morning and remember to switch the offer off again. And once it's gone, it's gone... 
Terms, Conditions and Articles of Association:

1. The offer does not apply to ebooks on sale at the Robot Trading Company that are not published by Angry Robot.
2. The offer does not apply to Strange Chemistry ebooks, Angry Robot Bundles, Omnibus Editions, Print Editions, Subscription Packages, or Angry Robot Nano Editions.
But everything else is fair game; a prize ripe and ready for the taking! 
Check out the Angry Robot Catalogue page on the Robot Trading Company website and start counting out those dubloons...*
*Pieces of Eight are sadly no longer legal tender and cannot be accepted in lieu of actual money.

Wednesday, 15 August 2012

E-book Sellers Record Your Reading Habits

Nathan Bransford mentioned this on his blog and linked to a Wall Street Journal article that detailed it more.  I'm pretty sure I read it one other place that I can't recall at the moment  Apparently e-book retailers are storing - and using the data - compiled by reader's habits.

Leaving aside the disturbing idea that someone can see what you're reading, underlining and where/when you're stopping for the night, is the implied usage of this data: that authors can (may be encouraged to) use the data to improve perceived boring areas (if enough people stop at a certain passage) and change aspects of their books to cater more to their readers.  The Wall Street Journal article mentions a new e-publisher that encourages reader feedback so as to get immediate changes/adjustments in the sequels.

I find this disturbing because it assumes the populace knows best despite their not knowing the ending.  Writing is a challenging activity.  But I wonder how much pain and suffering characters will go through if readers start calling the shots.  What about killing major characters?  Would an author be able to afford to do away with someone - as planned - if too much of their audience likes that character?  Even if letting that person live makes the story weaker?

I know whatever companies are tracking my ebook reads are getting a lot of useless information.  Because of the slow turn speeds on my original Kobo I only use that for commuting (when I dont' want to risk losing/having my iPad stolen).  So I cut off at strange points, because I've reached my destination or need to change trains.  If someone interprets my data to assume I'm bored, well, then I'd be getting bored at really bizarre passages.  I've also only completed one or two books on the device, while I've started dozens.  There's so much context involved that's missed by this type of recording.

With my iPad data, things would be more complete, but still somewhat disjointed as I switch between devices for stories (for example starting on the Kobo and finishing on the iPad).

And getting back to the whole idea of tracking, as mentioned in the WSJ article, there are books people don't want others to know they're reading, that they might not read if they knew their reading habits were being tracked - books on sexuality, health issues, etc.  As with the internet, we assume our devices are private - even when they aren't.  I know some people who feel embarrassed reading romances due to the racy covers, who like the ebook idea.  Finally they can read what they want, when they want, without people knowing.  Not so, apparently.

So, how do you feel about the idea that your ebook reading habits are being recorded?  Will this make you think twice about reading something?  Would you want authors to write according to feedback?  As an author, would you like the chance to glimpse your reading public's habits?

Tuesday, 24 April 2012

Tor / Forge ebooks to go DRM free

Charles Stross predicted that selling ebooks DRM free would be the fall out of the DOJ lawsuit against the big six, as a way of avoiding giving Amazon a monopoly on the ebook market.

DRM on ebooks is dead. (Or if not dead, it's on death row awaiting a date with the executioner.)
...
If the major publishers switch to selling ebooks without DRM, then they can enable customers to buy books from a variety of outlets and move away from the walled garden of the Kindle store. They see DRM as a defense against piracy, but piracy is a much less immediate threat than a gigantic multinational with revenue of $48 Billion in 2011 (more than the entire global publishing industry) that has expressed its intention to "disrupt" them, and whose chief executive said recently "even well-meaning gatekeepers slow innovation" (where "innovation" is code-speak for "opportunities for me to turn a profit").
And so they will deep-six their existing commitment to DRM and use the terms of the DoJ-imposed settlement to wiggle out of the most-favoured-nation terms imposed by Amazon, in order to sell their wares as widely as possible.

And Tor / Forge is the first to do so.  From their site:

Tom Doherty Associates, publishers of Tor, Forge, Orb, Starscape, and Tor Teen, today announced that by early July 2012, their entire list of e-books will be available DRM-free.
“Our authors and readers have been asking for this for a long time,” said president and publisher Tom Doherty. “They’re a technically sophisticated bunch, and DRM is a constant annoyance to them. It prevents them from using legitimately-purchased e-books in perfectly legal ways, like moving them from one kind of e-reader to another.”
DRM-free titles from Tom Doherty Associates will be available from the same range of retailers that currently sell their e-books. In addition, the company expects to begin selling titles through retailers that sell only DRM-free books.