View Single Post
Old 08-25-2010, 08:25 PM   #7
ATDrake
Wizzard
ATDrake ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.ATDrake ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.ATDrake ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.ATDrake ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.ATDrake ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.ATDrake ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.ATDrake ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.ATDrake ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.ATDrake ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.ATDrake ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.ATDrake ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Posts: 11,517
Karma: 33048258
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: Roundworld
Device: Kindle 2 International, Sony PRS-T1, BlackBerry PlayBook, Acer Iconia
Tor.com deliberately removed the downloads from at least 13 stories late last month, so that they could better push them for 99 cents each in the Sony/B&N/Amazon/iBooks stores.

I'd link to the official blog post about the decision to monetize things this way, but I bookmarked it on the other computer and it wasn't that easy to find in the first place.

Personally, I think they're making a mistake, because by limiting e-reader friendly downloadable versions to only those stores, they're likely also geo-restricting, not to mention format and DRM-locking, what their non-US/UK/Canadian readers are able to get.

Better to continue to offer the downloads free to all readers on their site as a goodwill thing, and have the pay versions as a tip-jar for people who want to give back to authors they've enjoyed.

Or do as they did for those four Nebula/Hugo Award nominees and make them promotional freebies in the stores to lure readers in and incidentally boost their profile, because the free books usually end up on the bestseller lists, at least on Amazon. Not to mention, lots of people just download them indiscriminately, and if someone happens to try and enjoy something they wouldn't have normally gotten even for 99 cents, then that's another potential future paying reader for that author/publisher's works.

I know that getting Stross' Overtime as a Kindle freebie is directly leading to my tracking down and reading his related "Laundry" books once I've got some spare change/time.

Baen and Cory Doctorow give away a tonne of free books this way and it doesn't seem to be hurting their sales.

Anyway, I've been advising people to download any remaining stories they might want to read in all the formats they might think they need, just in case.
ATDrake is offline   Reply With Quote