MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Free backlist & small press books @ Smashwords, iTunes, et al.

ATDrake · 04-17-2012, 07:47 PM

Jana DeLeon (romantic comedy/mystery @ $3.99 via Smashwords), formerly published by Dorchester and also Harlequin, offers the 1st in her very funny Mudbug series free: Trouble in Mudbug

This is a zany screwball romantic comedy/mystery series with supernatural elements (involves a ghost). I read this 1st novel when it was an official freebie a couple of years ago (for Dorchester-not-paying-its-authors-royalties values of official, that is) and liked it enough to look up the sequels from the library, which were nice light fun. If the author offers Smashwords coupons during a future sale, I'd probably give her other books a try as well.

Britomart notes in the April romance thread that Zebra-published Annette Blair (historical romances @ $2.99 via Smashwords) is offering the 1st in her previously-published regency Rogue's Club series free (no longer a KDP exclusive, though I don't know how long/if they'll stay): Undeniable Rogue

Rudy Rucker (ISFDB, Wikipedia; cyberpunk, steampunk, other speculative @ $4.95 ePub or Mobi (really needs to offer a multi-format bundle) directly from author; also other titles couponable at Fictionwise, etc.) noted in Charles Stross' blog that he has recently started assembling proper e-book versions of some of his works to sell, currently with complete collections of his short stories and essays and a backlist novel thus far. He also has a long-standing Creative Commons release of at least two of his novels (downloadable in PDF from his website) and offers PDFs of behind-the-scenes author's notes for many of his works. The Ware Tetralogy and Postsingular are the CC freebies and can also be found in conversion on Feedbooks and/or Manybooks.

I'm not into cyberpunk, but the complete collection of all his sf short stories for just $5 sounds like a pretty good deal, and I may just get it to try out, since he's been pretty generous with the Creative Commons freebies and I like world-building notes.

ETA: Canadian-born Karl Schroeder (ISFDB, Wikipedia; far future & technotopia sf) offers his debut novel, published by Tor in 2000, for free download under a Creative Commons license on his website. He also offers a few PDF stories and intends to add more. He'll also be doing a time-limited free e-book promotion in conjunction with Tor.com starting April 25th; details in this post by Pete371 who spotted it.

04-17-2012, 07:47 PM	#33
ATDrake Wizzard Posts: 11,517 Karma: 33048258 Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: Roundworld Device: Kindle 2 International, Sony PRS-T1, BlackBerry PlayBook, Acer Iconia	Jana DeLeon (romantic comedy/mystery @ $3.99 via Smashwords), formerly published by Dorchester and also Harlequin, offers the 1st in her very funny Mudbug series free: Trouble in Mudbug This is a zany screwball romantic comedy/mystery series with supernatural elements (involves a ghost). I read this 1st novel when it was an official freebie a couple of years ago (for Dorchester-not-paying-its-authors-royalties values of official, that is) and liked it enough to look up the sequels from the library, which were nice light fun. If the author offers Smashwords coupons during a future sale, I'd probably give her other books a try as well. Britomart notes in the April romance thread that Zebra-published Annette Blair (historical romances @ $2.99 via Smashwords) is offering the 1st in her previously-published regency Rogue's Club series free (no longer a KDP exclusive, though I don't know how long/if they'll stay): Undeniable Rogue Rudy Rucker (ISFDB, Wikipedia; cyberpunk, steampunk, other speculative @ $4.95 ePub or Mobi (really needs to offer a multi-format bundle) directly from author; also other titles couponable at Fictionwise, etc.) noted in Charles Stross' blog that he has recently started assembling proper e-book versions of some of his works to sell, currently with complete collections of his short stories and essays and a backlist novel thus far. He also has a long-standing Creative Commons release of at least two of his novels (downloadable in PDF from his website) and offers PDFs of behind-the-scenes author's notes for many of his works. The Ware Tetralogy and Postsingular are the CC freebies and can also be found in conversion on Feedbooks and/or Manybooks. I'm not into cyberpunk, but the complete collection of all his sf short stories for just $5 sounds like a pretty good deal, and I may just get it to try out, since he's been pretty generous with the Creative Commons freebies and I like world-building notes. ETA: Canadian-born Karl Schroeder (ISFDB, Wikipedia; far future & technotopia sf) offers his debut novel, published by Tor in 2000, for free download under a Creative Commons license on his website. He also offers a few PDF stories and intends to add more. He'll also be doing a time-limited free e-book promotion in conjunction with Tor.com starting April 25th; details in this post by Pete371 who spotted it. Last edited by ATDrake; 04-17-2012 at 08:23 PM.