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Originally Posted by Mitchll
They're back...........
New giveaway e-books
More details next week--but yes, we plan to resume giving away selected e-books on Tor.com, at least one title per month. To download them you’ll need to not just visit Tor.com but register as a user; the downloads won’t be accessible until you do. Registering on the site takes maybe thirty seconds if you type particularly slowly...so Act Now, Act Without Thinking, get over to Tor.com and create yourself a user account today.
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Thank you very much. I've never turned down a freebie when it was something that I wanted. But, please keep working toward providing a means of
SELLING electronic copies of books that you don't want to give away. I'm a fan. I'd like to be a customer.
Keep in mind that free eBooks are *NOT* going to be a come-on to buy other books in paper format. At least, not for me.
In his introduction to the electronic version of
Little Brother, Cory Doctorow explained the thoughts behind giving away eBooks:
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Originally Posted by Cory Doctorow
What's more, I don't see ebooks as substitute for paper books for most people. It's not that the screens aren't good enough, either: if you're anything like me, you already spend every hour you can get in front of the screen, reading text. But the more computer-literate you are, the less likely you are to be reading long-form works on those screens — that's because computer-literate people do more things with their computers. We run IM and email and we use the browser in a million diverse ways. We have games running in the background, and endless opportunities to tinker with our music libraries. The more you do with your computer, the more likely it is that you'll be interrupted after five to seven minutes to do something else. That makes the computer extremely poorly suited to reading long-form works off of, unless you have the iron self-discipline of a monk.
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So ebooks sell print books. Every writer I've heard of who's tried giving away ebooks to promote paper books has come back to do it again. That's the commercial case for doing free ebooks.
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And, if I only had a PC on which to read electronic books, I'd agree with Doctorow. But, technology has come up with a viable substitute for paper with the hand-held readers. Those of us who have adopted this technology now look at free eBooks differently. For us, they aren't a come-on to the print/paper books. For us, they *can* be a come-on to purchasing books in electronic formats -- if they are available. So it's encumbent upon the authors and publishers to see that among the other formats -- hardback, trade paperback, mass-market paperback -- they bring books out for the electronic readers.