Category Archives: E-books

Steampunk Magazine

Posted on March 4, 2007 by Keren

Before the age of homogenization and micro-machinery, before the tyrannous efficiency of internal combustion and the domestication of electricity, lived beautiful, monstrous machines that lived and breathed and exploded unexpectedly at inconvenient moments. It was a time where art and craft were united, where unique wonders were invented and forgotten, and punks roamed the streets, living in squats and fighting against despotic governance through wit, will and wile.
Even if we had to make it all up.

SteamPunk Magazine is a publication that is dedicated to promoting steampunk as a culture, as more than a sub-category of fiction. It is a journal of fashion, music, misapplied technology and chaos. And fiction.

The magazine is available in print for only $3, and as a free pdf download. Since it’s published under a Creative Commons license, it’s free to copy, share and distribute.

The first issue is already available, and the magazine is accepting submissions content (fiction, illustrations and more) for future issues.

Link (via BoingBoing)

Posted in E-books, Reading, Science fiction/fantasy |

Library of Congress gets digitization grant

Posted on February 5, 2007 by Keren

The Library of Congress has received a $2-million grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to digitize public domain works. The grant emphasizes digitizing “at-risk” titles—or books that are falling apart—and volumes about American history. Dubbed “Digitizing American Imprints at the Library of Congress,” the project will also allow the LoC to invest in such technology as, according to a statement from the organization, “suitable page-turner display” along with a program dedicated to quickly indexing and capturing chapters and other sections of a work.

Article from Publisher’s Weekly.

Posted in Articles, E-books |

British science fiction award shortlist released

Posted on January 16, 2007 by Keren

The shortlist for the annual British science fiction award had been released.  Awards will be given in three categories: novel, short fiction and artwork.  The awards will be presented at Eastercon on April 7.

There’s also a recommended reading list of non-fiction works.
Link to the shortlist (via BoingBoing)

Posted in Awards, Contests, E-books, Reading, Science fiction/fantasy |

Books hit phones in Japan

Posted on January 4, 2007 by Keren

Wired News reports on the growing popularity of reading – and writing – books on mobile phones.

A mobile phone novel typically contains between 200 and 500 pages, with each page containing about 500 Japanese characters. The novels are read on a cell phone screen page by page, the way one would surf the web, and are downloadable for around $10 each. The first mobile phone novel was written six years ago by fiction writer Yoshi, but the trend picked up in the last couple years when high-school girls with no previous publishing experience started posting stories they wrote on community portals for others to download and read on their cell phones.

“A mobile phone novel boom is definitely in place,” said Magic iLand spokesman Toshiaki Itou. “And these are people who hardly ever read novels before, never mind written one.”

Link to the Wired News article

Posted in Articles, E-books, Publishers, Reading, Technology |

Online writing resource of the week: Holly Lisle's Forward Motion for writers

Posted on December 20, 2006 by Keren

Holly Lisle is a fantasy author (two of her books are available for free from the Baen free library) and author of several books on writing.  Her popular website has a large collection of helpful articles, writing FAQs, and some great workshops.

I make a full-time living from writing. I know a lot of writers who would like to do the same. So I’ve written over 100,000 words — all of it available for free in the linked articles to your right — on how I do what I do.

Check it out.

Posted in Articles, Authors, E-books, Resources |

A retrospective on this year in publishing

Posted on December 14, 2006 by Keren

Yahoo News has an article looking back on this year in publishing as the industry gives a sigh of relief:

But the biggest news may have been something that didn’t happen. While Hollywood worried about online piracy, CD collections were being replaced by iPods and TV shows were downloaded from iTunes, the book world remained attached to a format older than all the other industries combined.

The bound, paper text.

“I think we have been blessed in that we’ve been able to phase in the digital age, to adjust and move along, and haven’t been hit as quickly as the other industries, where you’ve had all this upheaval,” says Patricia Schroeder, president and chief executive of the American Association of Publishers.

Link to the Yahoo News article

Posted in Articles, E-books, Publishers |

Peter Watts releases SF novel under Creative Commons license

Posted on December 11, 2006 by Keren

Author Peter Watts writes through BoingBoing:

I’ve set my latest novel free under the usual Creative Commons license: you can get Blindsight (Tor, October) by going to my backlist and clicking the relevant thumbnail. I’ve also produced seven alternative dust-jackets for the same title, using (with the artist’s permission) artwork submitted to Tor but not used for their official Blindsight cover. You can get those here. (And take a look here for an impressionistic, documentary-style taste of the novel itself.)

I do this only partly to add data to the ongoing get-rich-by-giving-your-stuff-away experiment. The other reason is that a lot of people seem to be having trouble actually finding the book in brick-and-mortar stores; distribution has been spotty despite advance raves, subsequent praise, and (I’m led to understand) significant buzz. Smaller stores report being backordered for weeks; one of the continent’s two biggest book retailers isn’t carrying it at all (although individual store owners have evidently been special-ordering it). And all the buzz in the world is worth jack-shit if the product isn’t readily available.

So check it out and go wild. And when your eyes start to fall out from phosphor burn, consider buying an old-fashioned paper version. There should be enough to go around before long: I’m told Blindsight’s going into second printing.

Link to read the book online for free (via BoingBoing)

Posted in Authors, Book Release, E-books, Newly Released Books, Reading, Science fiction/fantasy, Self-publishing |

Microsoft lauches book search engine beta

Posted on December 9, 2006 by Keren

Yesterday Microsoft launched a beta version of its Live Search Books that makes thousands of public domain and noncopyrighted texts scanned from its library partners searchable online. Sometime next year Microsoft hopes to expand the searchable service to include copyrighted books from publishers with their permission.

Guren categorized yesterday’s beta launch as a first step in providing searchable non-copyrighted books andeventually copyrighted books with publisher permission. Books available in the beta were scanned from Microsoft’s library partners at the University of California, the British Library and the University of Toronto. Its new partners include Cornell University, the New York Public Library and the American Museum of Veterinary Medicine. The books are either in the public domain or with copyright belonging to the library.

Link to the Publishers Weekly article, link to Live Search Books

Posted in Articles, E-books, Reading, Resources, Technology, Websites |

Podiobooks giving even more to authors

Posted on December 5, 2006 by Keren

Podiobooks, a donation-supported publisher of free serialized audiobooks, just increased the percentage authors get of the donations that the site receives to 75%.  (In other words, authors get 75%, the site gets 25% for maintenance costs – as opposed to the 50%/50% arrangement at the site before.

This is a terrific time to check out the Podiobooks website.  There are 80 titles available, some from the public domain, others from authors such as Mur Lafferty, Patrick McLean and Tracy Hickman – mainly science fiction and fantasy, but with a healthy assortment of other genres as well.  Be sure to make a donation if you can afford one – it’s for a good cause.
Link to the news blog post (via BoingBoing), link to the Podiobooks website.

Posted in Authors, E-books, Publishers, Self-publishing, Websites |

Cory Doctorow on giving away your novel

Posted on December 2, 2006 by Keren

Award-winning sf author and well-known blogger Cory Doctorow writes about how giving away free ebooks of his books through the internet helped increase his sales.

It’s good business for me, too. This “market research” of giving away e-books sells printed books. What’s more, having my books more widely read opens many other opportunities for me to earn a living from activities around my writing, such as the Fulbright Chair I got at USC this year, this high-paying article in Forbes, speaking engagements and other opportunities to teach, write and license my work for translation and adaptation. My fans’ tireless evangelism for my work doesn’t just sell books–it sells me.

The golden age of hundreds of writers who lived off of nothing but their royalties is bunkum. Throughout history, writers have relied on day jobs, teaching, grants, inheritances, translation, licensing and other varied sources to make ends meet. The Internet not only sells more books for me, it also gives me more opportunities to earn my keep through writing-related activities.

Link to the Forbes article (via BoingBoing)

Posted in Articles, Authors, E-books, Publishers, Reading, Resources, Science fiction/fantasy, Self-publishing, Technology, Websites |